Dino Rossi is campaigning for Congress by pointing out that Washington DC is “toxic,” saying that our state “deserves real results, not partisan bickering.” Rossi’s 100 percent right, but he left out one key fact: Now that he’s out of office, Olympia has started to produce real, bipartisan results.

In the past month, the Washington state Senate has passed bipartisan bills to implement a state voting rights act, offer same-day voter registration for legal citizens, provide breakfast in school for low-income children, protect transgender students, ban discredited and dangerous “gay conversion therapy” programs, eliminate fees charged to freeze consumers’ credit, help sick Hanford workers, improve gun safety without violating people’s rights to bear arms, expand college access for law-abiding Dreamers, and have more Native American history taught in our schools.

Each of these bills passed with a wide majority in the state Senate after previously being stalled. What ushered in this new, bipartisan spirit in Olympia? Rossi is gone.

Yes, our state deserves real results from DC. Rossi’s right that we need to get past DC’s toxic partisan politics, but his record in Olympia should come with a brightly colored “partisan warning” sticker. Congress can start to work for ordinary citizens again, but no one is less likely to accomplish this than Dino Rossi.

Joshua Trupin

North Bend