Gregoire acts quickly to make her mark

OLYMPIA – Wednesday night found Gov. Christine Gregoire working late, dashing from one appointment to the next and dining at her desk on a takeout salad and Diet Coke.

It’s a job, she said, that she’s come to love.

“I’ve heard stories about working with the Legislature, how distasteful it is,” the former attorney general said. “Some people might say there’s something wrong with me, but I like it. … It’s a different form of lawyering, but it’s finding a problem and trying to get a solution and bringing the parties together.”

One hundred days into the job, Gregoire has signed into law dozens of bills, cut 1,000 middle-management jobs, proposed controversial tax increases and, with the stroke of a pen, ordered a change that will put an estimated 23,000 kids back on Medicaid-paid health coverage.

It’s been a crash course. Instead of the two months of prep time that governors usually get after Election Day, Gregoire got two weeks. Republicans – who say her 129-vote victory was so narrow and problem-plagued that there’s no way to know who really won – tried to torpedo her inauguration up to the day before it happened. And in a Wenatchee courtroom, they continue to press the case for tossing Gregoire out of office.

Some conservatives maintain that the threat of that revote has forced Gregoire to play it safe, with lower tax increases and less-sweeping policy proposals than she would have liked.

“She’s governing like a candidate,” said Sen. Mark Schoesler, R-Ritzville.

No way, said Gregoire.

“I am who I am. What you see is what you get,” she said in an interview Wednesday night. “If I had won by a landslide, nothing would be different.”

Gregoire’s political allies contend that she’s doing exactly what she said she’d do: steering more money to education, looking out for kids, trying not to hurt business, and attempting to make government more efficient.

“She’s kept her promises – and then some,” said Charles Hasse, president of the state teachers union.

“She’s not acting as if she’s a caretaker. She’s acting as if she’s there for four more years,” said Tim Welch, a spokesman for the Washington Federation of State Employees. “She’s a progressive, meat-and-potatoes Democrat that most people will relate to.”

In 100 days, Gregoire has:

“Appointed nearly two dozen agency heads, including a social services director from Utah, a Labor and Industries director from Oregon and the former head of Nebraska’s prison system.

“Proposed a $26 billion general-fund budget, including more than $200 million more in estate and cigarette taxes. Most of that money is dedicated to education.

“Pushed for cost-of-living increases that had been suspended for the last two years for teachers and the last four years for state workers.

“Signed into law a controversial bill that will require health insurers to cover mental illness the same way they cover physical ailments.

“Pushed for California-style auto emissions requirements for new cars, starting in model year 2009.

“Declared a statewide drought emergency – and asked lawmakers for $12 million to help mitigate the expected problems.

Gregoire said she feels she’s laid the foundation for more efficient, faster, effective government.

“This is about change,” she said, echoing the campaign refrain of her Republican opponent, Dino Rossi. She’s ordered state agencies to revamp regulations and forms into “plain talk,” and says she wants them to adopt a service ethic toward the people they deal with.

Many Republicans are profoundly skeptical.

“She’s not a governor that’s going to change state government. And we need change,” said Sen. Brad Benson, R-Spokane. “She’s kind of kept low-key, looking for friendly photo ops, trying to find occasions where she could appear to be gubernatorial without actually jumping out and leading the parade on any major issues.”

“You mean our fake governor, our temporary, place-holder governor?” said state GOP chairman Chris Vance, when asked to rate Gregoire’s performance. “She’s every bit as bad a governor as we thought she’d be. She’s just a rubber-stamp for the liberals that have held Olympia for more than 20 years.”

The Association of Washington Business gives her mixed reviews. They like some of her choices for agency heads, including Colville native Mary Selecky, the state Secretary of Health.

But Gregoire’s budget plan did nothing to solve the ongoing gap between the state’s income and its spending, said AWB president Don Brunell. And businesses are unhappy that she supports an estate tax, labor-backed unemployment insurance changes and California-style auto emissions limits.

Business groups are trying to get her to veto the unemployment changes, which would increase benefits to seasonal workers.

“If she signs it, it will kind of be the nail in the coffin, the business-killing trifecta,” said BIAW spokeswoman Erin Shannon. “If this is a moderate Christine Gregoire, heaven help us.”

Welch, at the Federation of State Employees, sees things very differently.

“We finally got a Democratic governor,” he said. “(Former governors) Booth Gardner and Gary Locke were either Democrats light or like Republicans at times … She’s just a good, common-sense Democrat, and I think she’s in the mainstream.”

“Given the hand she was dealt, she’s done just the right thing by not diving in and trying to say ‘It’s my way or the highway,’ ” said Rep. Alex Wood, D-Spokane.

“After all, there’s a huge learning curve. There’s no school to go to to learn to be a governor.”

While Gregoire loves the challenges of her job, she said there is a downside.

“There’s a burden about being commander-in-chief that I did not anticipate,” she said. She recently attended the funeral of a Washington National Guardsman killed in Iraq.

“A widow with four children, three sons and a daughter. A dad who’s just really torn up, and a mom …” she said, her voice trailing off. “That’s a piece of the job that you just wouldn’t have thought about.”