steele, paine vie for legislative seat
MOSES LAKE — The two Republican candidates vying for the second seat in the 12th District of the Washington State Legislature both take tremendous pride in being native sons of the Columbia Basin.
“I was born and bread in the 12th District, my family has an apple and cherry orchard,” said Mike Steele, a former two-term Chelan town council member and former staff member In the George W. Bush White House.
“Small business is the backbone of the 12th District,” he added. “I work with lots of businesses and industries and economic and business issues, so I have the perspective to work for small business.”
Steele is facing Wenatchee native and real estate broker Jerry Paine for the seat being vacated by State Rep. Brad Hawkins, who is running for the State Senate.
Although he has never been elected to an office before, Paine has sat on a number of boards — including the Chelan County Part Citizen Advisory Committee — and he has been very involved in civic groups such as the Humane Society.
“My dad always said, get involved, meet people, do your job, have fun. I can’t just sit still,” he said.
Paine said his great passion is private property rights, the kinds of things that “affect home buyers and sellers on a daily basis.”
Steele said the state doesn’t have a revenue problem, it has a management problem. Already, 57 percent of Washington’s tax burden falls on mall business, Steele said, and it is important to reduce both that tax burden as well as the burden of state regulation.
Steele also expected that the state legislature would have a special session to deal with the State Supreme Court’s McCleary Decision, which found the legislature in violation of the state constitution for failing to properly fund education.
The answer, Steele said, was to deal with teacher compensation and curriculum reform, as well as more local control over schools. The common-core curriculum accounts for 10 percent of the state budget, Steele said, something that can and should be dealt with.
Paine said education in Washington needs to be fi, but the key is “making it work without raising taxes.”
Washington could consider new taxes — such as a state income tax or a capital gains tax — but that would only hurt economic development, Paine said. The proposed Washington State carbon tax will add 25 cents to a gallon of gas and that will significantly hurt communities in the Columbia Basin.
“That adds up, and we’ve got to keep things in balance,” he said.
Both candidates, however, see themselves as well-placed to work cooperatively with political opponents in the state legislature to get things done.
“My approach is about a team,” Paine said. “As a realtor, I have to bring several entires together in order to make a deal work.”
“My biggest asset is I can work with a multitude of perspectives regardless of party affiliation, and I can listen to alternative perspectives,” Steele said. “And go forward at the end of the day.”