washington business
In Their Words
As he retires from the Legislature , J . T . Wilcox hopes to continue helping bring the employer voice to Olympia . He talked to AWB ’ s Brian Mittge about why it ’ s so important to have employers in public life , how to keep a family business flourishing for five generations , and how he likes to prepare his eggs every morning . The interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity .
You spent much of your legislative career in party leadership . What role does partisanship play in Olympia and what ’ s the role of bipartisanship ?
Well , I think that partisanship has become the default . It ’ s hard to be bipartisan . You get primaried and you get lots of people that suspect your motives , but you also have an opportunity to be more effective , especially in the minority .
The only way that you can get a bill to pass is to find Democrats to cooperate with and write it in such a way that it will appeal both to your own caucus and to a Democratic caucus .
Being partisan is easy and ineffective . Being bipartisan is hard , risky , and the only way to be very effective .
Is that new in the Legislature or has it more or less always been that way , at least in the last couple of generations ?
Well , it becomes more true when there are big majorities , because the times when you need Republican votes dwindle .
But I think we ’ re at this moment in history where the two parties have been left to activists that really care about purity , and they ’ re the ones that drive an awful lot of the bitterness in politics .
They also are people that can extract a heavy price from people that take a risk by not being partisan all the time .
And it ’ s easy for people to discount that : “ Oh , so you have mean tweets directed at you .”
But unless you ’ ve been through some of those firestorms , I would say it ’ s hard to understand what the personal price for that is .
Why is important to have employer perspectives in the Legislature ?
Well , the major reason right now is because there ’ s almost none of them left .
Even among Republicans , where we really do think that we are the voice of business , people with an experience of anything but very small business or maybe attorneys have just abandoned the Legislature .
And so we absolutely have to value the people that are there and try to find more people with a business background that are willing to run .
It ’ s important because so many of the members that are elected now are very young and their only background is either as political activists or as people in nonprofits or government , and that ’ s for their entire career .
j . t . wilcox
Business people are absolutely necessary because they have the investment in our capitalist society to fight for it , and they also have the experience to be credible as they talk about it .
How can employers participate in the political process ?
We need business people to be part of county Republican or Democrat parties as precinct committee officers or even just going to the annual dinners . Being a PCO is better . That is where an awful lot of the direction is set .
The next thing is they should take a couple of days a year and come to Olympia to meet with the people that represent them . If they ’ re a larger business , they should meet with people that represent the areas where they have business locations . There should be no representative or senator that doesn ’ t know your name if you ’ re a business person . Once they know you , it ’ s a little harder to demonize you and a little harder to vote against your interests .
18 association of washington business