Welcome to the People’s House!
Before I get rolling, I’d like to introduce my wife, Nancy.
And let’s hear it for all the spouses and family members who sacrifice for us.
Let us welcome back the Republican Leader, Richard DeBolt.
And the Majority Leader, Pat Sullivan.
Thanks Pat, for your kind words.
The new members here today represent over 20% of our group.
Will all the new members of the House please stand.
Welcome!
As part of the orientation for the new members, let me introduce myself.
My name is Frank Chopp and I’m the Speaker of the House.
I thought I might need to introduce myself more formally, because at the dinner for new House members last week with Governor Inslee, I was congratulating one new member on his recent election.
He then asked me if I was one of the State Troopers protecting the new Governor.
By the way, I took his question to be a compliment.
Being considered part of a security detail, — I thought that was pretty cool.
We all remember the learning curve of being a new member.
But I want you to know that we greatly appreciate all the talent and experience you bring to this endeavor.
We will also learn from you.
In particular, we are fortunate to have two active public school teachers joining our ranks.
With all the focus on basic education, it’s gonna be great to have with us educators who understand the challenges of the classroom.
I would also like to recognize the returning members for all that they have done.
Just to mention one member — I hope he doesn’t mind — Gary Alexander.
Last session, when we were facing a thorny proposal about balanced budgets,
Gary came up with a new approach that solved the dilemma.
I just want to say thanks, Gary.
Thank you all, for serving in the House.
We are elected to represent the people —
who are still experiencing the effects of the Great Recession brought on by the schemes and swaps of Wall Street.
And despite the impact of the Great Recession on the state’s budget, we have the potential to advance a great agenda for our people.
As we build a Great Recovery, let us work together to:
Improve basic education for the one million students in our public schools.
Extend health care to over 350,000 adults through our Basic Health Plan — and cover 800,000 children with Apple Health.
Strengthen the safety net to protect the most vulnerable, which, at some points in our lives, will include everyone.
Promote opportunity for hundreds of thousands of college students, who are just asking for the same chances that we had when we were growing up.
Create jobs for tens of thousands of the unemployed by investing in the infrastructure that will benefit
all 6.8 million people in Washington state.
That’s a lot of good we can do.
Let’s start with Basic Education.
The McCleary decision is clear.
We must make a significant down payment to support the students in our schools.
Luckily, this House is leading the way. The reforms we championed in House Bills 2261 and 2776 were cited by the State Supreme Court as a guide for better meeting our constitutional mandate to provide a quality education for all students.
You should be proud of the role that so many of you have played in leading the way — long before the Court made its decision.
As we fund education, let us always focus on the students.
Let us start early in the lives of our students, since early learning is so critical to lifelong success.
Let us all work towards equity in education.
To close the opportunity gap, we must address poverty.
Education involves more than just the classroom.
Sick, hungry, or homeless children struggle in school.
The health of our students is connected to the education of their minds.
To succeed in school, kids need to be healthy and ready to learn.
That’s why we are so proud of our Apple Health for All Kids.
95% of all kids in Washington now have health coverage.
But 95% isn’t good enough. We must do better.
By the way, Apple Health could also provide a way to help fund school nurses.
But — as we all know, the young are not the only ones who need health care.
Thanks to the President’s Affordable Care Act, adults will be able to get the coverage they need.
Let me ask a simple question.
Does anyone here want to go without health care?
Of course not.
Health care is a fundamental human need.
But we must ensure that health care is affordable, that the new Health Care Exchange is efficient, and that the Medicaid expansion is based on the proven success of our own Basic Health Plan.
Health care is only one part of our safety net.
Everyone, on both sides of the aisle, says that we must protect the most vulnerable.
We should turn that rhetoric into reality.
Children who are victims of neglect and abuse.
Foster kids without a home.
Elders suffering from dementia.
People with disabilities who are not able to work.
The mentally ill.
Those who need our compassion to help meet their basic needs of food, health, and shelter.
In decades past, the mentally ill would suffer not just from their illness, but also from stigma and shame.
Now, everyone has a friend or a family member who has experienced the despair of mental illness.
Mental illness is not a lifestyle choice or the result of making bad decisions.
We must leave the middle ages when thinking about the health of our brains.
Every day, we see evidence of how mental illness affects not just individuals, but entire communities as well.
We need to translate this awareness into action.
Another action we must take is to create opportunity for all.
For a parent, there is no greater, heart-warming pride then to see our son or daughter graduate from college or complete a certificate or apprenticeship.
That joy can turn to anguish when young people can’t afford to attend, let alone graduate.
When students are burdened with debt beyond hope.
There are many challenges before us.
For example: 30,000 students eligible for financial aid do not receive it for lack of funding of the state need grant.
The downward direction for higher education must be reversed.
With a new direction, we can:
Deliver what our businesses need.
Help our students become free of debt.
Ensure equal opportunity.
Reform our institutions, and
Invest in the next generation.
As part of this new direction, we call upon those in the economy who directly benefit from higher education.
There are many professions and industries that would not exist if not for higher education.
With a new dynamic, we will not only change individual lives, but transform our entire society.
Another way to transform our society is to create jobs.
We should be proud that last year, in the midst of a slow recovery, we enacted the Jobs Now Act of 2012.
The result? Over 20,000 jobs that not only hired the unemployed, but built and renovated new schools,
made public facilities more energy efficient, created new homes for the disabled, and offered hope to businesses across the state.
So much for the notion that government doesn’t create jobs.
We need to do that again, but on a larger scale, through our capital budget and new transportation improvements.
Our state’s businesses are counting on those investments.
But those investments also depend on the public’s perception of their government.
That is why in every legislative session, there are calls for changing government to make it more responsive to the people.
Every year, we have enacted significant reforms.
Simple majority for school levies.
Performance audits.
Insurance Fair Conduct.
Mortgage foreclosure fairness.
Apple Health for all Kids.
Mental health parity.
Medicaid fraud prevention.
New evaluations for teachers.
The health care exchange to implement the Affordable Care Act.
Marriage equality.
And much more.
You want more reform?
Well, how about fully funding Basic Education?
That’s reform!
How about Basic Health Plan coverage for 350,000 of the uninsured?
That’s reform!
How about inspiring teachers with better professional development?
That’s reform!
How about encouraging voter participation, not repressing it as other states have done?
That’s reform!
And when we do reforms, we must always look out for the best interests of the people we represent.
And as we go forward, there must be simplicity, transparency, and accountability in our efforts.
We must track our progress. I call them, “Progress Points.”
Clear, simple goals that we set for ourselves, that are visible to everyone, and are easily understood,
% of students graduating from high school.
% of children with health care coverage.
% of Washington jobs filled with Washington state residents.
Those are just three Progress Points.
We should have a Top Ten.
And maybe we should have the Progress Points running across the bottom of our legislative computer screens, just like the scores of football games on your home TV.
We should relentlessly innovate and support the efforts that work to meet those goals.
For example, the College Success Foundation, which serves as the lead for Opportunity Scholarships
has raised hundreds of millions of dollars to help low-income college students all across Washington.
And starting in Tacoma, the Foundation has created a systematic approach of mentoring high school students, first to graduate from high school —and then to succeed in college.
They have already seen great progress.
All those changes are great policy, looking out for the greater good.
In many cases, public policy is informed by our own personal experience.
One of the reasons I care so much about education is the history of my own family.
During the Great Depression, my Dad had to go to work at the age of 12 at the coal mines in Roslyn,
and my Mom didn’t finish high school, until she went back at age 69 and earned her high school diploma at the Green River Community College.
From my parent’s generation to mine, opportunity grew enormously.
We cannot stand by and let those opportunities erode for the next generation.
Sometimes, when we look at all that needs to be done, we can get exhausted.
Sometimes, a small thing renews our faith in the future.Just a week ago, I attended an awards ceremony sponsored by the VFW:
Patriot’s Pen: a Youth Essay Writing Contest.
The community hall was packed. The coffee was strong. The dessert, unfortunately, was not Hostess Cupcakes. But the spirit was festive, nonetheless.
The young winners that day came from all different backgrounds;
from all different parts of the world; of all different races, and of different ages, from 3rd grade to high school.
In the young people there, I saw the faces of our future — of a new America.
A more diverse — and therefore a stronger America.
The kids defined their love of their country as contributing to the community and caring for each other.
Let me quote from parts of one essay, entitled,
“What I Would Tell America’s Founding Fathers”
Dear Founding Fathers,
It was all worth something, all the hard work you did.
You made a difference: by taking a chance,
by trusting a mere experiment, and by not giving up.
You gave us a chance to make a difference.
You gave us a chance to make America great,
by creating representative government, and we did.
I am proud to be an American, living in the America
that you started.
Thank you for giving me, and everyone else,
a chance to make a difference, and change the world.
Those were the words of my great niece, Oakley.
Well, guess what — she won first place that day.
Her essay brought tears to my eyes.
Thanks Oakley, for making a difference in my life.
Someday, I hope you will help us recognize the Founding Mothers of the future, not just the Founding Fathers from the past.
Each of us here has a story.
There’s one among us with a particularly inspiring story. He’s part of a family of new Americans.
And despite losing his sight at a young age, he could still envision a career as a lawyer —
and a campaign to get elected as a new law maker.
It’s a real American story.
And it’s part of the reason why we believe in One Nation and in One Washington.
We are all in this together.
We are all Americans striving to give our children a better world.