Thoughts on the State of the State, live

Governor Christine Gregoire has just begun her annual address to a joint session of the state Legislature. She opened her speech by acknowledging that much work remains to be done despite three years of progress since taking office in 2005.

Gregoire is focusing her initial remarks on veterans and victims of the recent storms in southwestern Washington. She recognized twelve individuals for outstanding contributions to storm recovery efforts.

And she noted that she and Mike Gregoire have attended sixteen funerals for fallen Washington soldiers who died in Iraq or Afghanistan in the last year. (When was the last time Dubya went to a soldier's funeral?)

FIRST UPDATE: The Governor is asking the House and Senate to pass legislation to help victims of the subprime mortgage crisis before the end of the session, relating the sad tale of a Federal Way family forced out of their home as a call to action. I'm glad to see this made it into the speech early.

SECOND UPDATE: Gregoire is reflecting on successes from the past year. Here's a sampling of what she is covering:

• passage of the constitutional amendment to create a rainy day fund,
• Forbes Magazine recognizing Washington State as the fifth best state in the nation in which to do business,
• the lowest unemployment rate in state history

Gregoire also thanked the Legislature for promptly reinstating Initiative 747 as she requested in November. That, of course, was a failure of leadership, not an accomplishment. Fortunately, the applause didn't sound very enthusiastic (which doesn't surprise me - it's nothing to be proud of).

THIRD UPDATE: Gregoire is now talking about education - notably the state's success in implementing a voter approved initiative to reduce class sizes and her administration's efforts to make college more affordable.

I was happy to hear the governor mention the National Board certification program that a record number of Washington teachers are undertaking to demonstrate that they are meeting the highest professional standards possible.

Touching on transportation, Gregoire sought to provide assurances that the Evergreen Point floating bridge replacement and Alaskan Way Viaduct demolition projects were moving forward. She also spoke of investigating how to improve mobility in Spokane.

Gregoire ended by urging lawmakers to be mindful of the many unsolved problems Washington faces. "Claiming victory now would diminish the challenges ahead," Gregoire said solemnly. I hope the governor remembers her own words on the campaign trail, because giving voters a glimpse of what her second term would look like will help her win in November.

It's easy to talk about past successes; it's harder to spend time talking about tackling those remaining challenges. If Gregoire is able to do that in the coming months, I think she'll be more successful at blunting Dino Rossi's attacks.