Issues divide leaders, galvanize demonstrators at governors meeting

By J. Patrick Coolican, Matt Rodriguez and Lornet Turnbull
Seattle Times staff reporters

ALAN BERNER / THE SEATTLE TIMES State employees Chevy Zarate of Moses Lake, left, and Dora Treviņo of Wenatchee were part of a rally at Westlake Park yesterday. Protesters were calling for better health care and "economic dignity." Downtown Seattle was full of police and activists as protests coincided with the National Governors' Association conference.

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By the end of the day, however, the 30 or so governors in attendance were boarding boats to go to dinner together at the home of billionaire software mogul Bill Gates.

Meanwhile, several hundred labor activists, students and advocates for the disabled held spirited protests throughout downtown Seattle.

At Westlake Park, liberal activists voiced concerns about a cornucopia of issues: the Iraq war, health care, wages, influence peddling, corporate greed.

Later in the afternoon, about 400 people representing a disabled-rights group called ADAPT, many of them in wheelchairs, marched and wheeled from Westlake to the Pike Place Market calling for better home-based health care.

The groups were also protesting the use of $2 million in corporate money to fund the conference. Many of the corporate sponsors, including Microsoft, Boeing and Amgen, have a large financial stake in the issues being discussed at the conference.

The conference started on a divisive note, with the governors playing surrogates for the Bush and Kerry presidential campaigns. The meeting's host, Washington Gov. Gary Locke, led the Democratic attack on President Bush.

"The Bush administration has done nothing to help us emerge from these hard times. Americans are working fewer hours, for less money," he said, surrounded by a group of Democratic governors in a conference room of the law firm Preston, Gates & Ellis.

Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack, chairman of the Democratic Governors' Association, noted that unemployment in his state went up last month. "Tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans will not put those 72,000 Iowans back to work," he said, referring to several tax cuts Bush has signed.

Locke and fellow governors from Tennessee, Arizona and several other states also said the large National Guard call-ups for the Iraq war — many of the Guard taken from local police departments — had burdened their states and local communities.

The Republican response

	ALAN BERNER / THE SEATTLE TIMES Dick Hosty, center, of Kansas City, Mo., chants yesterday as about 400 members of ADAPT, a disabled-rights group, march and wheel to Pike Place Market. They called for better home-based health care.

Republicans responded with their own press conference to blast Kerry. Marc Racicot, Bush-Cheney campaign chairman and a former Montana governor, led the GOP blitz, calling Kerry a liberal who had raised taxes, voted against giving $87 billion to the Iraq war effort last fall and switched positions on a number of issues.

Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, former chairman of the Republican National Committee, said Kerry was more liberal than his fellow Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy and accused Kerry, a former prosecutor, of being soft on crime.

Nebraska Gov. Mike Johanns, referring to Kerry's vote to give Bush authorization to attack Iraq but not the $87 billion to fund the war and reconstruction last fall, said, "The Kerry position just appalls me. How he could vote to send soldiers into harm's way and then not vote to fund them is unforgivable."

Three protest marches

The first of three protest marches started at midday when about 100 demonstrators, known as the Infernal Noise Brigade, gathered near Seattle Central Community College for a loud and colorful march to Westlake Park.

"With all that's going on around us — war, job losses, economic strain — so many people are finding themselves in survival mode," said a protester, Ivy Rose Nightscales, a Seattle resident and author. "The common person is under attack."

At Westlake, the demonstrators met with several hundred others from labor and community groups for a rally that featured a speech from Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich, still pursuing his quixotic campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Seattle police officers were out in force on bikes, motorcycles and horses, in cars, paddy wagons and on two buses. At times, they appeared to outnumber the protesters.

Police and their bicycles created a barricade around the Westin Hotel, site of the conference, as the demonstrators shouted to the governors to come down.

Late in the afternoon, a group of about 400 wheelchair activists and their supporters rolled from the Red Lion Hotel to Pike Place Market in support of more government funding for programs that allow them to live independently.

Ben Barrett, whose body was mangled after he was hit by a train in 1993, said "separating people in nursing homes and other institutions is just wrong.

"When they put us all in one building on one side of town they get us out of sight and we're out of mind. If they don't have to see us, they don't worry about us."

Seattle Police reported no problems and no arrests in connection with the protests. "Everything went absolutely according to plan," said spokeswoman Deanna Nolette.

The official business of the governors meeting starts today. The schedule includes policy forums on aging and the environment, as well as a governors-only lunch with Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge and a health-care session with former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, both tomorrow.

The governors also will talk about U.S. foreign policy.

Idaho Gov. Dirk Kempthorne, chairman of the governors association, said the governors will discuss the National Guard in a meeting with Dr. David Chu, undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, and Gen. Ralph Eberhart, commander of North American Aerospace Defense Command.

J. Patrick Coolican: 206-464-3315 or jcoolican@seattletimes.com

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

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