Dino Rossi
Party: Republican
Age: 44
Personal: Married, with four children
Education: Raised in Mountlake Terrace, graduated from Woodway High School in Edmonds. Bachelor’s in business management from Seattle University, 1982.
Professional: Rossi is a commercial real estate broker. He manages and owns real estate.
Political: He was elected to the state Senate in 1996, on his second attempt, representing a district in the Seattle suburbs and Cascade foothills. He rose quickly in leadership, gaining a reputation as a budget hawk and tough negotiator
Key issues: The economy and education reform. “We’ve got to get people back to work,” Rossi says. How? By making it easier to do business in Washington: doing away with outdated or unneeded regulations and by making it harder to file big liability lawsuits, particularly against rural doctors. On education, Rossi said the state is largely handcuffed when it comes to distributing school dollars, with money handed out on the basis of complex staffing ratios. “It has nothing to do with whether they (students) are actually learning,” he said. He said Washington must change so that state money rewards academic performance and results. “We’re going to have to somehow make that link, and it won’t be easy,” he said. Not one of Rossi’s key issues – but one that his opponents are focusing on – are his anti-abortion views. Rossi is Catholic. “I’ve always believed that abortion was never intended except for maybe cases of rape, incest or to protect the life of the mother,” he said. “If I have to change my position on an issue of conscience to become governor, it’s not worth it.” But he argues that abortion is a federal issue and that, as governor, he’d have little say in the matter. “I’m not running for the U.S. Supreme Court,” he said. “We have about as much control over that (abortion) as we do over world peace.”
Money raised/spent: $2.77 million. Total from Spokane area: $116,500
Top contributors: Top contributors from Spokane area: Build East (builders PAC) $2,700; Capitol Fund (conservative PAC) $2,700; Max J. Kuney Co., (contractors) $2,700; Thomas Quigley (insurance agent), $2,650; B&B Distributors, (beer) $2,500; Avista, $2,478; Jeff Kuney, (contractor).
Quote: “We have one of the largest unemployment rates in the nation, and we aren’t going to change that by electing the same people to do the same thing over and over again.”
Key influence: His father
Favorite book: Bradbury’s “The Martian Chronicles.”
First priority if elected: Replacing state agency heads “with ones with a different attitude, one of helping people through the maze, rather than `I gotcha.’”
