Tagged: Partisanship

OLYMPIA, Wash. - Three months ago, 23 Republicans and two breakaway Democrats seized control of the Washington state Senate. At the time, Majority Leader Rodney Tom, one of the Democrats, pledged a new spirit of bipartisanship.

“The public out there is hungry for us to come together, to work together in a collaborative manner and that’s exactly what this coalition is trying to accomplish,” he said.

But as the halfway point of the legislative session approaches, the Washington state Senate has become a hotbed of partisan recriminations.

Oregon is not considered a battleground in the Presidential election. President Obama is strongly favored to win the state’s seven electoral votes. What’s more, Democrats also hold every single statewide office in Oregon and far outnumber Republicans in terms of voter registration. But there’s an exception to the one-party dominance: The Oregon House is evenly divided. 30 Democrats to 30 Republicans. And both parties are hard at work in legislative battlegrounds to swing the majority in their direction. Salem Correspondent Chris Lehman reports.