Session’s over: Valley’s State Reps sound off on legislative session

Published 4:04 pm Thursday, October 2, 2008

Washington’s legislators just wrapped up for summer, but the Valley’s two representatives in the statehouse are thinking about the future.

State Reps Glenn Anderson (R-Fall City) and Jay Rodne (R-North Bend) visited the Valley Record office to share their focuses on the past session and concerns for the coming sessions on Wednesday, May 2.

The 5th District representatives sounded off on successes, such as new funding for the Northwest Railway Museum, as well as coming challenges in education, transportation, the state budget and party woes.

Education

Anderson and Rodne said this past session could have been a chance for important reforms in education areas, such as dealing with grandfathered salary districts.

“I think it was a disappointing session,” Rodne said.

“We started with a $2 billion budget surplus,” Anderson said. “Any CEO knows you make large structural changes when you’ve got the cash. That is not what happened.

“We wound up spending $1.3 billion in new money. We did not fix a thing.”

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