The departure of Jim West and Dino Rossi from the Washington legislature is like the U.S. Navy losing two aircraft carriers at the same time.Both senators served our state well and they will be missed.

West, a Spokane Republican, first came to the legislature in 1982 and served in the House before moving to the Senate. He’s leaving to serve as the newly elected mayor of Spokane. Rossi, an Issaquah Republican who was elected to the Senate in 1996, resigned to devote full time to campaigning for governor.

West is a seasoned leader. He cut his teeth chairing the Health and Long-term Care Committee, presided over the powerful Ways and Means Committee, and has served as Senate Republican leader since 1999. During much of the last year, West fought a tough, but successful battle against cancer, and today he approaches the mayor’s office with a new vigor and respect for life itself.

Rossi rose through the ranks and chaired the Senate Ways and Means Committee last year when the legislature faced a $2.7 billion revenue shortfall.Rossi and West pushed through a budget that set funding priorities and avoided a general tax increase.

Both senators embraced the “Priorities and Price of Government” process initiated by Gov. Locke a year and a half ago. That process determined the priorities for state spending within available revenues.Setting those priorities for the 2003-2005 budget meant that the Governor and legislators had to make tough choices and say “no” to politically powerful interest groups.

That’s a recipe for sleepless nights and heartburn, but Washington lawmakers met their July 1 deadline for a new budget. Many other states did not. Thirty-seven states had no budget by July and instead were stuck in a hopeless quagmire of tax increase and budget cut proposals. While our lawmakers enjoyed the 4^th of July at home with their families, elected officials and legislators in California and Oregon were at the state capitol floundering and bashing one another.