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County GOP hears from AG McKenna

Speakers at annual fundraiser discuss health care, unions

By Kathie Durbin
Published: March 13, 2011, 12:00am
2 Photos
Local Republicans attend the Lincoln Day Dinner, a fundraiser for Clark County Republicans, at the Hilton Vancouver Washington on Saturday.
Local Republicans attend the Lincoln Day Dinner, a fundraiser for Clark County Republicans, at the Hilton Vancouver Washington on Saturday. Photo Gallery

Attorney General Rob McKenna predicted at a Republican Party banquet Saturday night that the U.S. Supreme Court will issue its ruling in the legal challenge of the health reform law before the 2012 presidential election, likely on a 5-4 vote.

“This should remind you all that we need a Republican President and a Republican Senate approving our Supreme Court justices,” he declared at the annual Clark County Lincoln Day Dinner, a major fundraiser for the party. McKenna was the keynote speaker at the event, which sold out all 350 seats at the Hilton Vancouver Washington.

As one of 28 state attorneys general who have joined lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act, and as a likely but unannounced Republican candidate for Washington governor in 2012, McKenna has more than a passing interest in the high-profile case. He was one of the first attorneys general in the nation to join a Florida lawsuit arguing that the individual mandate in the law, which requires Americans to purchase health coverage or pay a penalty, violates the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution.

“All rights belong to the people,” he said. “We give some to the federal government, some to the states. … If the federal government can regulate what you choose not to buy, then nothing is left,” he said.

McKenna, who is serving his second term as attorney general, said the rulings of five separate federal judges have proved wrong those who declared the legal challenge of the health reform law “frivolous.”

“Two have struck it down,” he said. “But none of them said this was a frivolous lawsuit.” Instead, he said, the courts have agreed that the case is a serious matter of constitutional law.

States challenging the law won a victory last week when a federal appeals court in Atlanta agreed to act swiftly in hearing an appeal of the Florida court’s ruling that because the individual mandate is essential to implementing the law, the entire law is unconstitutional.

McKenna reached out to the Tea Party, declaring that there’s no ideological divide between Tea Party followers and the GOP establishment. He said he welcomed the rallies groups like Vancouver’s We the People held last year in support of his decision to challenge the law.

In a pre-banquet session for elected officials and party leaders Saturday afternoon, McKenna sounded very much like a candidate for governor as he set forth an agenda calling for a more accountable education system and more regulatory and tax certainty for Washington businesses.

“We are at a place in our history that we haven’t been in our lifetimes,” McKenna said. He said that the national unemployment rate is now 18.4 percent, counting those who have dropped out of the work force.

Businesses need certainty, McKenna said. “They need to know things aren’t going to be more complicated in the future. It was important that 65 percent of voters rejected the income tax” on last November’s ballot.

The single most important thing the state can do to build its work force is to invest in the best possible education system, he told the group.

“We spend over $10,000 per pupil in Washington,” he said. Even many teachers are frustrated with how many students come to them unprepared to work at their grade level. “It’s astounding the number of resources that are devoted to remedial math and English,” both in high school and college, he said.

McKenna took a swipe at Gov. Chris Gregoire for failing to compete successfully for federal Race to the Top grants. Washington was not chosen as a finalist. McKenna said that’s because “the party in power” chose not to propose changes to the K-12 system that teachers unions opposed.

“We know a 30 percent dropout rate is not acceptable, but it’s also not inevitable,” McKenna said. School districts in working-class cities like Everett and Renton have managed to reduce their dropout rates significantly, he said.

Kirby Wilbur, the former conservative radio talk show host who is the new chairman of the Washington State Republican Party, called Clark County “a center of resurgence” for Republicans and declared that the GOP has the momentum going into 2012.

“We have the ideas. The Democrats don’t,” he said. “2012 will be a very good year.”

Mike Siegel, a nationally syndicated ratio talk show host who served as master of ceremonies for the Lincoln Day Dinner, went further, saying, “Kirby is going to have the capacity to bring the Tea Party back into the fold.” He noted that Wisconsin and New Jersey, two traditionally Democratic states, have elected conservative governors who are pursuing anti-public-employee-union agendas.

“That is the direction this country is going,” Siegel said. Washington got partway there in 2010, he said, but Democrats still hold the governor’s office and majorities in the House and Senate. He predicted that 2012 will be the year that changes.

To improve education, Siegel said, “the answer is going to be to break up the Washington Education Association.

“What the party does is what the WEA wants,” he said.

State Rep. Bruce Chandler, R-Granger, whose 15th District includes part of east Clark County, called the 2011 legislative session “the most dramatic session in our lifetime” because it presents an opportunity to change government fundamentally in the wake of the recession.

“There is no one in the state of Washington who has been unscathed by this experience,” he said. “My kids will never look at a credit card the same way.”

But, Chandler added, “The agencies in Olympia don’t quite get it yet. They want a little more.”

Kathie Durbin: 360-735-4523 or kathie.durbin@columbian.com.

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