Constantine, Hutchison sharpen criticisms in Rotary Club debates

Susan Hutchison sharpened her criticism of Dow Constantine's close ties to labor Wednesday while he claimed she is hiding her core beliefs from voters in the race for King County executive.

Those exchanges took place in a debate before hundreds of Seattle Rotary Club members at the Westin Seattle, the biggest audience the candidates have had since the August primary.

Hutchison, a former TV news anchor who now directs the Charles Simonyi Fund for Arts and Sciences, said a cozy relationship between labor unions and former County Executive Ron Sims produced "gold-plated" health-care benefits for county employees.

And she said Constantine, the Metropolitan King County Council chairman who benefited from more than $100,000 in expenditures independent of his campaign during the primary — most of it from unions — represents more of the same.

"I say to you as someone who is independent of the unions, I can negotiate across the bargaining table from them and work on behalf of our taxpayers to stand firm with the unions in negotiating packages," Hutchison said.

Her comments came after Constantine touted his budget-cutting record and said he intends to reopen the employee health-care package before it is scheduled to come up for renewal.

"I've leveled with our labor unions," Constantine said, "that the current benefit cost increases are unsustainable and in order for us to continue on the mission to provide services to people, to do what we have to do, we will have to address those cost drivers head-on."

Constantine said he had worked hard to cut county spending by giving employee whistle-blowers more protection, trimming budget proposals from the county executive, freezing hiring by the County Council and requiring regular audits of large capital projects.

A self-professed Democrat, Constantine said Hutchison's refusal to acknowledge a party preference denies voters information they want about candidates.

"Party affiliation is a shorthand way to tell people what your core beliefs are," he said. "It's a way to be honest and forthright with people."

He said Hutchison "has all the earmarks" of a Republican.

Hutchison, noting that voters last year made county executive a nonpartisan office, said partisanship "has gotten in the way of everything from moving ahead on transportation to solving our budget crisis."

When each candidate was given the opportunity to ask a question of the other, Hutchison asked Constantine why "nothing has been done" about the state auditor's assertion that it couldn't get enough timely information from county departments to complete a performance audit.

Constantine responded that the auditor praised his earlier legislation for audits of capital projects as "exactly what we need to do."

Constantine asked Hutchison if she would post on her campaign Web site her responses to questionnaires from interest groups. She said her responses can be found on the groups' sites, prompting Constantine to respond: "So that's a no."

Keith Ervin: 206-464-2105 or kervin@seattletimes.com