As the former Kirkland Mayor, Rep. Larry Springer has taken a pragmatic, fiscally conservative approach from the local to state level.

The Kirkland resident has spent his past two terms as the 45th District representative and current House Majority Floor Leader tackling education, housing and transportation.

A former Auburn Elementary School teacher, Springer, a Democrat, has championed a bill that has given K-12 schools the largest construction budget in state history to get students out of portables.

He has also recognized the region’s housing affordability problem and passed the Inclusionary Zoning Bill, designed to give cities the authority to make zoning changes in exchange for the provision of affordable housing.

On transportation, he was part of the team that negotiated an agreement on the 520 Bridge design with the City of Seattle during the last legislative session.

Vying for Springer’s seat this session, Republican Kevin Haistings of Carnation would also bring a fiscally conservative approach to address his top priorities: public safety, transportation and education.

Currently a Sergeant in the Marine Unit, the longtime Seattle Police Officer has run a million dollar budget for the Seattle Police Guild. In light of the state’s $3.2 billion budget deficit, Haistings said it is time for change in the legislature.

The Reporter asked both candidates for United States Representative, 45th Congressional District about some of the issues facing the Eastside and what priorities they would address as district representative.

Why are you running?

Springer: Once you get started in the legislature as I did four years ago, you get invested in projects that you’re trying to accomplish. This housing issue and education policy, I want to see them through. We’re not done yet.

Haistings: I’ve spent most of my life in public service as a law enforcement officer and a volunteer firefighter and this is an extension of that. It’s another way to try to go out and help people.

What are your two biggest priorities?

Springer: Funding for K-12 education. We’re going to be in receipt of the Basic Education Task Force report that the legislature created and it’s going to tell us what constitutes basic education and the cost to provide that.

The number is going to be mind-boggling. We’ve got a huge hole to dig out of and we have to take that first step toward achieving that funding level.

The second priority will be to continue to work on the housing policy in order to try and inject some affordability into the housing market. The lack of affordable housing in close proximity to job markets — and that’s the key — is a huge problem because it destroys our transportation and has an adverse effect on families.

One of the things that I just hammer on all the time in the legislature is that you cannot talk about transportation, education or housing without talking about local land-use policy because that’s what drives all of that. I’m working on legislation that admittedly will put pressure on cities and counties to look very critically on how they zone their land with an eye toward increasing housing density and therefore affordability.

The state is looking at ways to incentivize cities to do more of that. I worked on that legislation last time as the vice chair of the Housing Committee and I’ll be championing that effort again this year.

Haistings: Currently, it’s fiscal conservation. We need to find some ways to control our spending. As a state, we have almost an 8 percent increase in revenue year after year, so why we’re spending almost 15 percent seems irresponsible.

In my opinion, the priorities should be public safety, transportation and education. That is our infrastructure and that’s what we need to focus on.

What are your thoughts on the 520 Bridge?

Springer: I’ve been working on that project for nearly 15 years and to have gotten an agreement from Seattle to allow a right-of-way landing on the west that allows for eight lanes – even though we’re only building six right now – is a huge milestone.

We have the capability of expanding that bridge to eight lanes, which there will clearly be a need for that some day.

The notion that it ought to be eight lanes today is folly. We have no way to pay for that and what’s ignored is you can’t bring eight lanes and connect it to Interstate 5, which doesn’t have the capacity.

So we got an agreement that is functional and allows for growth in the future.

Haistings: You’re going to ask motorists in this area, taxpayers, to start paying some sort of a pretty hefty toll to build the bridge, but you’re not going to add general lane capacity to the bridge and I think that’s wrong.

You can’t ask the individual motorist to foot the bill for general HOV lanes or, as I think my opponent will point out, that they’ve increased some touchdown capabilities on each end, which would be for high capacity vehicles. It just seems wrong that you’re going to tell the motorist that they’re going to foot that bill.

You need to fix the general capacity and the through put of our freeways of this area, and that includes 520. We may not have a viable solution today, but to sit there and say it’s impossible means that we’re not looking at ways to fix the problem in the future.

Why should constituents vote for you?

Springer: The big one is simply experience and the ability to understand very complex political and budgetary issues that the state deals with … and it’s why you see endorsements from a pretty disparate group of people. When I can get endorsed by the Sierra Club or the Washington Conservation voters and at the same time by the Farm Bureau, what that says is that I’m a pretty pragmatic legislator. I simply look for solutions and I’m willing to involve anybody in finding those.

While we talk about housing policy, transportation and education, that’s in the context of a $3.5 billion budget deficit. I have experience struggling through that and the legislature’s going to need that kind of experience.

Also, this district has this urbanized, western half from Redmond, west, including Kirkland. But when you get to Woodinville and you go east, it’s very rural and much more conservative. I do well in districts like that because I bridge that gap between folks and I work hard at issues that are urban in nature, in terms of housing density and what not, yet I work hard on eminent domain and property rights issues for people in the conservative part of the district, so I think I’m a good fit for the district.

Haistings: Larry has been in the legislature for several years now and when I look at what’s going on in the state, I cannot separate him because as a leader of the house, you have to take some ownership of that. He can say what his role was or wasn’t, the bottom line is we’re looking at a $3.2 billion deficit.

His argument is that now is not the time for change, now is the time to keep the leadership and the experience in the house. My question is: where has his experience and leadership helped us to avoid the deficit we’re staring at.