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Meet Your New Governor

Seven Reasons to Fear Dino Rossi

by Erica C. Barnett

Rich Kelly

Things are looking grim for Christine Gregoire.

On Friday, September 26, a King County Superior Court judge ruled against the state Democratic Party, which had sought to force Dino Rossi to identify himself as a Republican on the November ballot. Instead, Rossi will be listed as "Dino Rossi, Prefers GOP Party." The distinction is more than just semantic; in June, a survey by pollster Stuart Elway revealed that fully 25 percent of likely voters didn't know that "GOP" meant Republican and that 7 percent thought it referred to the Democratic Party. Calling himself a member of the "GOP Party" boosts Rossi's poll numbers by around 3 percent—a substantial margin in a race that, last time around, was decided by just 133 votes.

In the years since she eked out that victory in 2004, Gregoire has been a cautious governor in the Gary Locke mold—taking solidly progressive positions on safe-bet Democratic issues like stem-cell research and global warming, but hedging her bets on shakier ground like gay marriage and the fate of the Alaskan Way Viaduct. Gregoire is tough, but she comes across as brittle under pressure—unlike Rossi, whose dodges are so artful you hardly notice when he fails to answer a question. In last week's debate, for example, Rossi dodged a question about Gregoire's budget with a story about his daughter "little Jillian," and couched a call for reducing workers' compensation in an anecdote about starting out in business with "$200 in the bank and a $200 car and nowhere to go but up."

Perhaps more importantly, Rossi is proving himself to be a far more robust, adaptive, and compelling candidate than the Rossi of 2004. Dino 2.0 is as smooth and soothing as a shot of Ovaltine, in stark contrast to his slick real-estate- huckster persona four years ago. Despite winning statewide election four times—three times as attorney general, in addition to her narrow 2004 win—Gregoire has always had trouble connecting with voters on a personal level and motivating Democratic voters to turn out for her. Although Washington State went heavily for John Kerry in 2004, hundreds of thousands of Democratic voters failed to support Gregoire, leading to two recounts and Gregoire's subsequent razor-thin margin of victory.

Could history repeat itself—this time, putting Rossi in the governor's mansion? While Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama (whom Gregoire, presciently, endorsed in early February) is polling well ahead of his Republican opponent, John McCain, in Washington State (according to one recent poll, Obama's lead has widened to 11 points), Gregoire and Rossi remain locked in a statistical dead heat. One recent poll had Rossi leading Gregoire, 49 to 48 percent; another had Gregoire leading, 50 to 48. In the August 19 primary election, with 10 candidates on the ballot, she beat Rossi by less than 2 percent. All of that could be a sign that a significant number of voters plan to vote for Obama and skip the down- ticket races, or that there are lots of voters who, for whatever reason, are backing a Democrat to lead the nation—and a Republican, with exactly the opposite values, to lead the state.

So what if Rossi wins—should we worry? Hell, yes. Here are a few reasons why.

1: Your Body, His Choice.

When it comes to abortion rights, Rossi has one response: "I'm not running on that issue."

That's cool. John McCain probably isn't running on the issue of whether his vice- presidential candidate is an idiot, either. In any case, voters need to know that Rossi supports additional restrictions on abortion rights, up to supporting a ban on abortion with exceptions for rape, incest, and to save a woman's life—which puts him just a hair to the left of Sarah Palin. In 1991, Rossi campaigned against Initiative 120, a measure that guarantees a woman's right to abortion in Washington State. In 2000, he addressed a "right to life" rally in Olympia, where he memorialized "the deaths of 38 million preborn babies nationally." If any abortion-related legislation came before him as governor, he has said, "I'll vote [sic] my conscience"—not the Constitution.

No, Dino Rossi can't overturn Roe v. Wade. But he can push for legislation restricting abortion rights and limiting the circumstances in which the state covers abortion care for low- income women. And he can make sure that, once they're born, unwanted children have as little chance in life as possible. In fact, he already has. In 1999, then–state senator Rossi voted against creating the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), which insures low-income kids. In 2003, the budget he wrote removed 46,000 children from the program. And just last year, he supported George W. Bush's veto of the SCHIP bill, which would have extended health-care benefits to 10 million children.

Rossi may not be "running on that issue" now, but he knows as well as any ambitious politician that governor's mansions are frequently springboards to higher office. In 10 years, Governor Rossi may be Congressman Rossi or Health and Human Services Secretary Rossi. You can bet he won't be saying he "isn't running on" the issue of reproductive freedom then.

2: Good-bye to Any Reproductive Choice at All.

Rossi doesn't just oppose abortion rights. He opposes all reproductive rights—from students' right to learn the facts about pregnancy, STDs, and birth control, to women's right to buy contraceptives with a prescription. Rossi opposes requiring pharmacies to stock emergency contraception, which works by preventing fertilization, because some pharmacists assert, falsely, that it causes abortions. How trivial does Rossi consider women's right to emergency contraception? On one occasion, he compared requiring pharmacies to dispense the medication to "forcing Safeway to carry my favorite brand of sport drink"; on another, he likened it to forcing hardware-store owners to carry "certain types of tools." And in the late 1990s, as a state senator, Rossi voted against requiring prescription drug plans to cover regular oral contraceptives. Gregoire, in contrast, believes that dispensing legally prescribed medications is part of a pharmacist's job description—and that if a drug plan pays for boner pills for men, it ought to pay for contraception for women.

3: The Company He Keeps.

Rossi's two biggest supporters are the Building Industry Association of Washington (BIAW) and the Republican Governor's Association (RGA), which have spent millions in direct and indirect contributions to Rossi's campaign. (The state Public Disclosure Commission just ruled that the BIAW failed to properly report contributions it directed to Rossi's campaign.) Although the BIAW's handiwork is largely invisible in Seattle, the group has funded billboards across Eastern Washington urging voters, "Don't Let Seattle Steal This Election"—a reference to the two recounts in 2004's Rossi-Gregoire matchup. The RGA, meanwhile, has been running misleading (and arguably racist) ads portraying Gregoire as a corrupt tool of Native-American tribes—represented, in the ad, by two long-haired men in braided pigtails and bolo ties. The ad does not note that the Republican Governors Association is itself heavily funded by gambling interests—in the RGA's case, Las Vegas casinos, which have given the group a cool $1.6 million.

In addition to accusing Gregoire, falsely, of "stealing" the 2004 election, BIAW has likened environmentalists to "Hitler's Nazi Party"; referred to the Department of Ecology as "communistic"; declared that Gregoire was a "heartless, power-hungry she-wolf who would eat her own young to get ahead"; and referred to Gregoire's supporters as "witches." (All quotes are from the BIAW's official newsletter.)

On policy issues, the BIAW has bragged that, as a state senator, Rossi voted with the organization 99 percent of the time. Those votes include efforts to block legislation regulating greenhouse-gas emissions, to weaken the Growth Management Act, and to weaken home-owner protections against negligent contractors. Rossi supports the BIAW's legislative agenda—hardly surprising coming from someone who has said there is "still a lot of debate" about whether humans are causing global warming.

And speaking of making the environment worse...

4: More Roads, No Transit.

Rossi's transportation "choices" plan can be summed up in four words: more roads, no transit. Not only would Rossi's proposal build road projects—like a tunnel on Seattle's waterfront—that voters have already rejected, it would leech $800 million a year from the state's general fund, which pays for education, health care, and prisons. Although Rossi says he'll pay for his entire plan by cutting from other spending and charging tolls of $1.50 on a new SR 520 bridge, that's hardly a credible claim in a year when the state faces a $3.2 billion budget deficit thanks to a tanking national economy.

And that's assuming Rossi's wildly optimistic cost estimates prove accurate—unlikely, as Rossi's numbers have been denounced as laughable by transportation experts around the state. For example, Rossi estimates that building a new 520 bridge with pontoons to accommodate eight lanes would cost $3.3 billion, or less than a proposed six-lane 520 bridge replacement. Rossi came up with that number by taking Gregoire's estimate for a six-lane bridge and just assuming construction would happen faster. Rossi also predicts that a cut-and-cover tunnel to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct—identical to the so-called "surface/hybrid" tunnel proposed by Seattle mayor Greg Nickels in early 2007—would cost just $2.7 billion. That's $700 million less than Nickels's own estimate, which was widely regarded as optimistic. The rest of his estimates are similarly lowballed—from expanding U.S. Highway 2 (down to $600 million in Rossi's plan, from as much as $1.8 billion in the state's own estimate) to extending SR 167 (down, in Rossi's plan, to $1 billion—just half of the state's own estimate). Rossi's plan includes no explanation of why he would be able to build road projects so much more cheaply than anybody else.

In Rossi's campaign literature and during the gubernatorial debates, the Republican candidate has frequently brought up the "green" aspects of his road-building program—like converting the state vehicle fleet to hybrids and plug-ins, getting rid of the sales tax on high-mileage cars, and fixing culverts that block salmon runs. The problem with those proposals (in addition to the fact that Rossi, again, lowballs their cost, estimating that $200 million will be enough to clear nearly 1,700 culverts for salmon, when the state's own estimates are four times higher) is that the $767 million Rossi proposes spending on "green" initiatives isn't enough to make up for the billions he wants to spend expanding roads.

As for the claim that his transportation plan provides voters with "choices," Rossi's plan provides just one: roads for single- occupancy vehicles. His plan would not only fund roads to the exclusion of all other forms of transportation, it would effectively kill Sound Transit (handing transit governance over to a new regional transportation authority, which would also oversee roads) and eliminate funding for light rail to Bellevue. Under Rossi's plan (and a Tim Eyman–backed initiative that is likely to pass in November), HOV lanes would be open to traffic during all but a few "peak" hours in the morning and afternoon—condemning bus riders, as well as people who carpool to work, to sit in the same crappy traffic jams as everyone else.

5: Oh, and About Those "Choices"...

So let's say you live in Eastern Washington. You hate Seattle and its communistic transit; you aren't taking some faggoty bus to get from Walla Walla to Ephrata or whatever. You're celebrating freedom—the freedom to drive! And Dino Rossi is going to make it easier for you—right?

Sorry, Bubba. The state Dems crunched Rossi's numbers and found that his transportation "choices" plan is actually a giant handout to the Puget Sound. The proposal would spend just $2.3 billion, or 15 percent of the total, east of the mountains—a sum that would be divvied up between just eight projects. Take out the north-south freeway in Spokane, and that goes down to $129 million—an average of less than $20 million per project. Fourteen Eastern Washington counties would receive no money at all. Rossi's plan, in other words, would divert money from Eastern Washington to pay for road projects on this side of the mountains—where voters rejected a roads-heavy transportation plan just last November.

6: Rossi "Isn't Running On" Gay Rights, Either—But He Opposes Them.

Let's be clear: Christine Gregoire, like Barack Obama (and pretty much every Democrat running for a high-profile office in America right now), has said she supports civil unions but thinks Washington State "isn't ready" for gay marriage. But Gregoire's opponent doesn't just oppose gay marriage—he's promised to veto it if it ever passes the state legislature. He also supports rolling back a provision in the state's domestic-partner law that allows partners to inherit each other's assets without a will, saying it would open the door for people to falsely claim a relationship where none existed. Apparently Dino Rossi thinks gay people will sign domestic-partner agreements under false pretenses, or in ignorance of what they entail, simply to steal from each other.

And gay marriage is, again, just another issue Rossi "isn't running on" now—but which he'll have plenty to say about if he goes on to higher office in the future.

7: Pro-Life—For Some.

A bit of advice for those living in Dino Rossi's Washington: Don't get sick. (Especially if you're a low-income child; see point number 1, above.) And if you do get sick, don't get so sick you want to die—because Dino Rossi wants to keep you alive at any cost. Rossi opposes Initiative 1000, the "death with dignity" measure on the November ballot, because he "always errs on the side of life." He has said he's glad his mother didn't have the option of physician-assisted suicide when she was sick with breast cancer, because she went on to live for two more years. If I-1000 had been law, he told the Seattle Times, his mother would have probably opted to die, when all she really needed was a better nurse and a change of medication.

That's a heart-warming anecdote. And it includes a grain of truth: We'd all like to be able to access the very best health care and to die with as little suffering as possible. But for people who aren't as fortunate as Rossi's mother—people who don't have the money to pay for health-care or who do have health-care but are in so much pain that just living is unbearable—I-1000 offers an alternative. Rossi and others who oppose physician- assisted suicide want to win the "pro-life" argument at the expense of thousands of Washington residents who will be forced to die in pain if physician-assisted suicide remains illegal.

On the other hand, if you have a genetic disease that could be cured by embryonic stem-cell research: tough shit. While Rossi does support research on adult stem cells, he opposes embryonic stem-cell research, because embryos "have promise."

This election matters—and not just because Barack Obama may defeat John McCain and start reversing the awful legacy of the last eight years. Down-ticket races like Gregoire versus Rossi (and I-1000 and light-rail expansion and Tim Eyman's proposal to make traffic worse) affect people's everyday lives. (For more on these races, see "Your Vote Matters! Really!" in the special voter-registration section. Gregoire hasn't been a perfect governor—far from it. But the differences between her and her opponent are vast. Gregoire's constant parroting of the "George W. Bush Republican" line is irritating, but it's true: It would make no sense for Washington to go for Obama—and simultaneously elect a Bush clone to the state's highest elected office.