Running Start

With an ever-present smile and the helpful public demeanor of an Eagle Scoutwhich he wasAttorney General Rob McKenna doesn’t look like a revolutionary.

But as the Republican Partys standard bearer in next years governors race, McKenna will be attempting to disrupt the political order in the Evergreen State.

Republicans dont win gubernatorial races in Washington. They just dont. At least, not in the past generation.

Ask Dino Rossi, who lost the governors race twice, or John Carlson, Ellen Craswell, Ken Eikenberry and Bob Williams. All have been defeated by Democrats in the past quarter century. The last Republican elected governor was John Spellman in 1980. Spellman left office in 1985, a year before Microsoft went public and nine years before Amazon.com was founded. The main reason for the GOPs dismal showing is that its candidates usually get clobbered in King County, home to one of every three state voters. There simply arent enough people in the rest of the state to overcome the Democrats advantage in Washingtons most populous county.

Enter McKenna. A former business and regulatory attorney at Perkins Coie, McKenna is a throwback to a time in the early aughts when Republicans from suburban Seattle were ascendant in the state party. These presentable soccer dads were supposed to lead their party to prominence and dominance, but more rural and conservative interests took control of the party, and Democrats successfully kept control in Olympia. McKennas contemporaries have all faded away: Rossi has now lost three statewide races; former Republican state Rep. Bill Finkbeiner is out of politics; and former Republican representative and state party chairman Luke Esser is lobbying for public sector workers after being ousted by restive party regulars earlier this year. (Essers defeat as party chairman was a blow to McKenna, who had personally lobbied for him.)

McKennas continued success depends on a parlor trick only he might be able to pull off: appealing to moderate King County voters while not alienating the hard right of his own party. Accomplish that and he might paint a blue state red. The GOP brand is severely damaged in Washington state, says Chris Vance, a McKenna confidant who served with him on the King County Council.

McKenna is as polished and likable as Rossi, who ran for the U.S. Senate last year against Democratic incumbent Patty Murray after two unsuccessful bids for the governors office. Unlike Rossi, McKenna is not loath to debate policy. In fact, he relishes it. McKenna will put a smiley, accessible face on conservative policiesespecially economic ones. In private, Democrats are terrified of him.

So who is this guy who never seems to lose his cool?

Hes a fitness buff who does allow his temperature to rise while doing the P90X workout program or Bikram hot yoga, for which devotees stretch and strain in rooms heated above 100 degrees.

An Army brat who lived on bases in Europe and Asia before arriving on Seattles Eastside as a teenager, McKenna was elected three times to the King County Council from Bellevue. During his years on the council, McKenna also served on the oversight board for Sound Transit. He made a name for himself as the in-house critic of the light-rail agency at a time when Sound Transit was mired in cost overruns and management problems. He was the lone no vote in 2001 when Sound Transit opted to go ahead with its initial Sea-Tac-to-Seattle line, despite costs that were more than $1 billion over projections. McKenna also howled that the agency shortened the initial line to 14 miles, saying voters had been promised more. This opposition led to his removal from the board by former King County Executive Ron Sims in 2001.

On the County Council, McKenna objected to what had become standard procedure: large property tax increases. Vance says the council membersDemocrats and Republicanshad locked in 6 percent annual property tax hikes. But, astute lawyer that he is, McKenna scrutinized the law. Rob says, The law says up to 6 percent, Vance recalls. McKenna pressed for a lower rate. You cant imagine what a stir that caused, Vance adds. Once I realized you could go under 6 percent, I was with him immediately. Im mad I didnt think about it first.

Democrats grumbled that McKenna was more interested in headlines than the drudgery of day-to-day compromises that makes one an effective legislator, but the young politician was on the rise. In 2004, he was elected attorney general and cruised to re-election four years later.

McKenna recalls that his fellow state attorneys general had a preconceived notion about what their Pacific Northwest colleague would be like.

When they found out I was from Washington state, they assumed I was an expert on coffee and software, McKenna says with a laugh.

While his barista skills may be in question, McKenna has established himself as a passionate leader in the fight against identity theft and online scams. He says he was the first state attorney general to build a computer forensics lab to collect evidence of internet crimes. On his watch, state lawyers have aggressively pursued consumer complaints against companies like DirecTV, which McKenna accused in a 2009 lawsuit of attracting customers with ads for low prices that hide fees and sudden rate changes. McKenna didnt mince words at the time. These guys are off the charts. Weve had more complaints about them than any other [company] in America this year. DirecTV later settled the lawsuit for $1 million.

The University of Chicago Law School graduate also boasts a 3-0 record at the U.S. Supreme Court. He personally argued and won cases that gave the states nonunion teachers the option of not having to pay for union political activity; upheld the states popular top two primary system; and defended the states public disclosure laws in the face of a challenge from conservatives seeking to shield the names of people who signed a petition to repeal expanded, same-sex domestic partner rights. (McKenna is opposed to same-sex marriage.)

Yet another battle that could end up before the high court justices is the most high profile, and potentially politically dangerous, legal fight of McKennas career. He has joined more than two dozen mostly Republican state attorneys general and governors in suing to block parts of the health-care overhaul bill signed by President Barack Obama. Specifically, McKenna objects to a clause requiring people to purchase private health insurance or face a fine if they do not. McKenna has gone to great lengths to say he supports parts of the new law, such as expanding coverage for young people and not denying insurance to people with pre-existing conditions, but he says such a requirement goes beyond the federal governments constitutional authority.

McKenna with colleagues from the attorney generals office at the 2010 Bloomsday Run.

Critics say McKennas involvement in the suit is an example of his being too cute by halfattempting to curry favor with conservatives while maintaining his image as a nice guy who doesnt want to keep sick people from seeing a doctor. Eliminating the private insurance mandatean idea once supported by the business community and mainstream Republicans like Bob Dolewould essentially gut Obamacare, making the reforms McKenna favors impossible to implement.

Democrats from Governor Chris Gregoire on down pounced on McKenna for his stance on health care, and party operatives will use the issue to attack him next year in the governors race. McKenna acknowledged during an interview on Seattle radio station KISW last year that Democrats are just beating the crap out of me right now over Obamacare. But the fervor with which his opponents assailed him about the health-care lawsuit betrayed their own frustration; until then, Democrats were scrambling for any weapon they might use against the attorney general during a possible gubernatorial race.

What would Washington state look like under Governor McKenna? Speaking in broad terms about whats right and whats wrong in Washington, McKenna boasts of the high quality of life and a well-educated workforce that are attractive to companies and potential employees. But McKenna complains that for too long the state has been ambivalent about economic growth.

It seemed to be for many years our biggest concern was whether a lot of people would be moving here from California, he says. Heaven forbid they should end up coming here and bringing their companies with them.

McKenna wants the state to be more aggressive about economic development, which to him means dealing with complaints about high unemployment insurance costs, reforming a workers compensation system employers say is tilted too heavily in labors favor, and easing up a regulatory burden that CEOs complain is oppressive.

When he announced his bid for governor in June, McKenna stood on stage at Sammamish High School in Bellevue, his alma mater. He pledged to increase education funding by billions of dollars by trimming other government costs. He aims to make finding more money for kids and college students the centerpiece of his campaign. Democrats will fight him on the specifics and point out that any more money for education will have to come from the elderly, sick and needy. Still, McKenna will be hard to paint as a meanie if hes saying weve got to do better for upcoming generations. (At press time, the only announced Democratic candidate for governor was U.S. Representative Jay Inslee of Bainbridge Island.)

The states business community, which generally leans Republican, would almost certainly line up behind McKenna, whose positions on taxation, labor issues and regulation are in line with its views. He wants to change the way Washington taxes businessa system that many agree is messed up. Washington has a business and occupation tax, which is based on a companys gross receipts, not profits. Small businesses especially howl that the B&O tax is complicated and costly, and that it keeps companies from going from small to medium to big. An attempt to impose an income tax on the wealthy was rejected by voters last year, but McKenna says thats no reason to ignore other possible changes. The tax system can be addressed, he says. We can raise the [taxing] threshold for small businesses.

McKenna also wants the states workforce to be leaner and more productive. He favors basing compensationat least in parton performance, not seniority. But hes not ready to declare war on public employees unions, as Republican governors in Wisconsin and Ohio have done. Hes willing to bargain with them over changes to contracts and says hed listen to their ideas. State employees are not the problem, McKenna says. State employees are the answer.

Whens the last time you saw a Republican embracing state employees? Whether McKenna is the answer to the Republicans decades-long problem of getting a member of their party elected governor remains a huge question, but his being perceived as a moderate in the Democrat-heavy areas around Seattle will be crucial to his success.

A serious runner, McKenna competed this year in the 7.5-mile Bloomsday Run in Spokane and the 13-mile Rock n Roll half-marathon in Seattle. Over the next year and a half, it will be the full monty: a grueling gubernatorial marathon across the state, knowing Republicans havent crossed the finish line in first place since Ronald Reagan was president.

The McKenna File

NAME: Robert McKenna

DATE OF BIRTH: October 1, 1962

BIRTHPLACE: Fort Sam Houston, San Antonio

EDUCATION: Sammamish High School (1980); University of Washington (1985); University of Chicago Law School (1988)

PROFESSION: Lawyer, Perkins Coie law firm, 198896; King County Council, 19952003; Washington attorney general, 2005present; President, National Association of Attorneys General

COMMUNITY: Washington State Army Advisory Board, 2011present; Bellevue College Foundation, 2000present; Chief Seattle Council, Boy Scouts of America, executive board, 2003present; Bellevue Rotary, 2003present, Eastside Domestic Violence Program, fundraising lunch chair, 1999present

RELIGION: Roman Catholic

PERSONAL: Married to wife Marilyn for 25 years; four children; lives in Bellevue