From the Oct 7 – Oct 13, 2004 issue

News

Breaking Gridlock

Moderate Democrat Challenges Longtime GOP Incumbent in Eastside Battleground

by Erica C. Barnett

Transit proponents call Jim Horn "Senator Gridlock." Left-leaning activists call the Eastside state senator "out of step" with his moderate Eastside constituents. And the Democratic Party is convinced that, for the first time, they have a substantial shot at taking him down.

Horn, a Mercer Island Republican who for 16 years has represented the Eastside 41st district in the state house and, more recently, the state senate, is widely regarded as the single biggest roadblock on progress in transportation in the state. Most recently, Horn infuriated environmental groups by authoring legislation that restricted regional-transportation dollars to "highways of statewide significance," effectively ruling out funding for light rail and other transit projects. "Until Horn's gone I think we're going to continue sitting in gridlock," Transportation Choices Coalition executive director Peter Hurley says.

Toward that end, transit proponents and environmentalists like Hurley are throwing their support behind Brian Weinstein, a first-time candidate who also has strong backing from the state and district Democratic Party organizations, which have poured some $30,000 into his race. They're banking on the hope that Horn's once solidly Republican Eastside district, which encompasses Mercer Island plus parts of Bellevue, Newcastle, and Renton, has become vulnerable to a Democratic incursion. There's plenty of evidence to support that theory: In the September primary, Weinstein outpolled Horn by nearly 3,700 votes; and in the 8th congressional district, of which the 41st legislative district is a part, prognosticators give Democrat Dave Ross an even shot against Republican King County Sheriff Dave Reichert.

Even state Republican Party Chair Chris Vance--ordinarily a fount of unmitigated partisan bluster--concedes that Eastside districts like the 41st "are not impregnable for us anymore. We can lose there. It's not Seattle, but it's no longer a slam dunk for us, either." A win by Weinstein would be politically significant, swinging the state senate to the Democrats, who Republicans outnumber by just one vote.

Weinstein, a polished, outdoorsy trial attorney who made his money suing asbestos companies, may be just the candidate to put a Democratic face on the district. A 10-year Mercer Island resident who supports universal healthcare for children but also believes the state isn't ready for an income tax, Weinstein has unimpeachable moderate bona fides.

Sitting in a tiny sushi restaurant a few blocks off the freeway on Mercer Island last week, Weinstein made a convincing case for why he, and not Jim Horn, could better represent the politically moderate Eastside district. "I got into this race because I thought Jim Horn was completely out of touch with the district," Weinstein said. "He is an extremely conservative Republican. All he cares about is that we don't raise taxes."

Beating Horn, for Brian Weinstein, means attacking the 74-year-old Republican not just on transportation, but on education, another issue on which he's perceived as vulnerable. Horn, Weinstein notes, voted to suspend funding for two voter-approved initiatives that would have lowered class sizes and increased teacher pay; in a new mailing that went out this Monday, his campaign--run largely by veteran Seattle consultant Blair Butterworth--all but implies that Horn doesn't care about children's issues. "The differences are clear," the stark black-and-white mailer blares. Horn concedes that he voted against funding the initiatives, but calls them an "unfunded mandate" from the voters.

But if education is a vital issue among the married-with-kids Mercer Island cohort Weinstein wants as constituents, transportation is even more important among the pro-transit and environmental groups that are backing his campaign, among them the left-leaning Transportation Choices Coalition, whose director Hurley calls Weinstein's campaign "the single most important race in the legislature this year." Horn has almost single-handedly held up legislative progress on transportation in the state, by insisting that roads are the solution to Washington's transportation problems. (Among his campaign contributors are several concrete and oil companies, including ChevronTexaco). In addition to limiting the proposed regional-transportation tax to "highways of statewide significance," he supported an $11 billion expansion plan for the Eastside's I-405 that would have added six lanes of concrete and required double-decking the freeway through downtown Bellevue; wants to build a road across Mount St. Helens; and backs building an outrageous Eastside freeway bypass known as I-605, which would shuttle traffic east of I-405 at an estimated cost in the tens of billions of dollars.

"There will be a huge celebration by supporters of mass transit" if Weinstein wins, his consultant Butterworth predicts. "When he emerged on the Eastside, the issue was, 'We need more roads,'" Butterworth says. "He still believes you can build your way out of congestion."

"It's against his religion to have mass transit," Weinstein adds. "He thinks every trip should be made in a car. As long as Jim Horn sits as head of the [senate] transportation committee, we'll all sit in traffic."

But despite his pro-transit bluster, Weinstein has taken some positions with which even Horn-hating lefties could find fault. He supports leaving I-90 HOV lanes open to single-occupant Mercer Island vehicles, a "temporary" perk island residents have enjoyed since 1979, with the understanding that some kind of rapid transit, either light rail or express buses, would eventually take over the lanes. And he opposes a state income tax, which he calls a "waste of time" in the state's current political climate. "Until there is strong bipartisan support for a change in the tax structure, we are not going to get an income tax. I do not believe the people of this state want it," Weinstein says.

Weinstein's moderate message should play well in the shifting political climate on the Eastside, if recent races are any indication. In 2002, Ross Hunter--a moderate Democrat whose line on the state income tax was almost identical to Weinstein's--won a state house seat in the nearby 48th district with 51 percent of the vote. That seat had been controlled by now-Senator Luke Esser, a right-wing Republican who ran, unsuccessfully, for Congress in the 8th district.

Horn says he's right in step with a district he characterizes as "mainstream Republican." But, he adds, "any time someone pours that much money into a campaign, you have to take it very, very seriously." In the primary election, Horn notes, Weinstein spent close to $138,000.

The Democrats, for their part, are optimistic. "The Eastside is rapidly becoming more Democratic," state Democratic Party Chair Paul Berendt says. Based on recent election turnout, he adds, "I'm not sure there's a single Republican district on Mercer Island anymore."

barnett@thestranger.com