As legislative session come to a close, bipartisanship is one of this year’s winners

Tonight the final gavel will fall as this year’s session of the State Legislature adjourns.

Barring an unforeseen and unlikely last-minute meltdown, this will mark a year of welcome comity and bipartisanship. On housing, policing, drug possession, mental health, and many other issues, votes have drawn yeses (and nos) from both Republicans and Democrats.

Today’s grand finale, starring final passage of the state budgets, may see a more traditional party line split because — well, it’s traditional. But earlier Senate and House budget proposals have drawn votes from both majority Democrats and minority Republicans. In the Senate, even though there were features the Rs didn’t like, they were pleased that the budget proposed no new taxes, slowed spending growth, and left a sizable reserve. In the Senate, the 40 yes votes (out of 49 Senators) were pleasantly startling.

How did this happen? Lt. Gov. Denny Heck, who presides over the Senate, credits exceptional leadership, starting with Senators Andy Billig, the Democratic Majority Leader, and John Braun of the Centralia area, the Republican Minority Leader, and including Majority Floor Leader Jamie Pederson and his minority counterpart, Shelly Short. He describes all four as “paragons of civic virtue” who set a standard for treating all members with respect.

In the House of Representatives, Minority Leader J. T. Wilcox of Yelm reveals his own leadership style by giving credit to others for bipartisan successes. One of the people he cites is Rep. Mike Chapman, the Democratic chair of the Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee. At the beginning of session, Chapman announced that his committee would only hold hearings on bills that had both Republican and Democratic supporters. This committee is most important to rural areas that elect Republicans.

Pressed to explain his own role, Wilcox invoked Mark Doumit, a former conservative Democratic legislator, as a mentor who advised him to always look for things to agree on. Another source of inspiration was the handshake between his father and Billy Frank Jr., which was key to unlocking watershed-wide cooperation for the protection of the Nisqually River watershed during a contentious time in 1985. (The Wilcox family has a longstanding farm operation close to the river.) He quotes Billy Frank’s bedrock belief, “We can only be successful if we work together.”

When Wilcox considered running for the legislature, his father said, “You gotta go talk to Billy.”

Another example of welcome bipartisan agreement was led by Representatives Andrew Barkis, a Thurston County Republican, and Jessica Bateman, an Olympia Democrat. Though watered down from its original form, it cracks open the door to more “middle housing” — that is, duplexes and fourplexes — in more cities and towns. That is one of many victories for more affordable housing coming from this session.

Still, it would be an exaggeration to say that bipartisanship won the day entirely. Wilcox notes a handful of passionately non-bipartisan issues, including preserving the sanctity of the confessional in a bill to make clergy mandatory reporters of child abuse, and legislation that specifically notes that parents are not to be notified if their LGBTQ or trans kids leave home and seek state health care. Guns and abortion are also the partisan list.

But partisan differences are the reason we have political parties. No one wants legislators to come to Olympia to sing kumbaya. The debates of competing ideas need to be vigorous, and every legislative proposal needs to stand up to close scrutiny of its potential effectiveness at achieving a worthy goal, and its cost.

That’s why tonight’s budget votes will be closely watched, and closely analyzed in the coming weeks.

But our legislature is showing that its best work can be done without mud-slinging, retreat into warring camps, and attempts to demonize the opposition.

We are fortunate and grateful to have leaders and rank-and-file legislators whose civility and productivity provide us with such a sharp contrast to our current Congress. We wish the other Washington would be inspired by their example.