Republicans seize control of state Senate with the help of Rodney Tom and Tim Sheldon

Sen­ate Repub­li­cans announced today they have for­mal­ly reached a deal with Rod­ney Tom and Tim Shel­don (of the 48th and 35th Dis­tricts, respec­tive­ly) to run Wash­ing­ton’s Sen­ate for the next two years, which means that Democ­rats will be in the minor­i­ty for the first time since the 2006 session.

At a press con­fer­ence in Olympia, Tom and Shel­don con­firmed that they have signed an agree­ment to form a “Sen­ate Major­i­ty Coali­tion Cau­cus” which will con­sist of the two of them plus the twen­ty-three Repub­li­can sen­a­tors. The Repub­li­cans have all agreed to allow Tom to serve as their major­i­ty leader and Shel­don to serve as the Sen­ate’s pres­i­dent pro tem­pore. (The pres­i­dent pro tem­pore pre­sides when the Lieu­tenant Gov­er­nor is not avail­able to run the Senate).

Tom and Shel­don, con­verse­ly, are allow­ing Repub­li­cans to deter­mine the Sen­ate’s com­mit­tee struc­ture. The Repub­li­can cau­cus has already released a doc­u­ment on its web­site which lists the reor­ga­nized com­mit­tees, their names, and chairs.

The fol­low­ing tables are from that document:

Notice that the Repub­li­cans gave them­selves con­trol of the all-impor­tant Ways & Means Com­mit­tee, as well as Gov­ern­ment Oper­a­tions, and an equal num­ber of mem­bers on Trans­porta­tion (which means they can block Democ­rats from mov­ing any bills they don’t like through Transportation).

Repub­li­cans tried to dress up their announce­ment as “get­ting away from pol­i­tics” being in the pub­lic inter­est. Right. Because pol­i­tics should­n’t be political.

“It’s sup­posed to be a pow­er-share rather than a pow­er-grab,” Lin­da Evans-Par­lette told reporters gath­ered for the press con­fer­ence Capi­tol Campus.

But a pow­er-grab is exact­ly what this is. By join­ing forces with Tom and Shel­don, Sen­ate Repub­li­cans have made them­selves the major­i­ty par­ty in the Sen­ate. The vot­ers did not elect a Repub­li­can major­i­ty to the Sen­ate in 2012. The Repub­li­cans have, instead, engi­neered a major­i­ty by reclaim­ing Rod­ney Tom and adding long­time rene­gade Tim Shel­don to their ranks.

The Repub­li­cans are not dis­solv­ing in favor of a brand new cau­cus led by Rod­ney Tom. Rather, the Repub­li­can cau­cus is allow­ing Rod­ney Tom to be their leader, and allow­ing Tim Shel­don to stand behind the ros­trum when Brad Owen is not around.

Tom and Shel­don have both said they don’t intend to leave the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty. But in join­ing the Repub­li­can Par­ty, they have left the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty. They can hard­ly expect to be con­sid­ered Democ­rats when they are cau­cus­ing with Repub­li­cans. Tom and Shel­don can say they’re Democ­rats, but that does­n’t make them Democ­rats. Actions speak loud­er than words.

Tom and Shel­don are try­ing to cast them­selves as coura­geous bridge-builders and pro­mot­ers of coop­er­a­tion. In real­i­ty, they are opportunists.

And an oppor­tunist is the worst kind of politi­cian there is.

There is noth­ing vir­tu­ous about this coup (and it is a coup). It was plot­ted behind closed doors with­out pub­lic input or pub­lic hear­ings. Sen­ate Democ­rats were not con­sult­ed about the com­mit­tee struc­ture or oth­er details. House Democ­rats are not a par­ty to the deal. And Gov­er­nor-elect Inslee is not either. The Sen­ate does not have the abil­i­ty to pass bud­gets or make laws on its own.

I lis­tened to Tom answer ques­tions from reporters at today’s press con­fer­ence and it was evi­dent from his tone that he con­sid­ers him­self part of the Repub­li­can cau­cus now. Asked whether he would be cau­cus­ing with Repub­li­cans, he respond­ed, “There’ll be a major­i­ty coali­tion cau­cus and a minor­i­ty cau­cus… I will be cau­cus­ing with the majority.”

In oth­er words, Tom will be cau­cus­ing with the Repub­li­cans… and hop­ing Democ­rats won’t be too upset with him. “We expect to work with them,” he told reporters. I not­ed — and you should too — that he referred to the Demo­c­ra­t­ic cau­cus, now led by Ed Mur­ray, as them. Which, of course, makes sense. Tom may not have con­scious­ly intend­ed to use those words… he was not read­ing from a pre­pared state­ment. He was speak­ing off the top of his head. And it’s evi­dent he does­n’t con­sid­er him­self part of the Sen­ate Demo­c­ra­t­ic cau­cus anymore.

Nei­ther does Wash­ing­ton State Demo­c­ra­t­ic Chair Dwight Pelz, who issued this state­ment not long after the announce­ment was made:

In 2010, Sen­a­tors Tom and Shel­don stood for reelec­tion as Democ­rats. In the case of Sen­a­tor Tom, he even accept­ed over $25,000 in con­tri­bu­tions from the State Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty. But today, Sen­a­tors Tom and Shel­don turned their backs on the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty by sid­ing with a rad­i­cal­ly right Repub­li­can cau­cus that ear­li­er this year attempt­ed to slash crit­i­cal­ly impor­tant fund­ing for edu­ca­tion and social ser­vices for the elder­ly and the vulnerable.

To imply that the cur­rent Demo­c­ra­t­ic cau­cus is unwill­ing to work across par­ty lines to move our state for­ward is absurd. Just two years ago, Demo­c­ra­t­ic Sen­a­tor Ed Mur­ray and Repub­li­can Sen­a­tor Joe Zarel­li worked togeth­er to build a bipar­ti­san bud­get – an unprece­dent­ed show of uni­ty in Olympia.

The truth here is that Sen­a­tor Tom has insti­gat­ed this unprece­dent­ed coup and joined with Repub­li­cans to install him­self as Major­i­ty Leader out of a desire to fur­ther his own per­son­al ambi­tions, not out of what is in the best inter­ests of his con­stituents or the pub­lic at large. What he announced today is a pre­scrip­tion for insta­bil­i­ty and division.

Ed Mur­ray, mean­while, react­ed cold­ly to the Repub­li­cans’ announcement.

“We rec­og­nize that any major­i­ty in the Sen­ate will be an unsta­ble one, and we are com­mit­ted to form­ing a mutu­al­ly agreed-upon way for Repub­li­cans and Democ­rats to work togeth­er,” he said. “We don’t believe the Repub­li­cans’ take-it-or-leave-it plan offers the right way for­ward. We remain hope­ful that Repub­li­cans will be open to nego­ti­a­tions to ensure the full func­tion­ing of the Senate.”

Sen­a­tor Jeanne Kohl-Welles, who rep­re­sents the neigh­bor­ing 36th Dis­trict, issued her own response. She did not mince words.

“Forc­ing half the cham­ber to accept a take-it-or-leave-it plan is not the way you fos­ter col­lab­o­ra­tion, trust or respect,” Kohl-Welles said.

“That’s a recipe for con­fronta­tion, not col­lab­o­ra­tion — and it bears lit­tle resem­blance to the Demo­c­ra­t­ic prin­ci­ples I believe my con­stituents in the 36th Dis­trict and peo­ple across the state expect leg­is­la­tors to uphold.”

Tom and Shel­don sug­gest­ed to reporters that oth­er Demo­c­ra­t­ic sen­a­tors might join with them in aban­don­ing the Demo­c­ra­t­ic cau­cus in the com­ing days and weeks.

But no one else was mas­querad­ing as a Demo­c­rat at today’s press con­fer­ence in the Leg­isla­tive Build­ing. Unfor­tu­nate­ly for Tom and Shel­don, their for­mer turn­coat pal Jim Kas­ta­ma (who helped Repub­li­cans rush a bud­get through the state Sen­ate back in the spring) is on his way out of the Legislature.

Vot­ers replaced Kas­ta­ma with a real Repub­li­can — Bruce Dammeier.

The major­i­ty the Repub­li­cans have engi­neered is incred­i­bly ten­u­ous. To con­trol the floor, they need every sin­gle mem­ber of their cau­cus to be in the Sen­ate cham­ber and avail­able to vote when­ev­er the Sen­ate is in ses­sion — along with de fac­to Repub­li­cans Shel­don and Tom. If just one Repub­li­can is miss­ing, it means Repub­li­cans do not have the twen­ty-five votes required to pass legislation.

In the event of a tie, the Con­sti­tu­tion allows the Lieu­tenant Gov­er­nor to cast a vote. There may well be times dur­ing the upcom­ing ses­sion when there is a tie, and that will mean that Brad Owen will get a vote. Owen has his­tor­i­cal­ly worked well with Sen­ate Major­i­ty Leader Lisa Brown, and once helped Brown out of a jam dur­ing the 2009 ses­sion. (The Sen­ate dead­locked on SB 5433; Owen gave Brown the twen­ty-fifth vote she need­ed to get the bill passed). That could give Ed Mur­ray and his cau­cus oppor­tu­ni­ties to tem­porar­i­ly take back power.

Inci­den­tal­ly, one of the Repub­li­can sen­a­tors who signed the pow­er-shar­ing agree­ment — Bob Mor­ton — is actu­al­ly plan­ning to resign just after the new year. Mor­ton’s suc­ces­sor will be a Repub­li­can because he is, and pre­sum­ably that new sen­a­tor will be duly sent to Olympia pri­or to the first day of ses­sion so that Repub­li­cans won’t be a vote short of twenty-five.

Jim Cam­den has the details on the process for fill­ing the vacan­cy and who has expressed inter­est in being named as the next sen­a­tor from the 7th District.

Democ­rats, mean­while, have to choose a suc­ces­sor for Derek Kilmer, who is leav­ing the state Sen­ate to join the U.S. House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives in the Oth­er Washington.