SEATTLE — Republican Dino Rossi campaigns as a fiscal conservative with a social conscience.
“In the state senate, we eliminated the largest deficit in state history without raising taxes. And we did it while protecting our most vulnerable."
Rossi's referring to the 2003 budget he negotiated as a state senator with Gov. Gary Locke
But Thursday, Democrat Kim Schrier featured Locke at a news conference to dispute that claim.
“For years, I've simply laughed when Dino Rossi took credit for devising a no-tax increase budget for the 2003-2005 cycle while protecting vulnerable populations,” Locke said.
The Schrier campaign points to the 2003 budget proposal released by the Senate Ways and Means committee that Rossi chaired. It cuts state funded prenatal care for 6,500 pregnant mothers and anticipates 40,000 fewer children would be covered by the state's health plan.
We sat down with Rossi to ask about that.
“We made some proposals that we thought we were going to be able to negotiate out in the end. One of the things I wanted to make sure is that we backfilled the funding for seniors and the mentally ill and the people with developmental disabilities,” Rossi said.
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Did those initial proposals include cuts to children’s health care?
“We made proposals that we believe we could find the money for in the end and that's exactly what we did,” Rossi responded.
While Rossi was there when Gov. Locke signed the budget, Locke says Rossi wasn't there for the final negotiations.
“I really can't believe he would go there,” Rossi responded, referring to Locke. “I was gone for a couple of days. My brother had committed suicide and he knew that, he knew that. This is how low this campaign has gotten.”
Reporters Note: Governor Locke never mentioned the suicide of Rossi's brother and did not volunteer information about Rossi's absence during the final budget negotiations.
He mentioned the absence it only in response to a question I asked about whether the two worked well together.
I didn't know about the suicide of Rossi's brother when I sat down to interview Rossi today.
When I asked for an interview with Rossi this morning, I sent an email letting his campaign manager know what Locke had said and that I would ask Rossi about his absence.