Congressional Visit

Posted by Gary O'Rielly 
on Mar 23, 2014
 
Congresswoman Suzan DelBene was our guest speaker March 21, 2014. The Congresswoman represents Washington's 1st Congressional District. The 1st Congressional District encompasses the majority of Whatcom, Skagit and Snohomish counties as well as nearly one-third of King County. The eastern edge of the district follows county lines along the Cascade Crest from the Canadian border down to the I-90 corridor. Then it follows I-90 west to West Lake Sammamish, cuts over to the northern half of Lake Washington on the eastside and from there north to I-5. The western border follows roughly the I-5 corridor north to Bellingham, then along the coast to Canada. Congresswoman DelBene maybe the only member of Congress who has to enter Canada to visit part of the District.
 

Congresswoman DelBene was elected to office in 2012 and sworn in to finish the term of former Congressman, now Governor, Jay Inslee, she was the 489th member of the 112th Congress. When she was sworn in 2013 she ended up being the 350th member of Congress. Since Congress is built on seniority, this is important for our state.

The Congresswoman sits on the House Agriculture Committee and the House Judiciary Committee. Congresswoman DelBene covered several issues currently before Congress including the most recent passage of the Farm Bill which she co-authored in the House and was on the Joint House-Senate Conference Committee negotiating with the Senate. She is co-sponsor of the Immigration bill that currently has 197 co-sponsors. For it to have a chance in the House the bill needs 218 co-sponsors. NSA overview and privacy was another issue that concerns the Congresswoman. She talked about concerns over the way NSA collects data. She is looking for transparency in dealing with the intelligence community. She commented that the cloud  files do not require a warrant to get information from (little paper documents do) so that is an area given the digital age that they have to come up with some regulations.

Congress is struggling to get things done. Polarization is currently the standard in Congress. There are substantial issues facing the nation that need to be completed and a polarized Congress will eventually harm the United States. Currently, the way bills are passed addressing immediate and short term needs is usually the most expensive way of running Congress and the Nation as a whole. She believes that you cannot just look at spending and spending cuts but the return on investment that a bill has to offer. The Congresswoman is working with the Lake Stevens Mayor Vern Little and the city on a variety of matters due to the lack of funding. Another issue is a tax policy that requires internet retailers to collect sales tax regardless of the physical location of the business. Cleaning up the tax code, passing an immigration bill such as HR 15 and increasing the current minimum wage laws in the United States is critical. These are a few of the issues she touched on during her visit to our club.

During the question and answer session following her presentation, she didn't know the immediate impact of the sanctions on Russia for companies like Boeing and others. "Too early to tell at this time" she said. DelBene felt we needed to make more investments in transportation and education.  A question was asked about the failure of the Washington State Legislature to fix the so-called common core education standards. This failure it could cost the state over $40 million. Other questions were raised about internet neutrality, climate change and the Congresswoman's stance on term limits. In addressing term limits there isn't a simple solution, DelBene said. Since leadership positions and Committee assignments including who chairs committees is based on seniority there isn't an easy "fix" to say a person can only serve a certain number of years. How would these things be decided if there are term limits?

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Suzan DelBene spent part of her early childhood in Newport Hills and Mercer Island before her father, an airline pilot, lost his job. The family moved all over the country in search of a job for her father. With hard work and financial aid such as student loans and work study programs, DelBene earned a BA in biology from Reed College in Portland, Oregon. After Reed College, she worked in the biotechnology  industry before earning an MBA from the University of Washington. DelBene has had a successful career as a technology leader and innovator she helped start drugstore.com as its vice president of marketing and store development. She served as CEO and President of Nimble Technology business software company based on technology developed at UW. Afterwards she spent twelve years at Microsoft most recently as corporate vice president of the company's mobile communications business.

DelBene is married to Kurt DelBene and they have two college age children.

Another fantastic program. We had 18 of our own Members in attendance as well as two Rotarians from other Clubs (Gigi Burke and Marc Baker) and seven other guests including the Mayor, City Councilman Daughtry, Chief Lorentzen of the Police Department, Jan Berg & Becky Abelman from the City and Donna Foster, a well-known and respected business owner in the community. Thank you to all for attending and participating.