Rodney Tom to constituents: “I believe my credentials as a Democrat are rock solid”

Since announc­ing on Mon­day that he has decid­ed to join with Tim Shel­don in engi­neer­ing a new Repub­li­can major­i­ty in the Wash­ing­ton State Sen­ate, Med­i­na’s Rod­ney Tom has been field­ing phone calls and emails from unhap­py Demo­c­ra­t­ic con­stituents in the 48th Dis­trict who have told him in no uncer­tain terms that they regard his actions as a betray­al of their trust.

Wash­ing­ton State Demo­c­ra­t­ic Chair Dwight Pelz spoke for the par­ty’s grass­roots base when he declared, “The truth here is that Sen­a­tor Tom has insti­gat­ed this unprece­dent­ed coup and joined with Repub­li­cans to install him­self as Major­i­ty Leader out of a desire to fur­ther his own per­son­al ambi­tions, not out of what is in the best inter­ests of his con­stituents or the pub­lic at large. What he announced today is a pre­scrip­tion for insta­bil­i­ty and division.”

Tom, of course, does­n’t see it that way.

Judg­ing by how Tom has cho­sen to respond to the Demo­c­ra­t­ic and pro­gres­sive activists who have writ­ten in to him, it appears he has con­vinced him­self that he can con­tin­ue to belong to the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty in the 48th Dis­trict while simul­ta­ne­ous­ly belong­ing to the Repub­li­can Par­ty on the Capi­tol Cam­pus in Olympia.

Those who decid­ed to express their dis­plea­sure with Tom by email have been get­ting a form let­ter in response. Tom does not dis­cuss the ram­i­fi­ca­tions of Repub­li­cans con­trol­ling the state Sen­ate in the let­ter (which is what Demo­c­ra­t­ic activists have said they are most upset about), but rather reels off his own goals for the bud­get and what he con­sid­ers to be his “rock sol­id” Demo­c­ra­t­ic credentials.

We know this because sev­er­al NPI sup­port­ers have been kind enough to for­ward on the replies they got from Tom, and we were able to com­pare them.

With the excep­tion of a few minor word changes in a cou­ple of places, the respons­es are iden­ti­cal, and demon­strate that Tom thinks he has more impor­tant things to do at the moment than reply indi­vid­u­al­ly to his con­stituents (like script his next moves in a back room with Republicans).

Since Tom has cho­sen to reply to his con­stituents in this man­ner, we might as well pub­lish and dis­cuss the form let­ter, for the ben­e­fit of every­one who has not had the time to send Tom a note but shares the sen­ti­ments of those who have.

I’ll take Tom’s response para­graph by para­graph, and offer thoughts in between.

Let’s start with Tom’s open­ing line:

Thank you for writ­ing to me regard­ing your [dismay]/[outrage] that I joined in form­ing a bipar­ti­san major­i­ty in the Senate.

There is noth­ing bipar­ti­san about the major­i­ty that Tom and Shel­don have helped engi­neer. By join­ing the Repub­li­cans, they have left the Democ­rats.

Tom sub­con­scious­ly admit­ted as much when he referred to his Demo­c­ra­t­ic col­leagues as “them” dur­ing his press con­fer­ence with top Repub­li­cans like Mark Schoesler last Mon­day. Of course, Tom wants the Repub­li­can major­i­ty he has engi­neered to be referred to and thought of as a bipar­ti­san major­i­ty, but that’s a fic­tion. Tom is a for­mer Repub­li­can and Tim Shel­don has always been a Repub­li­can at heart (Shel­don was a sup­port­er of George W. Bush dur­ing the Bush error).

Nev­er­the­less, Tom  — per­haps sens­ing that a sec­ond self-declared par­ty switch in six years would make him look the oppor­tunist he is — wants to be con­sid­ered a Demo­c­rat, not a born-again Republican.

I under­stand your sin­cere con­cern, and I want to be clear: I am a Demo­c­rat and I will remain a Demo­c­rat. I believe my cre­den­tials as a Demo­c­rat are rock sol­id. If you look at my stances through­out the years, I am a social­ly pro­gres­sive, fis­cal­ly pru­dent Demo­c­rat. I’ll com­pare my posi­tions on social issues with any mem­ber of the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty. I’ve always been 100 per­cent pro-choice; I have sup­port­ed the mar­riage equal­i­ty effort my entire ten years in the Leg­is­la­ture; I have been one of the strongest sup­port­ers in the Leg­is­la­ture for fam­i­ly plan­ning fund­ing; I was the prime spon­sor on the gun show loop­hole clo­sure leg­is­la­tion. At the fed­er­al lev­el I believe in the Buf­fet rule; that we need a more pro­gres­sive tax struc­ture and a much high­er fed­er­al estate tax, and that we’re spend­ing way too much on defense. I don’t know of any­one who would say those posi­tions come from the Repub­li­can platform.

Sen­a­tor Tom does not appear to under­stand what it means to be a Demo­c­rat. The Demo­c­ra­t­ic plat­form is not some laun­dry list of issue posi­tions or stances; it is a state­ment of val­ues and prin­ci­ples, with pol­i­cy direc­tions derived from the log­ic of those val­ues and prin­ci­ples. The par­ty does not demand that its can­di­dates and elect­ed lead­ers rigid­ly adhere to the platform.

How­ev­er, Demo­c­ra­t­ic can­di­dates are absolute­ly expect­ed to gov­ern as Democ­rats once elect­ed. A Demo­c­ra­t­ic leg­is­la­tor is expect­ed to work with oth­er Demo­c­ra­t­ic leg­is­la­tors to advance Demo­c­ra­t­ic val­ues and principles.

Rod­ney Tom is doing the opposite.

Actions speak loud­er than words. An elect­ed offi­cial’s record mat­ters more than his or her rhetoric. Rod­ney Tom can say he’s social­ly pro­gres­sive, but his pow­er grab jeop­ar­dizes the prospects of social­ly pro­gres­sive leg­is­la­tion like the Repro­duc­tive Par­i­ty Act — which might well have passed last ses­sion were it not for Tom, Shel­don, and the depart­ing Jim Kas­ta­ma, who con­spired with Repub­li­cans to give them the Sen­ate floor right before a cru­cial cut­off.

Had Tom cho­sen to stay in the Demo­c­ra­t­ic cau­cus and work with his Demo­c­ra­t­ic col­leagues, Ed Mur­ray would be the incom­ing major­i­ty leader, and Democ­rats would con­trol the Sen­ate’s com­mit­tees. But Tom want­ed pow­er, and he got it by ham­mer­ing out a back­room deal to engi­neer a Repub­li­can major­i­ty with fel­low rene­gade Tim Shel­don. What­ev­er his cre­den­tials as a Demo­c­rat were before, they’re not rel­e­vant now. What is rel­e­vant is what he has done.

Mov­ing on:

I also believe we need to be fis­cal­ly respon­si­ble, which means we can’t spend mon­ey we don’t have. George W. Bush was the most fis­cal­ly irre­spon­si­ble pres­i­dent in our nation’s his­to­ry, but that does­n’t give Democ­rats a license to fol­low his stu­pid­i­ty. As a coun­try, we are broke. The Simp­son-Bowles pro­pos­al at the fed­er­al lev­el is just a start; to pre­tend we’re not in a huge fis­cal hole is to be blind to real­i­ty. I believe we have a moral oblig­a­tion not to bur­den future gen­er­a­tions with our exces­sive spend­ing. George Wash­ing­ton said it best, “We should avoid ungen­er­ous­ly throw­ing upon pos­ter­i­ty the bur­dens that we our­selves ought to bear.” The Amer­i­can Dream is to leave a lega­cy where the next gen­er­a­tion is bet­ter off, not starved by our debts.

Speak­ing for myself, I am unaware of any Democ­rats who want to fol­low the bad exam­ple that George W. Bush set. With the help of Repub­li­cans in Con­gress, Bush slashed tax­es for the wealthy, invad­ed oth­er coun­tries with­out pay­ing for it, and award­ed plen­ty of lucra­tive no-bid con­tracts to the mil­i­tary-indus­tri­al com­plex. We are still liv­ing with the excess­es of the Bush error.

But we are not broke. It is a mis­take to think of the Unit­ed States as anal­o­gous to a house­hold or even a cor­po­ra­tion (which can go broke or bank­rupt). Tom’s choice of words makes me think he does not under­stand macro­eco­nom­ics. As a coun­try, we cer­tain­ly have debt; how­ev­er, we also have the abil­i­ty to pay off our debt with­out gut­ting the pub­lic ser­vices we want and need.

Fis­cal respon­si­bil­i­ty is a pol­i­cy direc­tion the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty strong­ly sup­ports. But fis­cal respon­si­bil­i­ty does not mean aus­ter­i­ty. Aus­ter­i­ty mea­sures at all lev­els of gov­ern­ment are actu­al­ly irre­spon­si­ble because they result in degrad­ed or destroyed pub­lic ser­vices and few­er jobs. We have an infra­struc­ture deficit in addi­tion to a finan­cial deficit, and we sim­ply can­not ignore that.

At the fed­er­al lev­el, we need to both invest in our future and get more con­trol over our debt, which spi­raled out of con­trol dur­ing the Bush error.

If Tom is so con­cerned about solv­ing our nation’s man­u­fac­tured fis­cal cri­sis, per­haps he should resign from his posi­tion and go to the Oth­er Wash­ing­ton to lob­by for what he thinks is right. Here in this Wash­ing­ton, we have a dif­fer­ent set of fis­cal prob­lems. We have a regres­sive, loop­hole-rid­den tax struc­ture that is com­plete­ly bro­ken. We are sore­ly in need of tax reform to ensure that we can fair­ly and amply fund the pub­lic ser­vices our state’s econ­o­my depends on.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, the Leg­is­la­ture, which Rod­ney Tom has been a part of for near­ly a decade, has resort­ed to back­fill­ing and gim­micks to bal­ance the bud­get, instead of address­ing the root caus­es of our fis­cal problems.

For exam­ple, in Novem­ber of 2007, Tom vot­ed with Democ­rats and fel­low Repub­li­cans in a one-day spe­cial ses­sion to rein­state Tim Eyman’s Ini­tia­tive 747 at the request of Gov­er­nor Chris Gre­goire. When the Supreme Court tossed I‑747 out as uncon­sti­tu­tion­al, they gave the Leg­is­la­ture an oppor­tu­ni­ty to get to work on tax reform. But instead of mak­ing the most of that oppor­tu­ni­ty, the Leg­is­la­ture sim­ply reen­act­ed Eyman’s regres­sive ini­tia­tive.

Back to Tom’s reply:

By focus­ing on empow­er­ing mid­dle-class fam­i­lies, our coali­tion’s pri­or­i­ties are:

1. Pro­vid­ing a vibrant econ­o­my, so we have a stronger job market.
2. Pro­vid­ing a world-class edu­ca­tion sys­tem, so our stu­dents will have the skills and knowl­edge to com­pete in a glob­al, high-tech world.
3. Mak­ing sure we have a sus­tain­able bud­get that lives with­in our means by pri­or­i­tiz­ing core gov­ern­ment functions.

This is mean­ing­less boil­er­plate. I’d wager that every­one elect­ed to the state­house in 2012 wants “a vibrant econ­o­my” and “a world-class edu­ca­tion sys­tem” and “a sus­tain­able bud­get”. The dev­il is in the details, as the say­ing goes. And this is where Democ­rats and Repub­li­cans diverge. Demo­c­ra­t­ic can­di­dates and Repub­li­cans may say sim­i­lar things on the cam­paign trail, but the log­ic of Democratic/progressive and Republican/conservative val­ues is very dif­fer­ent. To elab­o­rate a bit:

• Democ­rats believe that broad pros­per­i­ty stems from pub­lic invest­ment. Wash­ing­ton is a great place to live, work, and do busi­ness because of its parks, schools, uni­ver­si­ties, first respon­ders, hos­pi­tals, and oth­er pub­lic ser­vices. The pub­lic infra­struc­ture paid for by the tax­pay­ers of this state and of the Unit­ed States is what makes our vibrant econ­o­my pos­si­ble. Repub­li­cans believe that gov­ern­ment is the prob­lem, that it already takes too much of our mon­ey, and that it should be drowned in a bath­tub, to para­phrase Grover Norquist (Tim Eyman’s role mod­el). Repub­li­cans want to wreck gov­ern­ment by elim­i­nat­ing or crip­pling vital pub­lic services.
• Democ­rats believe that bud­gets are moral doc­u­ments, and that our state’s bud­get, when there is a short­fall, should be bal­anced by rais­ing rev­enue in addi­tion to find­ing sav­ings wher­ev­er pos­si­ble. Repub­li­cans see bud­get short­falls as oppor­tu­ni­ties to slash vital pub­lic ser­vices. Repub­li­cans also oppose rais­ing rev­enue or repeal­ing out­dat­ed, unnec­es­sary tax loop­holes in vir­tu­al­ly all cir­cum­stances. Many Repub­li­can state leg­is­la­tors have signed Grover Norquist’s abso­lutist no new tax­es pledge.
• Democ­rats have called for I‑960/I‑1053/I‑1185 to be struck down because it vio­lates our state Con­sti­tu­tion and unde­mo­c­ra­t­i­cal­ly pre­vents the Leg­is­la­ture from oper­at­ing the way our founders intend­ed it to. Democ­rats want gov­ern­ment that works and a Leg­is­la­ture run by the many, not the few. The Repub­li­can Par­ty of Wash­ing­ton has sup­port­ed all of the afore­men­tioned ini­tia­tives and is now prepar­ing to sup­port Tim Eyman and Janea Holmquist New­bry in a push to put the two-thirds scheme for rais­ing rev­enue into the Con­sti­tu­tion by amend­ment. Iron­i­cal­ly, that will take a two-thirds vote of each house of the Leg­is­la­ture to do, and Repub­li­cans do not have the votes.

By strik­ing a deal to become Major­i­ty Leader in name only and put Repub­li­cans in con­trol of the Wash­ing­ton State Sen­ate, Rod­ney Tom has embraced the Repub­li­can agen­da and the con­ser­v­a­tive val­ues sys­tem that under­pins that agenda.

That is his choice. He should not be sur­prised that Democ­rats see his pow­er grab as act of betray­al. Because that is pre­cise­ly what it is.

I am very much focused on the end goal of what gets to the gov­er­nor’s desk, know­ing that we have a solid­ly Demo­c­ra­t­ic House that has­n’t always been fis­cal­ly pru­dent. I believe it’s imper­a­tive that the Sen­ate lead the charge in com­ing out with a fis­cal­ly respon­si­ble bud­get, so that when we com­pro­mise between the House and Sen­ate, we don’t have the sum­ma­tion of two fis­cal­ly irre­spon­si­ble bud­gets, tak­ing us off the fis­cal cliff.

Speak­er Frank Chopp and mem­bers of his cau­cus would, I am sure, dis­pute Tom’s con­tention that “we have a solid­ly Demo­c­ra­t­ic House that has­n’t always been fis­cal­ly pru­dent.” Speak­er Chopp has fought hard to save many vital pub­lic ser­vices from being evis­cer­at­ed and elim­i­nat­ed. His efforts in that regard have been hero­ic and noble, and deserve com­men­da­tion, not condemnation.

Speak­er Chopp and his cau­cus rec­og­nize that Wash­ing­ton must invest in its future. That is why Chopp and House Democ­rats have worked to com­ply with the McCleary deci­sion and save ser­vices like Apple Health or Dis­abil­i­ty Lifeline.

Rod­ney Tom, mean­while, has been obsessed with con­ser­v­a­tive schemes like liquor pri­va­ti­za­tion, which don’t save mon­ey or improve Wash­ing­ton’s qual­i­ty of life.

I would remind you that there was a lot of con­cern about my actions last ses­sion when we went to the Ninth Order in the Sen­ate to devel­op an alter­na­tive bud­get to the bud­get pro­posed by the Demo­c­ra­t­ic major­i­ty. In the end, the final bud­get vote was 44–2, unprece­dent­ed bipar­ti­san sup­port that showed we real­ly did move to mid­dle ground; that we could all agree to a bet­ter bud­get for tax­pay­ers and make sure that our most vul­ner­a­ble were pro­tect­ed. And we ful­ly fund­ed core gov­ern­ment services.

The Sen­ate did not go to the Ninth Order to devel­op an alter­na­tive bud­get, it went to the Ninth Order to pass an alter­na­tive bud­get that had been put togeth­er in a back room by Repub­li­cans with­out pub­lic input. That alter­na­tive bud­get got a frosty recep­tion in the state House.

In the end, con­trary to what Tom implies, the Leg­is­la­ture went home after pass­ing a final bud­get that more close­ly resem­bled the bud­get orig­i­nal­ly pro­posed by Ed Mur­ray and the Demo­c­ra­t­ic major­i­ty than the Repub­li­cans’ mid­night budget.

As David Gold­stein explained back in April:

Sen­ate Repub­li­can bud­get chief Joe Zarel­li’s $44 mil­lion of cuts from K‑12 and $30 mil­lion from high­er edu­ca­tion? Did­n’t hap­pen. Dis­abil­i­ty Life­line, the Alco­holism and Drug Addic­tion Treat­ment and Sup­port Act, Hous­ing and Essen­tial Needs, State Food Assis­tance, and oth­er social pro­grams Zarel­li sought to elim­i­nate? All fund­ed in the final bud­get at lev­els sim­i­lar to what Mur­ray had proposed.

The Dems’ pro­posed one-day delay in mak­ing a pay­ment to pub­lic school dis­tricts, well, that par­tic­u­lar account­ing maneu­ver was squashed, but then so was the Repub­li­cans’ pro­pos­al to skip a pay­ment to state pen­sion funds. Instead, much of the half bil­lion dol­lar rev­enue short­fall is made up with a dif­fer­ent account­ing trick, one which which keeps $238 mil­lion in local sales tax­es on the state’s books for 30 days, but with­out delay­ing the redis­tri­b­u­tion back to local jurisdictions.

Tom would like us all to think that the late night ses­sion he helped engi­neer back in March led to a bet­ter bud­get. In real­i­ty, all it did was gen­er­ate mis­trust and pro­long the leg­isla­tive ses­sion, wast­ing time and money.

Tom’s form let­ter end­ed with the following:

Thank you again for your note and your con­cern. I hope you have the patience to judge my efforts by what ends up on Gov­er­nor Inslee’s desk.

think Peace!

And what about the leg­is­la­tion that does­n’t end up on Gov­er­nor Inslee’s desk? Thanks to Rod­ney Tom, Repub­li­cans will be in a posi­tion to kill a lot of bills that would advance Democratic/progressive val­ues in the 2013 leg­isla­tive ses­sion. Extreme Repub­li­cans like Pam Roach and Mike Pad­den are already slat­ed to receive com­mit­tee chair­man­ships. That is what mat­ters more than any­thing else.

By team­ing up with Repub­li­cans to seize pow­er in the Wash­ing­ton State Sen­ate, Rod­ney Tom has turned his back on the donors, vol­un­teers, and vot­ers who elect­ed him in 2006 and 2010 and expect­ed him to gov­ern as a Demo­c­rat. By behav­ing like an oppor­tunist, he is invit­ing Wash­ing­to­ni­ans not to trust him.