By Manny Frishberg, JTNews Correspondent
Regardless of what happens in November, when the state legislature convenes in Olympia next January, two familiar Jewish faces will no longer be there. State Rep. Shay Schual-Berke (D-Normandy Park) and Sen. Brian Weinstein (D-Mercer Island) have both confirmed that they do not plan to run for re-election in the fall.
Schual-Berke, a cardiologist by training, has been representing the 33rd district in South King County for the last 10 years, after serving on the Highline School District board of directors from 1995-1999. With her youngest child now in college, she said it is time to do some traveling with her husband and possibly return to her medical practice.
Weinstein, who was elected to the state Senate from the 41st District in 2004, will be returning to his law practice full-time, after serving for one term, and as the assistant Majority Whip. Weinstein is also a former director of the Pike Place Market Foundation.
“I think 10 years is a good amount of time, and I think self-imposed term limits [are] not a bad thing, either,” Schual-Berke said in explaining her decision to step down at this point. “It was fabulous to be in a position where I could lead the charge on issues like the Patients’ Bill of Rights or imposing mental health parity on insurance carriers.
“The kinds of things that meant the most to me that don’t get enough press are things like changing the safety restraint laws for children,” she said.
SchualBerke helped to change that law in two stages, she said, from one that allowed any child over the age of 3 to use an adult seatbelt, to requiring that car seats face backward in the rear seat for infants and toddlers, as well as requiring booster seats for older children — changes she said had an immediate positive impact in saving lives and preventing injuries.
She also highlighted the passage last year of a bill that would allow school district levies to pass with a simple majority, instead of requiring a 60 percent supermajority for passage — an issue she was intimately familiar with from her time on the Highline School Board.
Schual-Berke also spoke candidly about some of the frustrations and disappointments she experienced over the course of her decade in Olympia: “As we’ve grown more political, more partisan, [we’ve become] more driven to make decisions based on how they affect our re-election possibilities, rather than on what make the best policies for the people of the state.”
Among the things she lists as personal disappointments are the failure of the legislature to “reign in payday lenders,” and to address public health issues to the extent she believes they should be.
“Payday lenders charge usurious rates,” she said. “They take the most vulnerable people who can least afford it, and they really keep them trapped in a cycle of debt. Other states have seen their way to freeing people from that sort of a predatory financial situation, and we have done literally nothing. It’s really been just a huge disappointment.”
On public health matters, she cites Washington’s low standing among the states in spending on public health and the fact that this state ranks in the bottom third of the 50 in the rate of childhood immunizations.
“This past year I proposed a bill that would have banned smoking in cars when children are present — policies that states like Alabama have already passed,” she said, “and yet I couldn’t get the votes because people were afraid of what it would do to their chance for re-election.”
Schual-Berke also spoke about being one of the few Jewish legislators in Olympia.
“Most sessions there have been one or two of us in each chamber,” she said. “Over the years I’ve tried to deal with the kind of non-secular prayer that’s offered, the kind of double standards that the General Service Administration has had in terms of what constitutes a religious service, what’s permitted on the Capitol campus and what is not. We’ve made some real progress there.
“One of the very first bills that I made a difference in, my very first year in the legislature, was the Holocaust Victims’ Relief Act that passed in 1999. I’ve been very proud to have played a role in literally every piece of policy that the Jewish Federation or the ADL or like agencies have tried to pass. It’s been personally really rewarding to me.
“Although I think I approached policy and government from the perspective of the state as a whole and people in general, I think that the core values that I have in large part because of my Jewish upbringing have really served me well. And I’ve always felt that the Jewish community was there to support me, [and this] also made me a stronger legislator and I really appreciated it.”
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Brian Weinstein is finishing up his first term in the state Senate, which spanned two legislative sessions. He said that he had decided before January not to seek re-election, a decision he confirmed in a press release earlier this month. He told JTNews that he had reconsidered that position at times during the session, when he saw progress on his signature issue of consumer protection, as chairman of the Senate Consumer Protection and Housing Committee.
“There were a number of people in the consumer protection arena — advocates of consumer protection — that were trying to encourage me to reconsider,” Weinstein said, “and there were times during this session that I was thinking there would be a real vacuum on these issues if I was gone.”
But, he adds, once the legislature wrapped up its business for the year and “reality kicked in,” he made what he called a cost-benefit analysis of the idea of running again and decided that “the same reasons that I wanted to leave the Senate before the session started were there again.”
“We made enormous progress in the field of consumer protection this past legislative session,” Weinstein noted in his press release. “While the President and Congress debate what to do about the subprime debacle, we took the bull by the horns and passed some very meaningful legislation that will go a long way toward protecting homebuyers. Our foreclosure rescue legislation, our regulation of mortgage brokers, and our title insurance legislation are some of the strongest in the nation.
He also listed his sponsorship and passage of the Fair Insurance Conduct Act, which survived a referendum challenge in last year’s election.
“I am also very pleased with the bill we passed this year requiring that mortgage brokers owe a fiduciary duty to their customers,” he noted.
Weinstein lists his greatest disappointment as being unable to get the Homebuyers’ Bill of Rights to be taken up by the Speaker of the House for a vote. He pledges to spend the remaining months of his term trying to press for greater protections and better builder accountability.
On whether he feels his departure will have a negative impact by reducing the number of Jewish legislators in the Senate, Weinstein said he does not think his absence will make a significant difference. He noted that Sen. Adam Kline is expected to return and also praised the Jewish Federation’s lobbyist, Zach Carstensen, for the job he does on behalf of Jewish community interests.
“I guess I was clearly the go-to person in the Senate when the Jewish community wanted an appropriation, such as the [Washington State Holocaust Education Resource Center], at the time. But I don’t see this having a significant impact on the Jewish community.”
Weinstein was instrumental in getting a $255,000 line item added to the state budget for the Holocaust Center.