NPR: 12th District Caucus

ANNOUNCER
State Republicans are meeting in caucus Friday in Yakima to determine leadership in the house and senate. As Diane De Rooy reports, the front-runners in Republican leadership all happen to be from central Washington.

DIANE
Representative Clyde Ballard of East Wenatchee will be the new speaker of the house. Wenatchee representative Dale Foreman will assume the position of house majority leader. And state senator George Sellars of East Wenatchee hopes to stay on as minority leader. But he’s being challenged by Bellevue’s Dan McDonald. The race is said to be a tight one.

12th District constituents, no matter what their party affiliation, are eager to see what this leadership slate will mean for central Washington.

According to Sellars and Foreman, health care will be high on their agendas, followed by tax reform issues that affect property owners and businesspeople.

Ballard believes government should only do for people what people cannot do for themselves. That’s why he opposed the Growth Management Act and will fight to revise it in his seventh term in the house.

All three legislators agree that the 12th District’s needs have been overlooked by the western Washington democrats who once dominated the state legislature.

For Northwest Public Radio, I’m Diane De Rooy.