Rep. Laurie Jinkins on being an out lesbian legislator, the budget and bullying

To the joy of the LGBT community, Representative Laurie Jinkins was elected to the House of Representatives in the Washington State legislature last fall as the first openly lesbian member. Since taking office she has been moving and shaking, sponsoring and co-sponsoring a number of bills, some related to LGBT issues and many others related to health care and other issues. She is the Vice-Chair of the Health Care & Wellness committee as well as sitting as a member of the Capital Budget, Environment and Transportation committees. Rep. Jinkins has a long history of community involvement in her district where she lives with her partner and son. I had the honor of speaking with her a few days ago about her experience since being elected and taking office.

You were elected as a Representative in the 27th legislative district this past fall. What was it like to run as an out lesbian? Was it an issue in the race?

You know, it wasn't very much of an issue. I think this was true for a few reasons. One, I live in a district that is very supportive, voted in the mid-60s for Referendum 71, just to give you an idea of what the district is like. Secondly, I've been very active in the community for over 25 years, both on lesbian and gay issues and I sat on the community college board, was involved in a lot of community-based non-profits. So I think it wasn't a surprise to people that I was a lesbian, and so the voters viewed that as a part of who I am but not all that I am because of the other stuff that I'd done. There were certainly the rare anti-gay comments from people. I've worked on various LGBT issues over the last 20 years and always had something really awful happen on those campaigns. But this time, nothing like that.

How have you been treated by your fellow legislators since taking office? Was it a warm welcome?

Oh I got an incredibly warm welcome. And again, while this is a very important issue to the lesbian and gay community, I'm not sure that it was recognized beyond the community that I was the first openly lesbian person elected to the state legislature. I had come in having worked for a state agency for a number of years, so I had appeared in front of a number of legislators and they knew me and that I had a lot of expertise in the field of health care and knew me from other work that I'd done. But one of the most pleasant surprises is how much both Democrat and Republican senior members want freshmen to succeed and really want to help. They really want to help you succeed. I've felt that incredibly strongly in my experience so far.

You sponsored HB 1649 which will cause the State of WA to recognize out-of-state same sex unions as domestic partnerships here. How amazing is it to have your first bill passed?

Well I'm obviously very proud. There are a number of other bills I've sponsored that I'm very proud of too, but I think being the first open lesbian elected to the House and have this be my first bill that actually makes it through . . . I'll have maybe four or five others make it through that are on health care and other local topics . . . It's really meaningful to me and I think it's really meaningful to the other gay members of the House. The support that I had in both the House and the Senate to get the bill passed was very emotional and very positive.

It will be great when the Governor signs it and it's actually law!

You know, the Speaker of the House invited me up to the rostrum today. What happens is that once the House and Senate have passed a bill and it's ready to go to the governor's office, it comes back and the Speaker of the House signs the bill and the Majority Leader signs the bill and then it goes off to the governor. So he invited me to come up to the rostrum today while he was signing it and gave me the pen it was signed with. I don't think they're doing that for every freshman legislator so it's just nice for the recognition, from the Democratic caucus in particular, that these bills are important and this one for families especially. And I think it's important for the caucus, especially in these tough economic times, to know we're doing everything we can to protect people and protect families and this is one of the really human things we're going to be able to do that doesn't cost money.

What other issues concern you and what do you hope to accomplish during your term in office?

You know, the budget is obviously the place of paramount concern. Right now the operating budget for the next biennium hasn't been issued yet, so I think that members like myself are working with the budget committee trying to bring ideas of how to save money and also programs, like the Basic Health Plan, to save and bridge that program. In 2014 when federal health reform is fully implemented we're going to have the money to really fund the Basic Health Plan and low and moderate income people are going to be able to have access to health care. So we're in this two year time period where we've got to figure out how to keep that program so that low and moderate income people can still have access to health care while we wait for federal health reform to be fully implemented. So, that's something that I'm working on. I'm also working on a number of other health care bills. I think right now it's really important for the public to see transparency in our health care system, so I sponsored a bill that allows the insurance commissioner to continue to have review authority over individual health insurance rates. Insurance companies file with him and he will have the ability to approve them or turn them down if the increases are inappropriate. So those are some examples of things I'm working on.

What are your thoughts on the suicides of so many LGBT teens over the past months and how do you think we can put a stop to bullying?

You know, we have an anti-bullying bill [HB 1163] and Marko Liias is the main sponsor and I've also signed onto that. One of the great things about the bill is that it really tries to push down into schools. We've had a number of bullying bills and the last one said that schools need to have anti-bullying policies so that they have strategies for how to handle bullying issues. But this bill takes it a step further and says that now we need to press those policies down into individual schools and make sure that staff in schools has excellent training. The bill would also make sure that students get some education in the health education part of their curriculum on both youth suicide and bullying issues. When a student is bullied it isolates the student and the school staff, a lot of times, isn't really sure what to do. So it's really important to push these strategies down to a ground level. That's what's really going to help our kids. The policies are important but unless they're being carried out on a school-by-school, classroom-by-classroom and student-by-student basis, we're not going to be able to stop some of the bullying which can end in youth suicide. Gay and lesbian students are disproportionately affected by this, but it's amazing the number of students of color, female students, students with disabilities . . . it crosses all kinds of boundaries the students that are affected by bullying. So this is really to make sure that every kid can be safe.

I know you have a family, your partner Laura and a 10-year-old son. How has life changed for your family since your election?

One thing is I'm a little jealous-our son is in Disneyland right now without us! It's spring break for him so he went to Portland to visit his aunt and uncle and they decided they'd take him to Disneyland as part of his spring break trip. So I think the thing that has changed the most is that I'm down in Olympia a lot and there are quite a few nights that I don't get home before our son has gone to bed. And so the family time is really at a premium and we're making sure that when we have family time we're actually spending time together instead of in separate rooms doing separate things. Our son flies back from Disneyland tomorrow and flies into Portland so it just turns out that we finished all of our floor action [in the House] so we've been told we can leave for the day. So at 4 p.m. my partner and I are going to get in the car and drive down to Portland. Thirty-six hours together, just the two of us, and then we'll pick our son up at the airport and spend another night down there and have some good family time. There have been some really fun parts too. A couple of weeks ago his class came down and visited with me, went on a tour of the capital, so that's fun. He's a 10-year-old, and it has definitely made him pay more attention to current events and actually comment to me about them and it's really interesting to get his take on them. When he was 9 years old and I was thinking about running . . . and it was right in the middle of the health care debate . . . he came to me and said, "I see a lot of people out in the world who are really worried and I think they're worried about losing their health coverage. So I think you should talk about that." And I thought that if my 9-year-old son could see that health care was an issue that needed to be addressed then I should certainly take that on as one of the issues I would address.