Gregoire certified as governor of Washington (will be sworn in tomorrow)

Seattle P-I ^ | 1/11/05 | REBECCA COOK

[nyg4168]

OLYMPIA, Wash. -- Democrat Christine Gregoire was certified as the governor of Washington state on Tuesday, while outside the Capitol her supporters traded jeers with protesters across a line of state troopers.

Inside the Capitol, Republicans' attempt to delay the election certification failed after an hour of almost surreally polite debate.

Gregoire lost the first two counts in the amazingly close election, but won by just 129 votes after a hand recount of 2.9 million ballots. Next comes Gregoire's inauguration, planned for Wednesday - and then it's on to the courts. The first hearing in Republican Dino Rossi's election challenge is scheduled for Friday.

"No do-over, no delay," said Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown, D-Spokane. "Let's move on with the business of the Legislature."

Republicans pleaded in vain for a waiting period.

A two-week delay is a small price to pay to restore confidence in this election," said Rep. Mike Armstrong, R-Wenatchee. "This is a historic time and we cannot afford to rush this process."

During the counting and recounting of the governor's election, many questions and discrepancies have surfaced. The main argument in the Republican's lawsuit is that King County, a Democratic stronghold and the state's largest county, cannot match more than a thousand votes to actual voter names. That discrepancy, Rossi argues, makes the election invalid on its face.

Democrats disagree, saying the state constitution sets a very high bar for throwing out the results of an election. They say the revote that Rossi wants would be unconstitutional.

While the debate in the state House and Senate's joint session was oh-so-civilized, supporters of Rossi and Gregoire screamed their frustrations at one another at dueling rallies on the Capitol lawn.

More than 1,000 Rossi supporters were there demanding a revote, and about 200 Gregoire supporters held a counter-demonstration. Chants of "revote!" overpowered the cries of "Go home Rossi!"

Norman Le, 70, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Vietnam, wore a sticker proclaiming "Dino Rossi is my governor."

"Three times they counted and they come up with three different results - it makes no sense at all," Le said. "They should fix it. It's not too late. ... If we have a governor who is elected in a flawed election, that governor does not have the respect of the people to govern. The whole state will suffer."

Pro-Rossi demonstrators held signs saying "Heal Washington: Revote," "Gregoire: Stealing Democracy," and "Re-Elect Rossi 2005."

Across the street, and separated by state troopers, Gregoire supporter Rhenda Strub held a homemade sign saying "Dino, your horse is dead."

"It's time for him to end his temper tantrum and move on," said Strub, 49, of Olympia.

No arrests were reported from the dueling rallies, which dissipated in the early afternoon.

A court hearing for Rossi's election challenge is set for Friday in Chelan County Superior Court in Wenatchee. The case will most likely end up in the state Supreme Court.

[trubluolyguy]

"Thoughts"...yeah, I live in Washington, here's a thought, the libs have infiltrated that courts so much in Olympia and Seattle that it would be tantamount to conceding the election to file a suit there.