MONDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2008
Seattle P-I and Vancouver Columbian: Re-elect Gov. Gregoire  

P-I Endorsement: Re-elect Gregoire

SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER EDITORIAL BOARD

In Chris Gregoire, Washington has a governor who has served the state well during relatively good times. She is a good bet for a future likely to be less rosy economically.

Washington voters should re-elect Gregoire based on proven performance, capability and drive. Especially for uncertain times, she's a much more proven leader than her Republican rival, former state Sen. Dino Rossi.

Rossi was a capable senator and is a capable campaigner. But his avoidance of questions about his social conservatism, his unrealistic transportation ideas and even his unwillingness to be labeled Republican on the ballot all warn there's a lot about how Rossi would govern that most of us, including perhaps the candidate, would learn only after he took on the job.

Gregoire is a known, trustworthy performer. She led state agencies well for years, and has done the same for the whole state. Gregoire has made improvements and smart choices in perhaps every area of major responsibility, many long neglected.

Public schools are better funded, with more teachers. In a capital that was shortchanging higher education, she strengthened colleges. She put legendary Republican Bill Ruckelshaus in charge of a serious program to address the threats to Puget Sound's waters. She won a gas tax increase to improve transportation. While others were confused about global warming, she led bipartisan, regional climate action.

She has made progress toward health coverage for every child. She brought in a good leader for the state's largest agency, the Department of Social and Health Services. Foster care has improved, though hardly enough.

On budgets, she won creation of the state's constitutional "rainy day" fund. She went along with an overly ambitious budget that won't be sustainable next year, but the state has repeatedly been down this road of projected deficits (actual deficits are forbidden). In making cuts, the power of labor unions over her party will be a problem. She would do well to remember the importance of making hard choices.

At the end of the day, we believe she is cable of tightening while retaining a solid, moral, well-grounded vision of wider opportunities, better health and improved transportation.

For a state with hope of a brighter future, she is a clear choice.

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In our view: Re-elect Gregoire
THE (VANCOUVER) COLUMBIAN EDITORIAL BOARD

Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire has experienced, to say the least, four years of tense, anxiety-riddled public service. For the first five months of her term, no one was even sure she was the governor. Not until June 6, 2005 -- when a Wenatchee judge declared she had won by a razor-thin 129 votes out of 2.9 million total votes -- did that initial cloud of doubt dissipate.
 
Now Democrat Gregoire is engaged in another knock-down, drag-out against the same foe: Republican Dino Rossi. This time, though, she carries a new weapon: a four-year record as governor by which she is judged. That record reveals Gregoire to be a tough, no-nonsense, hard-working advocate, especially in the areas of public education and health care.
 
Gov. Gregoire has served well, particularly in matters affecting Clark County, and The Columbian today endorses her for reelection. Such was not our recommendation four years ago when we endorsed Rossi in a battle of two candidates who were seasoned politicians, but first-time applicants for the governor’s chair. Now, though, Gregoire is armed with a dossier that shows significant progress.
 
Rossi and other critics assail Gregoire most often in an area -- the economy -- where she actually shows strength and versatility. She helped turn an inherited $2.2 billion deficit into a balanced budget. And as the national economy erodes, Gregoire has hunkered down in the face of the state’s projected $3.2 billion deficit. In June, according to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, she halted a three-building project at the capital after costs increased from $260 million to $370 million. A new data center, space for the Department of Information Services and State Patrol offices will have to wait.
 
Yes, state spending has soared by about one-third during her term, but not at the governor’s unilateral direction; it is the Legislature that approves budgets. Gregoire argues that the increase is in vital areas, more than half of it in education.
 
Gregoire knows how to help Southwest Washington. Last November, within two weeks of extensive reporting in The Columbian about foot-dragging by the state Department of Ecology in cleaning up the old Alcoa waterfront site -- plus a stern “Help us out, Chris” editorial -- Gregoire ordered the DOE officials to get cracking, and they did.
 
Last month, within one hour of the Community Economic Revitalization Board abruptly withdrawing a $12.5 million grant it had mistakenly awarded Vancouver’s waterfront redevelopment project, Gregoire promised capital-budget funding for the project and vowed to expand the program to include Vancouver’s efforts.
 
The governor also has helped Clark County in the areas of international trade, the environment, transportation infrastructure and higher education.
 
Rossi is a capable, smart and thoroughly prepared opponent, one whose drumbeat attacks in a vicious campaign help hold Gregoire accountable. His service in the Legislature was stellar, notably in fiscal matters. Like Gregoire, he’s not afraid to disagree with his own party members and work with the opposing party. In fact, our opinion about his qualifications to serve as governor has not changed since that 2004 endorsement.
 
But our opinion about Gregoire has been changed by her four strong years as governor. When ballots are mailed on Oct. 15, vote for Chris Gregoire on the Nov. 4 ballot.

Copyright © ^{2008 --  Washington State Labor Council, AFL-CIO}