Rob McKenna won’t say where he stands on Tim Eyman’s I‑1125

Today’s Sun­day edi­tion of the Seat­tle Times has a sto­ry by Olympia cor­re­spon­dent Andrew Gar­ber exam­in­ing the cost and con­se­quences of Tim Eyman’s I‑1125, which Eyman got on the bal­lot using a boat­load of mon­ey from Belle­vue Square own­er Kem­per Free­man Jr. (one of his long­time wealthy benefactors).

Gar­ber saw fit to ask Wash­ing­ton’s two lead­ing guber­na­to­r­i­al can­di­dates what their posi­tions were on the ini­tia­tive, which imper­ils key projects like the new Ever­green Point Float­ing Bridge (which car­ries SR 520 over Lake Washington).

He got two very dif­fer­ent answers:

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. Demo­c­ra­t­ic U.S. Rep. Jay Inslee, who’s also run­ning for gov­er­nor, oppos­es it, say­ing it “will dam­age our abil­i­ty to grow our econ­o­my and cre­ate jobs.”

So, let’s get this straight: McKen­na can’t tell us what his posi­tion is because his office might be involved in future lit­i­ga­tion over the matter?

Gee, that sounds like an excuse not to have a posi­tion on any­thing.

I recall that when McKen­na announced his can­di­da­cy back in June, he spoke at length about increas­ing our invest­ment in edu­ca­tion (with­out say­ing how he’d actu­al­ly make that hap­pen). Since McKen­na’s office is present­ly defend­ing the state against a law­suit which con­tends that Wash­ing­ton is fail­ing to meet its “para­mount duty” of “mak­ing ample pro­vi­sion for the edu­ca­tion of all chil­dren resid­ing with­in its bor­ders”, does­n’t that pre­clude him, under his own stan­dard, from talk­ing about the sor­ry state of fund­ing for our pub­lic schools and colleges?

I mean, we’re talk­ing about an issue that is before the Supreme Court now, not an issue that might poten­tial­ly be lit­i­gat­ed down the road.

You can see where I’m going with this. McKen­na might as well have no cam­paign plat­form at all; any issue he talks about — or is asked about — could end up being lit­i­gat­ed, and McKen­na would have to defend the state if it was sued.

As I said, the excuse offered by his uniden­ti­fied spokesper­son is an excuse that can work to deflect any ques­tion about any issue, period.

What McKen­na is doing here is hid­ing in his office, so to speak. He obvi­ous­ly does­n’t want to go on the record about I‑1125. Per­haps that’s because he sup­ports I‑1125, but is afraid of being asso­ci­at­ed with Tim Eyman.

McKen­na is actu­al­ly the coau­thor of one of Tim Eyman’s ear­li­est ini­tia­tives — I‑747, which was struck down by the Supreme Court in Novem­ber 2007 as uncon­sti­tu­tion­al. (The ini­tia­tive was rein­stat­ed — fool­ish­ly — by Gov­er­nor Chris Gre­goire and state law­mak­ers that same month).

Reporters ought to press McKen­na on this mat­ter. If he can’t take a posi­tion on I‑1125, how can he take a posi­tion on any impor­tant issue?

This cop-out on I‑1125 should not go unchallenged.

POSTSCRIPT: A quick search of the NPI Advo­cate’s own archives, along with those of the Seat­tle Times, con­firms my sus­pi­cion that McKen­na has pre­vi­ous­ly tak­en posi­tions on statewide ini­tia­tives while he was attor­ney gen­er­al.

Here’s an excerpt from a Seat­tle Times sto­ry from 2008, writ­ten by Andrew Gar­ber’s col­league Bob Young, which sum­ma­rizes a debate McKen­na had with Demo­c­rat John Laden­burg at Seat­tle University:

Laden­burg and McKen­na agreed on a num­ber of issues: Both stressed their respect for trib­al sov­er­eign­ty; both said they’d vote against Ini­tia­tive 1000, which seeks to legal­ize assist­ed sui­cide for ter­mi­nal­ly ill patients.

I was actu­al­ly at that debate as well — here’s the rel­e­vant excerpt from my report:

Bruce Ram­sey [of the Seat­tle Times] just asked the can­di­dates about Ini­tia­tive 1000.

McKen­na said he’ll vote against it (although he explained that his office will vig­or­ous­ly defend the law in court if it is passed), and Laden­burg added that he will also like­ly vot­ed against it.

When Rob McKen­na was run­ning for reelec­tion as attor­ney gen­er­al four years ago, he dis­closed how he’d vote on an impor­tant statewide ini­tia­tive when he was asked — the ques­tion is, why can’t he do so now, as a can­di­date for gov­er­nor?