Washington House tied, but not in knots.

• Author: Ammons, David
• Position: 49-49 tie in Washington State Legislature

Co-speakers in the Evergreen state are meeting the challenge of their 49-49 tie with cooperation, civility and creativity.

The odd-looking gavel came down with a loud thwack.

Clyde Ballard, a conservative Republican from a rural district, and Frank Chopp, a liberal Democrat from downtown Seattle, each wielded one of the gavel's two handles. It was awkward and funny at the same time as they tried their first moment of power sharing. They broke out laughing.

The bit of theater on opening day of Washington's 56th Legislature in January was an apt reminder of the challenges that face the state House of Representatives for the next two years.

They're all tied up 49-49, after a surprising Democratic surge in November dropped the Republicans from a tidy 57-41 majority into the tie. It is only the second time in state history that the state has had a co-majority - or no majority, if you prefer - in the chamber. The pundits had correctly forecast that the state Senate would flip to the Democrats, but few had paid attention to the party's possibilities in the House.

After the last absentees were counted in four tight races, the tie was confirmed - the political equivalent of flipping a coin and having it land on edge.

After four years of divided government - with a Democratic governor and Republican-dominated Legislature - the voters had unknowingly installed yet another type of divided government: a House divided against itself.

Washington's House is the only legislative chamber in the country with a current tie. Virginia has a de facto tie because an independent votes with the 49 Republicans to force power-sharing with the 50 Democrats. The Virginia Senate also has a power-sharing arrangement until 2000 that stems from a tie in the 1995 election.

Although a tie mightily challenges legislators and intrigues analysts and reporters, it isn't unique in American history. Every election cycle since 1984 has brought a tie to at least one legislative body. The potential is even more staggering: More than 60 percent of the nation's legislative chambers, 28 Senates and 33 Houses, have an equal number of seats, meaning a tie is an ever-present possibility, particularly in political swing states.

In the '70s, 12 chambers had ties. The '80s had three ties, and this dwindling decade has seen ties in Alaska, Idaho, Michigan, Florida, Indiana, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Virginia and Washington state, although all of them didn't result in power-sharing agreements.

Washington's tie is expected to last two years. Both parties already are gearing up for the 2000 elections.

WILL IT WORK?

That was the big question mark as Washington legislators launched into their millennium-straddling session in Olympia. The easy and obvious answer, said Governor Gary Locke and the co-majorities, was that it MUST work. Gridlock is not an option if the two parties are to succeed in achieving the key tasks of the session, rebuild public confidence in the institution and build new bridges toward bipartisanship, they said with all the golly-gee-whiz optimism of an old Mickey Rooney-Judy Garland movie.

But the real answer is much more complicated, of course. Despite all the pledges of bipartisan cooperation, both sides privately conceded that it could be a bumpy ride as they feel their way along.

"I expect we'll have a big blowup, a real meltdown every now and then, and we'll have to work our way out of it," said Representative Hans Dunshee, co-chair of the Finance Committee. He likens the tie to having "two mongrel dogs chained up together."

Representative Mark Schoesler, a farmer from the Palouse country in eastern Washington, says it's like hitching up a bunch of new horses and expecting them to pull together smoothly.

The co-majority leader, Representative Lynn Kessler, uses another metaphor, comparing it to a shotgun wedding or a business relationship - you can make it work, or it can descend into bickering and long days of misery.

LOOKING TO THE PAST

The first thing co-speakers Chopp and Ballard did was to contact those who had lived through it before, 20 years ago, in the 1979 and 1980 sessions. The old co-speakers...