Reg­u­lar read­ers may recall that a cou­ple week­ends ago, we pub­lished a post crit­i­ciz­ing Rob McKen­na for refus­ing to tell Wash­ing­to­ni­ans where he stands on Tim Eyman’s anti-tolling, anti-light rail Ini­tia­tive 1125.

The Seat­tle Times had just pub­lished a sto­ry by reporter Andrew Gar­ber on I‑1125 the day before. For his sto­ry, Gar­ber had tried to find out what our state’s two lead­ing guber­na­to­r­i­al can­di­dates thought of I‑1125. He got a sol­id answer from Jay Inslee (the like­ly Demo­c­ra­t­ic nom­i­nee), but McKen­na, through a spokesman, was eva­sive, offer­ing a pret­ty lame cop-out:

State Attor­ney Gen­er­al Rob McKen­na, the Repub­li­can can­di­date for gov­er­nor in 2012, has to defend ini­tia­tives and can’t com­ment about the issue, a spokesman said.

I point­ed out that non-answer sounds like an excuse not to have a posi­tion on any­thing. I also researched the NPI Advo­cate’s archive (and the Seat­tle Times’ archive) and dis­cov­ered that in 2008, Bruce Ram­sey of the Times had asked McKen­na and his oppo­nent that year for Attor­ney Gen­er­al, John Laden­burg, how they were plan­ning to vote on I‑1000 (the Death with Dig­ni­ty ini­tia­tive) — and that both can­di­dates had answered that they were vot­ing no.

It turns out this dis­cov­ery was the cat­a­lyst that caused McKen­na’s cam­paign to do an about-face and announce how he is going to vote on this year’s ini­tia­tives.

McKen­na’s cam­paign ear­li­er this month declined com­ment on I‑1125, say­ing that the attor­ney gen­er­al had to defend ini­tia­tives and could­n’t address the issue. How­ev­er, when it was point­ed out that McKen­na opposed I‑1000 in 2008, he agreed to give his posi­tion on this year’s initiatives.

Empha­sis is mine.

The day after we report­ed that McKen­na had opposed I‑1000 in 2008, The Stranger picked up on the dis­cov­ery, fol­lowed by the state Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty. And ulti­mate­ly, Andrew Gar­ber, who does a good job cov­er­ing pol­i­tics for the Times, fol­lowed up and got an answer, as we had hoped that he would.

While we are very hap­py to have played a role in spurring McKen­na to share his posi­tions on this year’s bal­lot mea­sures with the peo­ple of this state, we wish he just would have been upfront about it when he was asked the first time, instead of hid­ing behind his office and hav­ing a spokesman claim he could­n’t comment.

Had McKen­na answered Gar­ber’s ques­tion when Gar­ber was writ­ing his orig­i­nal sto­ry, McKen­na’s posi­tion could have been includ­ed. It would have added an impor­tant dimen­sion to the arti­cle. Where McKen­na stands on 1125 and the two oth­er ini­tia­tives before us this year is impor­tant: he’s a can­di­date for gov­er­nor and these are issues we’re all going to be vot­ing on.

So what is McKen­na’s stance on I‑1125? Well, as it turns out, he is vot­ing NO:

Repub­li­can Attor­ney Gen­er­al Rob McKen­na, who is run­ning for gov­er­nor in 2012, said Fri­day he oppos­es Tim Eyman’s tolling mea­sure and SEIU’s ini­tia­tive to rein­state train­ing require­ments for long-term-care workers.

“I will vote no on both. SEIU’s (ini­tia­tive) is not fund­ed, and the state bud­get has no mon­ey for it, as Gov. Gre­goire has point­ed out. Eyman’s bans vari­able tolling, which actu­al­ly is a good tool to reduce con­ges­tion and allo­cate scarce capac­i­ty,” McKen­na said in a statement.

In oppos­ing I‑1125, McKen­na is break­ing with the Wash­ing­ton State Repub­li­can Par­ty (which sup­ports I‑1125) and with Eyman, who he assist­ed ten years ago when he coau­thored Eyman’s I‑747 with Jim John­son. That’s significant.

Wel­come to the Keep Wash­ing­ton Rolling coali­tion, Mr. Attor­ney General.

McKen­na did not announce a posi­tion on I‑1183, Cost­co’s liquor pri­va­ti­za­tion mea­sure; his cam­paign claims he is unde­cid­ed. (To be fair, Jay Inslee does not have a posi­tion on I‑1183 either, but at least he’s plan­ning on announc­ing what his posi­tion is before too much more time has elapsed).

McKen­na does­n’t have very long to make up his mind, at least not if he is plan­ning to vote right after receiv­ing his bal­lot. (Bal­lots will be mailed late next week).