Six candidates vying for three 4th District positions

Voters in the 4th Legislative District must decide whether to keep all their eggs in a Republican basket in next month’s general election.

Even if they do, they’ll get some fresh blood because state Rep. Lynn Schindler, R-Otis Orchards, is stepping down.

Republican Matt Shea and Democrat Tim Hattenburg are competing for Schindler’s position, while longtime Sen. Bob McCaslin and Rep. Larry Crouse, both Republicans, are challenged by Democrats Judi Owens and Linda J. Thompson.

The district is dominated by Spokane Valley, Liberty Lake and Millwood, but includes unincorporated areas north to the Pend Oreille County line. It has leaned toward the GOP in recent years.

In a pair of two-way primaries, McCaslin led Owens with 59.6 percent of the vote and Crouse led Thompson with 57.1 percent.

Shea and three other Republicans, including Spokane Valley City Councilwoman Diana Wilhite, collected 66.3 percent of the vote for the seat Schindler is vacating. Individually, Shea had 13,311 votes, or 41 percent of the total, while Hattenburg collected 10,930, for a 33.7 percent share.

Here, in alphabetical order, is a look at the candidates:

•Bob McCaslin, 82, was first elected in 1980. He holds a bachelor’s degree in sociology and economics from Washington State University and is a retired real estate broker who previously worked in production management for Kaiser Aluminum.

A widower, McCaslin recently was hospitalized and unavailable for comment. However, he said earlier this year that he was up to another four years in Olympia.

He told The Spokesman-Review in March that he wanted to keep pushing on issues such as providing affordable housing for young people by encouraging more sites for mobile and manufactured homes. He sponsored a bill this year that would allow mobile home parks outside designated urban growth areas.

Another priority McCaslin listed was his desire to increase juror pay to $65 a day and to prevent the same people from being called repeatedly for jury service.

He proposed easing ethics restrictions to allow elected city officials to accept gifts worth up to $20. Public officials who can be influenced by $20 “shouldn’t be in office,” he said.

McCaslin also called for making court-ordered child custody plans temporary if a parent were summoned to military duty. That proposal was the most successful of seven failed bills McCaslin submitted in the Legislature’s last session.

•Judi Owens, 62, was elected to the Liberty Lake City Council in 2001 and has twice been re-elected. She graduated from high school in Thompson Falls, Mont., attended Kinman Business University, and has lived in the 4th District for 35 years. She and her husband, Charles, have four adult children.

Owens has worked for the Central Valley School District since 1990, and is the head secretary in the Maintenance Department. She is state vice president of her union, the Public School Employees of Washington, and was appointed to the State Employee Retirement Benefits Board by Govs. Gary Locke and Christine Gregoire.

She said she would be more energetic and accessible than McCaslin.

“We need to have somebody that is willing to step up and do something,” Owens said.

Her priorities include overhauling the Basic Education Act of 1997, which she said is “sorely out of date” as a means of satisfying the state’s constitutional obligation to fund public schools fully. Owens said she also wants to promote “living-wage jobs” by being “business friendly” and to “make sure everybody has access to affordable health care.”

Owens said she would resign her council position if elected to the Senate.

•Larry Crouse, 63, graduated from high school in Seattle and moved to this area in 1973, where he worked as a machinist and a supervisor in Kaiser Aluminum’s Trentwood rolling mill for 20 years. He planned to go into real estate when he was laid off in late 1993, but he was elected to the House of Representatives in 1994 and found that “keeps me pretty busy.”

Crouse and his wife, Peggy, have two adult daughters.

He touts his experience and bipartisanship. One of his greatest accomplishments, Crouse said, was killing a bill in 1998 that was promoted by his own party – and for which he was a prime sponsor. He said the bill would have opened Washington to the kind of spot market trading in electricity that fueled the Enron scandal.

“I had just a huge amount of pressure from the Boeings of the world,” who wanted cheaper sources of power, Crouse said.

He said he came to see “serious problems” with the legislation and refused to let it out of the House Energy Committee, of which he was chairman.

Crouse said he advised Democratic Gov. Locke that “anybody who would get out in front of this is a fool. This is a disaster waiting to happen.” Later, when Enron proved him right, he “went from a bum to a hero,” Crouse said.

•Linda J. Thompson, 55, has been executive director of the Greater Spokane Substance Abuse Council for 15 years, and is making her first bid for public office. Previously, she worked in banking and insurance for 14 years.

Thompson graduated from Central Valley High School in 1971 and earned a bachelor’s degree in general studies from Eastern Washington University in 1995, followed by a master’s degree in organizational leadership from Gonzaga University in 2002.

She and her husband, Richard, have two adult children. Thompson has been active in Mothers Against Drunk Drivers since 1986, when she lost a 3-year-old son, Trevor Pierce, to a drunken driver.

A prolific civic volunteer, Thompson has worked in Boy Scout programs since 1984 and has mentored Central Valley School District children for 20 years.

“My issue is to strengthen families and to use that lens to examine any legislation that comes up,” she said.

Her priorities include revamping the state WASL test, which she believes is hampering education, as well as promoting public health and a strong transportation system. Thompson said she wants to create living-wage jobs, some of which might come from environmental projects.

“My priorities will be people,” she said. “We have no throw-away people in our community and we need to make sure we protect the most vulnerable.”

•Tim Hattenburg, 55, has lived in Spokane Valley most of his life and graduated from Central Valley High School. After earning a bachelor’s degree in education from Washington State University in 1975, he returned and taught for 20 years at North Pines Middle School. He now works for a local publishing company, Tornado Creek Publications.

Hattenburg and his wife, Becky, have three adult children.

He has been active in various political campaigns for 20 years, including opposition to Spokane Valley’s incorporation. Hattenburg ran against 4th District Sen. Bob McCaslin in 2004 and lost with 41 percent of the vote, but was elected to the Spokane County Library District board two years ago.

Economic development, education and health care are top issues for Hattenburg, who describes himself as “very fiscally conservative.” His support for education comes “with the caveat that that’s one we really have to stay on top of. That’s half of the state budget.”

Land development in the 4th District also is a high priority. Hattenburg said he’d like to designate areas for denser growth and give “grandfather” protection to existing neighborhoods.

“The 4th District is a beautiful place to live, and I think that’s something we definitely need to retain,” he said.

•Matt Shea, 34, was born in Spokane, attended elementary schools in Spokane Valley and graduated from high school in Bellingham. He earned a bachelor’s degree in history and political science from Gonzaga University in 1996 and entered the Army as a lieutenant.

Shea served 4 1/2 years, including eight months in Bosnia-Herzegovina in 2000. After his discharge, he entered law school at Gonzaga and joined the Army National Guard as a captain. His legal training was interrupted when he was called to the Middle East, where he served 11 months in Baghdad as an infantry company commander.

Shea earned his law degree in 2006, and has handled personal injury cases for a year at Keith S. Douglass and Associates. Shea also works for the Alliance Defense Fund, in which he said about 1,000 volunteer lawyers defend “family values, religious liberty and sanctity of life.”

He also promotes those issues as executive director and co-founder of the Washington Family Foundation, although his 5 1/2-year marriage ended in a bitter divorce in January. The couple had no children.

In his first bid for elected office, Shea is campaigning on a platform of cutting taxes and spending. His said his priorities are public safety, transportation and education – in that order. He favors using 1 to 2 percent of the state general fund to finish projects such as the north Spokane freeway.