Liveblogging the final gubernatorial debate of 2012 between Jay Inslee and Rob McKenna

Tonight real­ly is debate night. We have one more debate of impor­tance to get through before we’re off live­blog­ging duty: an hour­long dis­cus­sion between the can­di­dates for gov­er­nor, pre­sent­ed by KING5 and Frank Blethen’s Seat­tle Times. As with the pres­i­den­tial debate, we’ll be fol­low­ing this one in real time, with updates simul­cast on Twit­ter. Let’s get started!

UPDATE, 8:02 PM (Andrew): No open­ing state­ments for this debate. We’re going straight to ques­tions. Jim Brun­ner of the Seat­tle Times is going first. What could you do to hold down tuition increases?

UPDATE, 8:07 PM (Andrew): Brun­ner has a fol­low-up. He asks the can­di­dates if they can put more mon­ey into edu­ca­tion if rev­enue assump­tions don’t pan out.

UPDATE, 8:09 PM (Andrew): Guber­na­to­r­i­al can­di­dates now talk­ing about state and local prop­er­ty tax levies (which pri­mar­i­ly fund schools).

UPDATE, 8:11 PM (Andrew): McKen­na: Inslee has no plan for com­ply­ing with the McCleary decisions.

UPDATE, 8:12 PM (Andrew): Inslee keeps say­ing we’ll gen­er­ate rev­enue by putting peo­ple to work. You need to be more spe­cif­ic, Jay.

UPDATE, 8:13 PM (Andrew): Some crosstalk between Inslee and McKenna…

UPDATE, 8:13 PM (Patrick): McKen­na says Inslee hasn’t read the prop­er­ty tax swap pro­pos­al to fund schools and then says the details haven’t been worked out yet.

UPDATE, 8:14 PM (Andrew): Oh, great. Susan­nah Frame is ask­ing about “Waste on the Water”, KING5′s over­hyped series of spe­cial reports alleg­ing cor­rup­tion and mis­man­age­ment at Wash­ing­ton State Ferries.

UPDATE, 8:16 PM (Patrick): Lean man­age­ment may be good, but doesn’t pre­cise­ly inspire pas­sion. Wash­ing­ton State Fer­ries is impor­tant, but a large part of the state doesn’t bor­der the water or reg­u­lar­ly use the ferries.

UPDATE, 8:17 PM (Andrew): McKen­na: The fer­ry sys­tem is part of the trans­porta­tion sys­tem. Fer­ry fare­box recov­ery is pret­ty high.

UPDATE, 8:18 PM (Andrew): McKen­na says he’d fire David Mose­ley, who cur­rent­ly runs WSDOT, but makes it clear he expects David to resign first if he wins.

UPDATE, 8:19 PM (Andrew): Jim Brun­ner asks about clos­ing tax loop­holes. Can you name spe­cif­ic exemp­tions you would con­sid­er clos­ing, and how much would it raise?

UPDATE, 8:20 PM (Andrew): Inslee has some exam­ples of unnec­es­sary and out­dat­ed tax loop­holes ready. Way to go, Jay!

UPDATE, 8:20 PM (Patrick): Inslee is talk­ing about clos­ing unneed­ed tax loop­holes. It is a con­tin­u­ing dis­ap­point­ment that nei­ther can­di­date has a plan for rais­ing rev­enue rev­enue, but Inslee def­i­nite­ly dis­tin­guished him­self from McKen­na in tak­ing a stance to remove exemp­tions which do not serve the pub­lic interest.

UPDATE, 8:22 PM (Andrew): McKenna’s exam­ple isn’t real­ly a tax loop­hole. He’s talk­ing about out-of-state retail­ers being able to sell Wash­ing­to­ni­ans goods with­out hav­ing to col­lect sales tax. Many of those retail­ers have no pres­ence in Wash­ing­ton – the state can’t fix that prob­lem itself.

UPDATE, 8:24 PM (Andrew): Robert Mak asks about Jay Inslee about his pro­posed office of eco­nom­ic competitiveness.

UPDATE, 8:26 PM (Andrew): Rob, if it is so expen­sive and dif­fi­cult to do busi­ness here, why are we con­sid­ered one of the best states to do busi­ness? Been ranked in the top ten by Forbes for many years running!

UPDATE, 8:26 PM (Andrew): McKen­na has a pen­sive look on the split screen.

UPDATE, 8:28 PM (Andrew): The ques­tions tonight from the KING5/Seattle Times pan­el have been pret­ty good so far.

UPDATE, 8:29 PM (Andrew): Jay, you mean uncom­mon sense. Com­mon sense does not exist. If it did, we would not talk about need­ing it.

UPDATE, 8:29 PM (Andrew): Oh no, they’re let­ting the can­di­dates ask ques­tions of each other…

UPDATE, 8:30 PM (Andrew): Rob McKenna’s ques­tion was ridicu­lous: Why do you think news­pa­pers are endors­ing me instead of you?

UPDATE, 8:30 PM (Patrick): Inslee is defend­ing his pro­pos­al to help com­pa­nies in the renew­able ener­gy sec­tor, rebut­ting the oft-stat­ed line by McKen­na that he’s “pick­ing win­ners and losers”. Inslee’s response is it would help out busi­ness­es that need it, and spur innovation.

UPDATE, 8:31 PM (Andrew): Jay is explain­ing that he has tak­en stances that weren’t nec­es­sar­i­ly pop­u­lar with news­pa­per edi­to­r­i­al boards at the time, but in hind­sight proved to be spot-on.

UPDATE, 8:34 PM (Andrew): Inslee asks McKen­na about his sup­port for women’s repro­duc­tive rights.

UPDATE, 8:36 PM (Andrew): Rob, there’s no need to be pet­ty. You are part of the polit­i­cal estab­lish­ment in this state, just as Jay Inslee is. You have been AG for eight years.

UPDATE, 8:37 PM (Andrew): Jean Enersen moves the debate along.

UPDATE, 8:38 PM (Andrew): Ah good, a ques­tion about an issue that does not nor­mal­ly get cov­ered. What would you do to main­tain and improve access to water and address the state’s need for guest workers?

UPDATE, 8:39 PM (Andrew): Inslee says he under­stands the issues fac­ing east­ern Wash­ing­ton. And he would know… he used to rep­re­sent places like Yaki­ma, Chelan, and Selah.

UPDATE, 8:39 PM (Patrick): Inslee is talk­ing about the need for bipar­ti­san­ship on immi­gra­tion, but cites the intractabil­i­ty of Repub­li­cans in try­ing to pass the DREAM Act and com­pre­hen­sive reform.

UPDATE, 8:40 PM (Andrew): McKenna’s retort: I have rep­re­sent­ed the entire state as Attor­ney Gen­er­al. (But he has not rep­re­sent­ed the entire state or even large swaths of it as a lawmaker).

UPDATE, 8:41 PM (Patrick): Inslee is talk­ing about how chang­ing the require­ments for pro­vid­ing driver’s licens­es would be coun­ter­pro­duc­tive and cost­ly. McKen­na clear­ly dis­agrees, and says he sup­ports putting more bar­ri­ers in place for peo­ple who are undocumented.

UPDATE, 8:42 PM (Andrew): Inslee: We should not pre­vent immi­grants not here legal­ly from obtain­ing driver’s licenses.

UPDATE, 8:42 PM (Andrew): McKen­na: Give undoc­u­ment­ed immi­grants per­mits to dri­ve instead of licens­es to drive.

UPDATE, 8:43 PM (Andrew): Ques­tion from Chris Ingalls: Does DSHS need an over­haul? What changes would you make?

UPDATE, 8:44 PM (Andrew): McKen­na: DSHS needs new leadership.

UPDATE, 8:45 PM (Patrick): What can we do to strength­en and stream­line our social safe­ty net? That’s the top­ic the can­di­dates are dis­cussing now. Inslee is not sur­pris­ing­ly tout­ing ‘lean man­age­ment’ again. He’s sug­gest­ing pri­vate con­trac­tors could play a big­ger role. Of course, the rea­son we have pub­lic ser­vices is because the pri­vate sec­tor doesn’t excel at every­thing, con­trary to what Repub­li­cans often claim. It is wrong to claim that every­thing worth doing can be done as a for-prof­it enterprise.

UPDATE, 8:47 PM (Andrew): McKen­na calls Inslee’s last answer “spec­tac­u­lar­ly uninformed”.

UPDATE, 8:47 PM (Andrew): Next ques­tion is about tolls – poten­tial tolling on I‑90 and oth­er roadways.

UPDATE, 8:49 PM (Andrew): McKen­na: We will need tolls on the new Colum­bia Riv­er Cross­ing. HOT lanes are an option. Sug­gests I‑90 express lanes could be turned into HOT lanes.

UPDATE, 8:50 PM (Andrew): Inslee: I will assem­ble trans­porta­tion pack­age to improve freight mobil­i­ty and alter­na­tives to dri­ving. Says we should have light rail and pub­lic trans­porta­tion. I ful­ly sup­port East Link light rail.

UPDATE, 8:51 PM (Andrew): Nei­ther can­di­date has said if they sup­port tolling I‑90.

UPDATE, 8:51 PM (Patrick): The pan­elists are fol­low­ing up on the ques­tion of light rail, and just asked McKen­na if he sup­ports it. He says he does, but he is mak­ing it seem like build­ing light rail is hard­er to accom­plish than it actu­al­ly is.

UPDATE, 8:51 PM (Andrew): McKen­na: East Link tech­ni­cal prob­lems are Sound Transit’s to solve. He implies he won’t inter­fere with the project. Riight.

UPDATE, 8:52 PM (Andrew): Inslee: We move for­ward on trans­porta­tion, job cre­ation, health­care reform.

UPDATE, 8:53 PM (Andrew): Last ques­tion is about edu­ca­tion, from Robert Mak. Do you have a plan to find mon­ey for schools if the econ­o­my does not bounce back? Good question.

UPDATE, 8:53 PM (Andrew): Inslee says we can find sav­ings by imple­ment­ing health­care reform.

UPDATE, 8:53 PM (Patrick): As Andrew not­ed, the pan­elists are try­ing to pin down both can­di­dates on whether they have a fall­back posi­tion in the event eco­nom­ic growth doesn’t gen­er­ate rev­enue to pay for exist­ing ser­vices. but instead rely­ing upon the econ­o­my to improve. Inslee talked about sav­ing mon­ey on health­care costs through the Afford­able Care Act,. McKen­na implies that he’s going to cut the social safe­ty net if he has no oth­er choice… in oth­er words, he’ll rob Peter to pay Paul.

UPDATE, 8:54 PM (Andrew): McKen­na clear­ly can­not wait to give his answer. Takes a deep breath.

UPDATE, 8:55 PM (Andrew): Rob, exact­ly what do you mean when you say we should pri­or­i­tize fund­ing for schools? Give us more than lip ser­vice to education.

UPDATE, 8:56 PM (Patrick): Inslee just cor­rect­ed McKen­na and stat­ed that edu­ca­tion fund­ing actu­al­ly went up 22% while he was in the Leg­is­la­ture before mov­ing on to the rest of his clos­ing state­ment. He’s try­ing to strike an upbeat tone.

UPDATE, 8:56 PM (Andrew): Inslee giv­ing his clos­ing state­ment. Cites his back­ground. “We can be greater, I ask for the hon­or of your vote.”

UPDATE, 8:57 PM (Andrew): McKen­na: Do you think we’ll be bet­ter off four years from now if we put the same peo­ple back in? Um, Rob, you’ve been part of the exec­u­tive depart­ment of Wash­ing­ton for eight years. You are not an outsider.

UPDATE, 8:57 PM (Patrick): Rob McKen­na is telling the cam­era that Wash­ing­to­ni­ans will be worse off under Jay Inslee, and ref­er­enced his endorse­ments again. He asks view­ers “to join us”. That’s not the most orig­i­nal or pos­i­tive note to end on. McKen­na hasn’t real­ly explained what he brings to our state cap­i­tal that makes him the more qual­i­fied or pre­pared than Inslee to serve as the state’s chief exec­u­tive. Yes, he’s been attor­ney gen­er­al, but he thinks far more high­ly of him­self than many of his con­stituents do.

UPDATE, 8:58 PM (Andrew): Oops. KING5 broad­cast cut out before Jean Enersen was finished.

UPDATE, 8:59 PM (Andrew): Okay, we are done!