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Gary asked:  Would you buck your party to support or oppose an issue if you believed it was in the best interest of your constituents?

Baumgartner:  Yes, absolutely.  Constituents certainly come before party.
Marr:   First of all, I think it is a rare occurrence when there isn’t an elected official that at some point votes against their party.  My record has been pretty clear. I don’t think we should just look at the party, we need to look at the stake holders.   If you’re a democrat you have labor stake holders, environmental stake holders, in addition to the party line.  The answer is yes.  On unemployment insurance hikes to increase eligibility for voluntary quits and raising the multiplier, myself and about 6 other moderate democrats voted against my party and killed that proposal on the floor with the head of the state labor council and the higher ups standing in the balcony.  I proposed a worker’s compensation reform bill that Senator Brown actively worked to get every member of my caucus not to sign onto.  I indicated to Boeing I was willing to go ahead.  The Republican caucus, Senator Hewitt, said he wouldn’t have any of his people sign on it because it was a democrat bill.

On environmental issues there are some strains between myself and the environmental community because I have supported a more flexible, renewable energy standard.  They have been very rigid in ideology which I don’t think serves the citizens of the state.  I have been willing to vote against taxes.  I did vote for some. I did vote for the tobacco tax.

If you look at where I am in my caucus relative to my labor voting record I’m down a scale.  If you look at where I am in terms of the expectations of business I’m down the scale.  I think I’m rated in the one third lowest spending legislators by the Evergreen Freedom Foundation because I pick my spots.

I do see a prevalence of legislators who come in and who watch score cards and take total caucus direction.  If you look at the floor of the house or senate and see people look at their laptops many are looking at what the AWB, NFIB or NRA score card tells them they should be voting on issues.  I think that is more troublesome than following the caucus line.  Shouldn’t people be voting the interest of their constituents?  The answer is yes. 

I think that on the bills that matter to me that have to do with things like the business environment and how it affects economic growth and vitality, those are specifically the areas that I am more inclined to break with my caucus.  As a whole, locally my local democrats have been understanding about that.   I think as you go over to Seattle, some of the stake holders there, they have been less so but it’s the folks here that I represent.



Rob asked:  List the two most important issues that you think you can make a difference on if elected and how would you do that.

Marr:  One is restoring economic vitality.  I am talking about Spokane related issues.    My background is around economic development.  I have been involved in every significant economic development initiative in this community over the last decade and a half.   Specifically, the north/south freeway, revitalizing downtown, creation of the University district, aerospace by the airport.  I would say the two are: transportation investments particularly around the north/south corridor and highway 195, and the second thing, growth of the university district and our Health Sciences sector.  Those are the two areas locally I think I will make the most impact on.

If you want to scale up to a statewide level, I would start with us having a more rational economic development strategy which focuses on our strengths as a state.  Our state revenue structure tends to be fixated on a time when we were an agrarian economy.  Many of our tax breaks are focused on things like heating for poultry farms and things like that.  Frankly you can take that $1.8 million and move it to biotech or aerospace and we would be better off as a state.  One is resetting our economic development strategy to line up with the recovery and the other issue is around making reasonable changes in things that drive costs for business.  That’s why I’ve been a proponent of UI reform, worker’s compensation reform, energy reform because I think those represent costs for business.  If we can find a way to bring them down, I think jobs grow.

Bringing a voice to business issues in a reasonable way, not in an ideologically bound way, to my caucus is a role I play, one that needs to be played because there are very few people in either party who have signed both sides of a paycheck.   I have paid worker’s compensation premiums for 20 years, I have been a part of workers comp retro group before so don’t throw the baby out with the bath water.  If you want to deal with transparency in fixing it, fine but don’t do away with worker’s comp retro programs when you don’t know what they do for safety in the work place.  Those are the types of things I think I can correct.

Baumgartner:  The 2 key issues are: the need to fix our state budget process so it’s sustainable.  Right now we have an unsustainable state budget that’s misaligned.  We have increased total state spending $17 billion in the last 4 years since Senator Marr has been in office.  Now we are faced with record tax increases, record spending increases and now we have record cuts so the whole system is out of alignment.  We do need to restructure and slim down government. That’s issue number one.  The way we need to do that is we need to take state employees and move from having them pay 12% of their benefits up to 20% of their benefits.  That would save over a billion dollars, that’s a big deal.  I think we should freeze state salaries right now while we are in this recession.  In general slim down the government in sectors where it doesn’t need to be in or we can’t afford it to be in.  The priorities of government should be funding education, funding road transport, and public safety.  That’s what I would do in those areas and I would help facilitate that process.

The other big issue of why I’m running is we have to get state economy going and to do that we need to make the state more friendly for small business.  I have been endorsed by the leading small business organization, the National Federation of Independent Business.  This is the big difference between me and Chris Marr.  He has F ratings from our state’s business associations.  Kevin Parker has about a 90%from the state business association, John Driscoll has about a 75% rating, Chris Marr has a 43% rating, an F.  What we do to make the state more business friendly is, first, worker’s compensation reform.  Washington State is one of only 4 states that doesn’t have choice in worker’s compensation.  If we allow choice it will bring down cost and give better products.  Right now Labor and Industry has increased costs dramatically even though the total number of claims has gone down.  They are now playing games with the system, they are not going to release how much people’s L&I costs are going to increase until after the election because I know they are going to go up.   It’s a poor system and mismanaged.   We need to modernize it.  So that would be a big issue to move as well. 

I also think we need fundamental reform of our Business and Occupation Tax.   Right now the B&O tax is on a gross basis so it’s very difficult for small businesses and low margin businesses where you can lose money and still have to pay a tax.  B&O Tax can be very low as a percentage on a gross basis but I have one of my supporters who estimates that he pays a 9% corporate income tax right now because he pays 1.7%, or whatever percentage it is, of his gross tax.  I think on a revenue neutral basis we should transform that to a net tax.  Those are 2 things I would do for business.

A third thing would be we should try is to bring down health care costs.  They are very high for small businesses in Washington State because we have one of the highest number of mandates of any state.  If we could allow portability and assurance that insurance could be sold across state lines, that would reduce the cost for small business.



Anonymous asked:  What is your solution to the high dropout rate in Spokane High Schools?

Baumgartner:  The first thing that needs to be done about the high dropout rate is have people measure it and know what it is.  I hear figures anywhere from 35% - then I talk to Superintendents who say, no, that figure is wrong because we’re not tracking when they move to other school districts and they say it’s more like 10%.  The citizens of Spokane have to demand that we know what the dropout rate is to begin with, so let’s get that fixed.

The other issues, we just need to improve our education system overall here in Spokane.  I think we need fundamental reform in education.  More of our education dollars have to go into the classroom.  I think now we spend $11,000 per student on education.  So you think at 25 students in the classroom as a base line, that’s $250,000.  That should be enough to get a great teacher with a great salary, get books for the kids and extracurricular activities.  But right now less than 50% of that is going to the classroom so I’d like to see that focus.  We need to let principles have more control over their budget and more parental decision making, less decision making in Olympia and Washington DC.  What that would do is allow more tailored specific solutions in the classroom for those kids that most need it. I also think we should try some innovation in education here that we’ve seen happen in other states.  I think we should try Charter schools.  It would be really neat if parents were trying to see what kind of student they have and where they want to go, if somebody wanted to open a school that taught in French or a school that went from 8-5 with longer periods for music.  I think with the competition, vision and choice you’re going to get more tailored solutions.  The dropout rate …I went to Gonzaga Prep for my first two years and to Pullman for my last two years.  We had a real neat vocational ed program there, a really good metal shop class.  There were a lot of kids who might have been dropouts or gone to an alternative school but with some of that vocational ed teaching, kept them engaged.  It was really teacher dependent.  They had a really neat teacher who did vocational ed.  It wasn’t just a teacher but a mentor to a lot of kids and gave them a skill in the welding and metal shop.  So it’s something we certainly need to address.

Marr:  I think we have ed reform wrong.  As a policy maker you think the best answers can be forced down from above.  We have to look at what’s happened to education over the last 10 or 20 years.  First we haven’t funded it.  It used to be about 50% of our general fund now it’s about 40%, so we know it’s a resource issue.  The second thing we’ve done is try to force mandates and our idea of reform down from the top.  Legislators love to go to Olympia and pass laws to insure those in the classroom are doing what we think they should be doing.  Yet we don’t make sure those dollars get to the classroom, either a, because we don’t provide enough money to education to begin with or b, we’ve provided it for the wrong reasons.  Some of these are very well meaning but if you provide mandates around nutrition and all these other requirements does that necessarily get to the classroom?

I’ve become more of a proponent of putting the educators in charge of education.  I think education has become test fixated and too focused on things outside the classroom.  I think teachers struggle, I don’t buy into this whole notion of blame the educator or this idea that educator’s pay should be linked to test scores.

(for the sake of shortening this blog I am editing out Marr’s talk about the documentary “Waiting for Superman”)

We shouldn’t play blame the teacher any more than we should play blame the parent.  But if you really want to blame somebody I think the responsibility starts with abdication of parental responsibility.  Who’s responsible for sending their kid to school clothed and fed?  Who is responsible to make sure Johnny is in by ten or that Suzy does her homework?  It’s the parents.  I think we are in a society that wants someone else to do their work for them.  I believe that about the whole education process.  And for us to blame teachers as a general group, is a wrong headed approach.  It is a circular thing to get involved in blame the parent because it doesn’t help the kid any more than blame the teacher does. 

At the end of the day the more we can do to put resources in the classroom and assure success for kids not necessarily based on whether or not they get a 4 year college degree.  For some reason we’re fixated on this notion that every child’s definition of success should be walking away with a Masters or a PHD.  I have a Master’s, I was a regent at Washington State University.   I know all this elitism around higher education.  Education was designed to provide the best possible outcome for each child based on his or her abilities.  We do not do that now. What we do is say, about the kids who drop out, maybe if we could excite them about going on to a 4 year college degree we’ll solve the education problem.  What about finding out what makes that kid a success? Is it a technical career, is it a certificate program, is it learning how to function in the outside world?  Kids aren’t widgets.  The problem with ed reform is that it is driven by the business roundtable and these folks at the top.  They know how to run businesses.  I’m not convinced that we know how to run education.   What’s sad to me is when I sit with teachers and we talk about reform at the end many are turning to me asking what should we do to fix education?  I said, you’re asking me?  I came from the business world.  I would ask my employees who are closest to the customers.  So I ask you, what should  we do to fix education and the answer is more resources, let the teachers be mentors.  I’m here because I was raised by a single working mom.  I had a junior high school teacher that was my mentor.  He taught me a lot about social responsibility, civic engagement.  He had the opportunity to be a mentor and a life shaper.  We do not know the damage we are doing to the social fabric of this country by making teachers test givers and absentee parents. I think we will learn at some point unless we wake up and decide that education is about a willing mind and a committed teacher.  Yes, there are bad teachers, we need to get rid of them but to damn the whole process and say they have enough , they have enough support, they have enough money all they need to do is get rid of the bad ones and do their job is a total over simplification.  It  really riles me as you can tell.