In the Northwest: What may be pathetic is lawmaker's behavior

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Joel Connelly

Monday, April 14, 2003

In the Northwest: What may be pathetic is lawmaker's behavior

By JOEL CONNELLY
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER COLUMNIST

When our nation's founders enshrined in the U.S. Constitution the right of citizens to petition their government, they wrote in no provision excluding residents of Spokane.

Nor, in studying the document, can I find that the majority leader of the Washington state Senate is exempted from such petitioning.

The issue was raised when Senate Majority Leader Jim West, R-Spokane, took furious exception to a recent rally by home health care workers seeking state approval for a contract that would raise their current $7.68-an-hour wages.

They had the nerve and temerity to rally outside West's house.

West has vowed that the contract for 26,000 home health workers "will never see the light of day."

He recently told the Spokane Spokesman-Review that advocates for low-income workers are "the perpetual pathetics. They're always here whining."

But the senator was just getting primed for describing the protest at his home, organized by the Service Employees International Union and endorsed by local Democrats.

"Disturbing my neighbors when I won't even be in Spokane this weekend seems a bit like terrorism to me," wrote West, responding to an e-mail from attorney (and Democratic chairman) Tom Keefe.

The irrepressible Keefe responded with a reference to the "perpetual pathetics." Noting the senator's job is as director of a Boy Scouts summer camp, he wondered why Scouting's lessons in citizenship have not "rubbed off a bit" on West.

"I was once told to never fight with a pig," West shot back. "It only frustrates you, you both get muddy and the pig loves it. You appear to be loving this too much. I'm done with this conversation."

A couple important issues are getting screened by the smoke blowing out of Jim West's ears.

The first is the will of the voters. The second is the compensation to which people who do vital, often thankless, work are entitled.

Initiative 775, passed in 2001, set up a Home Care Quality Authority and gave independent home care workers the right to bargain to get better wages and benefits.

They've done just that, negotiating a contract that would increase the pay of in-home care givers from the current $7.68 an hour to $8.70 in July of this year and $9.75 next year.

Gov. Gary Locke included money for the contract in his proposed budget. House Speaker Frank Chopp, D-Seattle, has said he won't let legislators adjourn without a pay boost.

West, however, has declared that the contract must go "back to the bargaining table."

Nor has he been moved by a letter from a lady named Sherry Beebe, a home health worker who once cared for West's mother.

"You understand how hard we work, and how hard our jobs are," Beebe wrote. "I was one of the workers that took care of your mom. She was a very nice lady and we always enjoyed our time together.

"Your folks were some of the lucky ones that had enough money or insurance to pay us a decent wage to care for your mom. Most home care workers do not get fair pay or benefits."

Why the impasse? West speaks of unexplained "flaws" and claims that unnamed Democrats agree with him.

At times, though, the senator sure doesn't act like a Boy Scout.

West was actually investigated in 1998 after leaving a message on the answering machine of building industry lobbyist Tom McCabe: "You son of a bitch, you better get me, 'cause if you don't, you're dead."

He was in the news last week for a petty act of political hardball.

West blocked action on House-passed legislation making it illegal to film up women's' skirts, because its House sponsor won't clear the way for Republicans' legislation to limit medical malpractice awards.

During a tough re-election race last fall, West accused his challenger, Spokane educator Laurie Dolan, of having "Seattle values."

I would love to have asked him what that meant, but an e-mail and phone message left with West's office have met with no response.

What, then, of "Eastern Washington values" reflected in Olympia?

First off, there's a hardness toward the state's working poor and underprivileged, or folks simply stricken by misfortune.

As well, especially in Spokane, class divisions linger and there is to the local power structure a limited social consciousness. Not for nothing is the Inland Empire informally nicknamed "the 'Ingrown Empire.' "

Asked his reaction to Beebe's letter, for instance, West told the Spokesman-Review: "My father had a lot of trouble with those home health care workers."

Years ago, the state Senate was taking up a bill to compensate victims of crime.

The prime witness at a morning hearing was a courageous lady named Pat Hemenway, shot by a robber while walking in the Washington Park Arboretum and left paralyzed from the neck down.

As Hemenway testified, state Sen. Perry Woodall, R-Toppenish, read a newspaper on the dais a few feet in front of her, often shuffling its pages so noisily that colleagues leaned forward trying to hear Hemenway's whispered voice.

In blocking a contract for home care folk, West gets this year's Perry Woodall Sensitivity Cup.

If the workin' folk continue to rally in front of his house, the senator could at least hold his temper and learn from the playbook of Republican hero Ronald Reagan.

When an attention-seeking challenger brought protesters to his Bel Air lawn, then-Gov. Reagan of California delivered a mellow reaction with a movie actor's timing.

Before getting into politics, quipped the Gipper, the only lawn worries he had were moles, dandelions and crab grass.

P-I columnist Joel Connelly can be reached at 206-448-8160 or joelconnelly@seattlepi.com

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