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