By Sen. Mary Margaret Haugen

After five terms in the House of Representatives and four and a half terms in the Senate, I’ve seen my share of state budgets — and it’s a familiar, if imperfect, process.

Regardless of which party is in power, the majority party writes the budget while the minority party complains of being ignored. Then the majority party pushes the budget through on a party line vote. It’s common practice, and it happens over and over again regardless of which party is in the majority and who’s leading the party.

But just because it’s common practice doesn’t make it good practice. That’s why, ever since I first chaired a legislative committee just two years into my first term in the House, I’ve always insisted on a bipartisan approach in my committees. Bipartisan consensus almost always produces better policy. When you’re being criticized from both the left and right, it’s usually a good sign that you’ve settled on a sensible middle ground that makes the most sense for the greatest number of people.

That’s why, early on in this year’s budget process, I joined a group of moderate Democrats in insisting that the Senate’s budget writers take a similarly inclusive approach on the state’s operating and capital budgets. I knew the same bipartisan cooperation that works so well on the transportation budget would work just as well on the other budgets. And in a year of severe budget cuts that will affect people across the state, we moderate Democrats felt lawmakers from every part of the state should have a voice in those cuts — not just legislators in the majority party.

To their credit, the Democratic leadership agreed—and the result was a sustainable budget that rightly balances the interests of the varied districts across the state.

The Senate represents 49 unique districts with distinct values and priorities. But we came together to write a budget that works as well for people living in the east as it does for people living in the west. This budget balances the interests of urban, suburban and rural areas alike. Not surprisingly, it passed the Senate with strong bipartisan support.

Now that it’s time to reconcile our Senate budgets with those proposed by the House of Representatives, we encourage our counterparts in the House to embrace a similar bipartisan approach — something they failed to do during the regular session.

In the House, Democrats and Republicans each submitted competing budgets and the resulting vote was deeply partisan, leaving moderates crying foul. The inability of the House Democrats and Republicans to work together was a big reason we’re coming back for special session. I have to think that if the Democrats and Republicans writing the operating and capital budgets in the House had been more willing to work with each other, instead of submitting partisan budgets, they could have finished on time just as we did with the transportation budget.

The serious economic challenges before our state demand cooperation from both sides of the aisle. I’ve always said roads are neither Democratic nor Republican, and the same holds true for sound policy. Neither Democrats nor Republicans hold the deed to good ideas.

The Senate budgets honor the most recent wishes of the voters.

Voters called for us to live within our means and shrink the size of government, and the Senate’s budget did that.

Voters wanted a budget that maintained valuable state services and kept the safety net in place, keeping the most vulnerable among us out of harm’s way. Given the limited revenues, we did the best we could.

Voters asked that all sides come together to balance the collective needs of Washingtonians statewide. We did that.

In the coming weeks of the special session, we’ll solve the budget problems more quickly through bipartisanship than through division. I urge my House colleagues on both sides of the aisle to put their differences behind them and place the interests of all Washingtonians ahead of partisan politics.

Sen. Mary Margaret Haugen, D-Camano Island, represents the 10th Legislative District the covers all of Island County and parts of Snohomish and Skagit counties.