If a candidate could spend 10 months campaigning for a seat in the state legislature, how would you as a voter want the campaign to be conducted?
Since Sumner Schoenike of Gig Harbor has announced his intention to compete for the seat now held by Jan Angel of South Kitsap, your answer to this question can be compared to what is done by him and Angel (assuming she seeks re-election).
This comparison would be more than just “Monday morning quarterbacking,” if you use it as one factor in choosing which candidate gets your vote in November.
The legislature will be in session for a couple of months at the beginning of this campaign, so Schoenike will have an opportunity to say how he would have acted if he had been in office already.
Of course, we could expect that he would be in some ways different from Angel, if for no other reason than he would be a member of the political party in control of the legislature.
When one party has significantly more than a bare majority of the seats, its members’ bills usually have more chance of enactment than the minority’s bills.
If you expect the Democrats to retain control after this year’s general election, Schoenike’s campaign statements might inform you of the times when he would have gone along with the majority — which would be an indication of how he might behave if elected.
Depending on the issues involved in any particular bill, going along with the majority could be desirable in the sense that some law is enacted — or undesirable if that law contradicts what you prefer.
One obvious way for Schoenike to campaign against Angel is to argue that she achieved too little in her first legislative session, as he has already begun to point out.
It’s something to consider, but it’s also necessary to consider what any new member of the legislature in the minority party faces.
The majority party isn’t going to hand off any bills to a new member of the opposition for sponsorship (and credit) the way they would for one of their own.
The minority party may do what they can to assist a newcomer, but they aren’t in control of the agenda in committees where disfavored bills go to die.
Rather than focus entirely on bills sponsored by Angel, her votes on any of dozens of bills sponsored by others ought to considered.
It’s a safe bet that Schoenike, if elected, wouldn’t be spending all his time on his own bills and refusing to vote on anything not sponsored by him — no one does it that way.
The entire effort of the incumbent has to be considered, and this poses a potential problem for anyone challenging an incumbent legislator.
The problem isn’t that there is too little to talk about, or that the challenger may spend too much time on criticizing the incumbent and too little on stating his own case for election.
The potential problem is that the challenger will be tempted by opportunities to exaggerate to the point of absurdity the effect of the incumbent’s vote on one bill or another — and will fail the test of his ability to be candid with the voters.
One can disagree with the incumbent without implying cold-hearted and mean-spirited motivations for the incumbent’s decisions.
Likewise, the incumbent has an opportunity to explain the basis for her position on any issues, and can just as easily fail the test by stating the opposition’s position in a less than candid way.
More than anything, it would be nice to see a campaign in which both candidates demonstrate the ability to understand and state the opposition’s true positions, then explain why a different position is better.
Anyone who can do this in a campaign should be able to work effectively in the legislature where mischaracterizing the opposition’s efforts can score points with partisan voters, but can rarely move one’s ideas forward while maintaining a realistic chance for bipartisan compromise.
Bob Meadows is a Port Orchard resident.
