My biggest disappointment is that McKenna has acted more like a promise laden Democrat than like a business promoting Republican.
I am disappointed.
I had considered voting for McKenna despite the Tea Part albatross he carries. people I trust had told me that McKenna, a UW graduate, had a sincere commitment to higher education and esp. to the role of the U as a world class school.
Where the Democratic candidate, Jay Inslee, has made similar general commitments to education, In contrast, Attorney General McKenna , said that, as Governor, he would enforce the state constitutional commitment to fully fund education. McKenna said this with the authority of Washington’s Attorney General, a lawyer who has defended Washington State’s Constitution at the Supreme Court. McKenna went further to point out that the State’s founders understood that basic education in the 1800s meant K-12, but the founders never put that limit on the constitution. In 2012, McKenna recognized, “basic” has to include higher education. .
The McKenna proposal sets no priorities, offers no ideas about how we might spend our money better. Issues like maintaining the UW as a world class college, funding quality web based learning, increasing opportunities for STEM education, meeting the needs for a state technological campus in Everett, growing the outstanding programs at WWU and Evergreen disappear in the miasma of budget gimmicks.
Rather than a commitment to enforce the constitutions McKenna proposes to get the find funds by the usual magical savings through efficiencies and attrition. Surprisingly , as pro business Republican, McKenna does not even push for charter schools or creation of a Washington State system to share library costs. . Where McKenna Education 1.0 made real commitments to higher ed, McKenna Education 2.0 is devoted to K-12. That is dishonest.
The commitment is gone. certainly the hope that Governor McKenna might take Tim Eyman to court over the State’s constitutional commitment is gone.