Analysis
Parties set vote traps to ensnare other side

By David Postman
Seattle Times chief political reporter

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It'd be shocking from a man whose mother died of breast cancer and whose sister is in a serious battle with the same disease.

But that's what Democrats would have you believe about the Republican gubernatorial nominee. In fact, they say he thinks the pro golf tour is more important than breast-cancer research.

The charge is included in one of a flurry of mail pieces the party has sent out attacking Rossi, the former chairman of the state Senate Ways and Means Committee.

But behind the vote highlighted by the Washington State Democratic Party is a 6-year-old committee vote that was reversed less than 24 hours later on the Senate floor. The vote grew out of what was essentially a political prank perpetrated by Democrats.

It's the sort of prank that both parties pull in the Legislature.

It's an attempt to force the other side to take what is known colloquially here as a "bad vote" — a vote that can then be used in a hit piece against the lawmaker, or ideally, the entire party, at election time.

(To believe the charge against Rossi, one must also accept that Democrats are soft on funding for breast- and cervical-cancer research, because two years later they were forced to take their own bad vote made to look like they'd rather support millennium parties.)

If this kind of vote had a name in the legislative rules book, it'd come under the title "Poke in the Eye."

Votes are more than fair game in a campaign. Often they are the best, and truest, measure of a candidate's stands on important issues.

Washington voters are seeing numerous examples of votes-as-campaign-fodder this year. Democratic Sen. Patty Murray and Republican Rep. George Nethercutt are mining each other's voting records in their Senate battle.
 
In the presidential race, as with our governor's race, only one candidate has a legislative record, and that creates an imbalance of sorts. President Bush's campaign has years of John Kerry's Senate votes to research and publicize, which could say something about why governors — without voting records — have more luck running for president than senators do.

In the governor's race, Democrat Christine Gregoire's record in government is exclusively with the executive branch. While she has a record as an agency manager and on positions taken, she doesn't have to contend with explaining an aging procedural vote.

Rossi has a seven-year legislative record that includes hundreds of votes.

Yesterday, abortion-rights supporters held a news conference in Seattle to highlight what they said were anti-abortion votes in Rossi's and Nethercutt's records.

But on the flip side of those serious and substantive votes are procedural votes, mistakes and "bad votes."

And that's where the charge against Rossi began.

Story behind Rossi mailer

Here's what the Democratic Party said about cancer and golf in a one-page mailer headlined, "WHERE'S DINO?"

"On breast cancer research:

"Keep looking. Maybe check the golf course.

"Dino voted to spend $200,000 for security at a PGA Championship at the exclusive Sahalee Country Club. But when Democrats offered an amendment to spend $200,000 on breast and cervical cancer screening for low-income women, Rossi voted no."

The vote came in 1998, when Republicans controlled the Senate. The Ways and Means Committee, which Rossi was then a member of and later would chair, was voting on a package of changes to the state's two-year, $19.1 billion budget.

Included in the Republican proposal was $200,000 to the State Patrol for security at the PGA championship.

Democrats on the committee proposed an amendment that would have deleted the money for the golf tournament and instead added $200,000 to the $1 million already earmarked in the budget for breast- and cervical-cancer screening.

The Democrats later changed the amendment to give money for both the PGA and the cancer screening, and it was defeated largely along party lines.

Ironically, it was the Republicans who had included the $1 million for cancer screening in the first place.

Creating an awkward position

Such votes often take place in legislative-committee hearings. The minority party knows it won't have enough votes, but hopes to put the opposition in an awkward position.

And the minority party helps that along by making sure the vote is noticed by a reporter, as was the case in 1998, when a Democratic staffer alerted a reporter that the vote was about to happen.

On the Senate floor the next day, Democrats again moved to delete the golf-tournament money. This time Republicans agreed, with Rossi standing up and saying, "I reluctantly support this because a political statement apparently needed to be made on a minuscule budget item."

In the Legislature, long memories — and attack ads — are made on such minuscule items.

A year later, Democrats, who had won control of the Senate, put $250,000 in the budget for millennium celebrations around the state, including parades and essay contests.

Rossi proposed an amendment to use the money instead for, yes, cervical- and breast-cancer screening.

And Democrats' response? They said they had already put $1 million in the budget for that, and the amendment was rejected.

David Postman: 360-943-9882 or dpostman@seattletimes.com