Spin Control: Lt. Gov. race draws candidates, interest

In many years that feature the elections for statewide office, the lieutenant governor’s race has a low profile.

There are a few reasons. First, if the governor’s office is open, that campaign sucks up most of the oxygen not consumed by the presidential race. Even if the incumbent is running for re-election, the top spot is the better-known position.

Second, there are other statewide executive offices that by their nature generate more interest in certain quarters, such as the attorney general among the legal community, lands commissioner among environmentalists and resource industries, superintendent of public instruction among the education community. The lieutenant governor’s primary constituency is the 49 members of the state Senate, over whom he or she presides during the session, and the governor, whose place he or she takes under certain circumstances.

Third, once a lieutenant governor gets elected, he – and in this case it’s only been a he since statehood – tends to hang around for a while and incumbents rarely lose. John Cherberg was lieutenant governor for 32 years, Vic Meyer and Brad Owen each held the office for 20 years and Joel Pritchard for eight. Those four men occupied the office for all but eight of the past 88 years. The tenures for the seven LGs before Meyer were considerably shorter, although in three of those cases, the governor died and they moved up. In the case of Marion Hay, that happened just two months after he and Gov. Samuel Cosgrove took office.

When a lieutenant governor retires, as Cyrus Habib has announced he will do after a single term, it sets off a scramble in Washington’s political ponds. State Sens. Marko Liias and Steve Hobbs got in shortly after Habib announced he was getting out. Last week U.S. Rep. Denny Heck, who a few months ago announced he was retiring from Congress, decided he isn’t done with politics and joined the race.

Heck has legislative experience – albeit in the House, not the Senate – was Gov. Booth Gardner’s chief of staff for four years and helped found TVW, so he’s familiar with the domed building in Olympia as well as the domed one in the other Washington, where he’s finishing his eighth year in Congress.

The race also has three Republicans – Bill Penor, Joseph Brumbles and Ann Davison Sattler – and a Libertarian, Jared Frerichs, who have filed campaign reports with the Public Disclosure Commission. If they all file candidacy petitions next month, it will be a crowded primary.

Jurors aren’t employees

In an interesting decision last week, the state Supreme Court answered a question that most of us didn’t think to ask. In a split decision, it ruled that people who are called for jury duty are not county employees while they are serving. So they aren’t entitled to the state’s minimum wage.

The court ruled against a couple of King County residents who were challenging that county’s rule of paying jurors $10 per day – which the court notes was the same payment in 1959 – plus mileage, for service. It’s the same rate many counties pay, even though state law allows a payment of up to $25.

The jurors said they should be paid the state’s minimum wage, as employees of the county, which at the time the lawsuit was filed was $12 an hour.

The court acknowledged the long-standing problem of getting citizens to answer a jury summons, and that a commission back in 2000 said one of the ways to improve that would be paying them more for service.

But the problem is complicated, the court’s majority said, and agreed with lower court rulings that jurors aren’t employees under the state’s minimum wage law.

In a separate opinion, three members of the court said that while they aren’t entitled to minimum wage as employees, the $10 fee does exclude some jurors from service based on their economic circumstances.

Say what?

You’ve probably heard it several times by now, and will hear it even more in the weeks to come: “Never waste a crisis.”

It’s the anthem of people who want to do something in bad times that they can’t get done in good times. The saying is attributed to many people, most recently former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emmanuel, who said it during the financial crisis when he was in the Obama White House.

It’s also attributed to Winston Churchill. But it goes back further, way further. To Machiavelli, who, since he was speaking Italian didn’t coin the phrase as we know it in English, but said a wise leader can make good use of a crisis.

Bobble follow up

Last week’s column had a note about a bobblehead doll for Dr. Anthony Fauci, who is the American voice of caution and reason in the COVID-19 pandemic. The maker of the doll is selling them for $25, with $5 going to buy medical masks. As of Wednesday, $100,000 had been raised for that cause, which is nothing to shake one’s head at.