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About The skanner. (Portland, Or.) 1975-2014 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 28, 2012)
News Lawmakers Tragic Loss continued from page 1 tion a goal. Among other moves, the com- missioners created the state’s first Latino- majority district, the 15th, in the Yakima area. But few Latinos volunteered to run for office there this year. Democrat Pablo Gon- or less remained constant over the past decade. For Cyrus Habib, the Iranian American who just won an open Eastside seat, the problem is party leadership. ``We need to do a much better job of recruiting people into the party,’’ said Habib, of Kirkland, who also will become the second blind state legis- lator in the country when he is sworn in. ``The No. 1 reason people give for not running for office is that they haven’t been asked.’’ Brown, the outgoing Senate major- ity leader, said women are often hin- dered by needs at home. ``Women who could potentially serve in the Legislature still have a more difficult balancing act with respect to their families and professional life than men do,’’ she told The Times. Recruiting new people into politi- cal life has also gotten harder as politics has gotten nastier, said Kim Abel, co-president of the League of Women Voters of Wash- ington. ``I think the incivility is making it hard for some people to step forward,’’ she said. Several Republicans said they believe the party has been doing a good job of recruit- ing women and minorities. ``I think we have a lot to be proud of,’’ said longtime Sen. Pam Roach, R-Auburn, adding: ``We don’t elect people based on gender or race. We elect people based on their philosophy.’’ zalez, 21, a Central Washington University student, challenged incumbent David Tay- lor, R-Moxee, in the 15th but took just 38.9 percent of the vote. Gonzalez said he felt his surname hurt him. Beth Reingold, a political-science profes- sor at Emory University in Atlanta, said other state Legislatures are generally not losing female and minority representation, although few are experiencing the same gains as they did during the 1990s. She called Washington’s trend strange, noting that the ranks of U.S. female law- makers and legislators of color have more OFFICIAL WHITE HOUSE PHOTO BY PETE SOUZA This, after the Washington State Redistricting Commission made increased minority representation a goal President Barack Obama meets privately with Damien and Glenda Moore at a FEMA Disaster Recovery Center tent in Staten Island, N.Y., Nov. 15, 2012. The Moore’s two small children, Brandon and Connor, died after being swept away during Hurricane Sandy. Tax continued from page 1 Working with a bipartisan team of senators, Gregoire said she is prepared to testify or do any other advocacy work that may be needed on Capitol Hill. She leaves office in January. Gregoire is no stranger to high-stakes negotiations, as they have come to define her tenure as governor. Much of her work in recent years has been mediating budget disputes between caucuses in the state Legislature, but last year she also spent months of behind-the- scenes work trying to negotiate the end of a tense disagreement between the grain export company EGT and longshoremen. Both sides praised the governor for ending that conflict, which had involved damaged property and arrests. Gregoire’s negotiating work began before she was governor. In 1998, when she was serving as attorney general, Gregoire helped negotiate a $206 billion settlement between Gregoire, who is working along with Republican Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam, believes any agreement will have to be part of larger negotiations to avoid the so-called ‘fiscal cliff’ tobacco companies and 46 states. Since then, she’s also brokered other major deals: She helped secure a Columbia River water plan that had eluded both sides for decades. She hosted late-night meetings to find a compromise that overhauled the state’s workers’ compensation system. And she finalized new trib- al compacts that allowed a limited expansion of gaming. Last year, when the Tacoma teachers went on strike at the beginning of the school year, for- mer school board president Kurt Miller said the gap between the two sides was so wide that he expected a strike that would last a minimum of 20 days. He said Gregoire immediately stepped in, keeping in con- stant contact. He would phone Gregoire’s office and she would quickly take the call and walk through the various scenarios and issues at hand. When negotiations stalled, Gregoire called both sides to her office. He recalled Gregoire being firm but understanding of the challenge, encouraging both sides to separate and then return to the table with new ideas. ``We were pretty far apart when we walked into her office,’’ Miller said. ``And within a few hours we had an agreement.’’ Gregoire acknowledged that working with Congress offers a different set of chal- lenges, especially when the ``fiscal cliff’’ negotiations are out of her control. As one of her final jobs as governor, she will propose a new budget plan that will need to fill a $900 million shortfall and ded- icate new money to education in response to a court order. The sales tax plan would provide a major boost to that effort. ``It’s one of my top priorities right now,’’ Gregoire said. ``We desperately need the money.’’ ‘We were pretty far apart when we walked into her office, and within a few hours we had an agreement’ --Kurt Miller Cold Case continued from page 1 County Council supplemented the squad’s budget this summer with enough money to make it to the end of the year. With the budget tight, it’s unlikely the Sheriff’s Office will be able to reinstate the squad on its own, Anderson said. Fraud and domestic-violence squads have been cut in recent years, and it’s hard to argue that a cold-case unit would be more important than those, he said. Evidence from unsolved cold cases will remain in a Kent warehouse should a new tip bring a homicide detective back to an old investigation. But there likely won’t be time to pursue a cold-case otherwise — especial- Evidence from unsolved cold cases will remain in a Kent warehouse should a new tip bring a homicide detective back to an old investigation ly not on a full-time basis. Detective Jim Allen says full-time dedica- tion to a cold case is essential because hav- ing the details fresh in mind is what leads to breakthroughs. Trying to make time for such cases between new assignments does- n’t work, he said. ``By the time you re-review everything, your window of opportunity to work on it is gone and you’re back to the day-to-day. You just don’t solve cases that way.’’ ``These are a real puzzle to figure out,’’ Allen said. ``It requires thinking outside the box.’’ In addition to focusing on specific cold cases, the squad’s crime analyst works on digitizing as much evidence as possible so that files are more accessible and less sub- ject to degradation. At least 126 cases have been reviewed so far, Anderson said. When detectives are lucky, evidence such as fin- gerprints and DNA in a cold-case file matches information in their crime data- base. November 28, 2012 The Seattle Skanner Page 3
