House contest pits trooper, ex-officer

By Jennifer Sullivan
Seattle Times Snohomish County bureau

Republican Jeff Merrill, left, is challenging four-term Rep. Al O'Brien, a Democrat, in the 1st Legislative District.

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Criminal-justice issues will be at the forefront of the campaign between former Seattle police officer and Democratic state Rep. Al O'Brien and Republican Jeff Merrill, a Washington State Patrol trooper and Bothell councilman.

O'Brien, who has represented the 1st Legislative District for four terms, supports alternatives to prison for some offenders, while Merrill does not.

The state spends $26,000 annually per prison inmate, said O'Brien, the chairman of the House Criminal Justice and Corrections Committee. An offender who has a drug problem and stays in the community while receiving treatment costs the state between $3,000 and $5,000.

"I'm going to continue to insist on drug treatment for nonviolent drug abusers, rather than prison," said O'Brien, who was a Seattle police officer for 29 years. "We can cut down costs and keep the person in society, paying taxes and raising their family."

At the same time, O'Brien is drafting a "one strike, you're out" measure that would send an offender to prison for life if he or she committed a "serious" sex crime, was deemed likely to re-offend and met the state's "mental abnormality" standard.

O'Brien, a former Mountlake Terrace councilman, also wants to change the way the business-and-occupation tax is levied. He suggests levying the tax on profits rather than on gross receipts. Businesses not making a profit would not pay the tax.

"Then maybe more businesses will come into being and be able to thrive and generate taxes for the state and make up some of that loss," O'Brien said.

But he added that the money lost because of such a tax change would be hard to replace.

Merrill, who has been a state trooper for about 20 years, said he doesn't support alternatives to prison as proposed by O'Brien.

"I spend my days trying to arrest them, and he's passed bills to try to get them out of jail early," Merrill said. "Now they're simply reducing the jail sentences for all of the criminals so they don't have to come up with additional jail space."
 
Funding for criminal-justice needs, such as jail space, dovetails with the state's revenue problems, Merrill said.

He said he wants to see audits performed on all state agencies and supports business-and-occupation tax breaks.

"If you have deadwood in your private business, you're going to get rid of that," Merrill said. "That's what we need to do in Olympia."

Merrill, a former Bothell mayor, said he wants to increase the likelihood that small businesses would purchase health insurance for their employees by scaling down the state's minimum requirements. This would allow small businesses to cover more employees with less-comprehensive insurance, he said.

"Right now, employers just can't afford the level of insurance coverage that the state mandates they carry if they're going to provide it for their employees," he said.