I recently read an article about a Texas judge that sentenced an habitual drunk driver to life in prison. The man was driving his truck (later registering a .32 blood alcohol level) when he struck another driver and injured them.

I was out talking to people this week and ran into the parent of a teenager who died at the hands of a drunk driver. I was surprised to hear the courts plea bargained the case and he received a very light sentence despite killing a 16-year-old child.

When elected in November I will work on legislation to toughen drunk driving laws in Washington state, especially when it results in a fatality or serious injury. My opponent has not made this a priority in the 12 years he has been in office. He does not talk about them now. He will when he sees that I have focused a considerable amount of my campaign towards strengthening the laws, but look now and you will not.

My brother was on his way home when he was hit by a drunk driver several years ago. Six months later he died from bone cancer, which would have been preventable had it not been for the fractured pelvis, broken hip, fractured knee, and broken ribs sustained in the accident. The fact that it is now 20 years later and the laws are about the same for DUI conviction is appalling. I will not sit idly by and let this go on any longer.

Our society does not consider the value of our education enough. As we head into the next century, jobs will require advanced training in technology. Even our farming communities are starting to use technology to improve crops and reduce harvesting times. Based on this reality, we need to prepare ourselves for these types of careers.

When compared to other countries, we are far behind in terms of graduation rates, level of education and overall testing scores. At what point do we stop blaming those who we think are responsible, and decide to work toward solving problems? Our children need a future, not a future fight.

Our teachers blame the parents, our parents blame the teachers, and our legislators sit on the fence because any proposed law will upset significant numbers of voters. We firmly believe in providing high quality education for our children, but deny any responsibility when something does not work as planned.

We already invest a lot of money towards standardized testing, and our elected officials are reluctant to give up on a program that has received millions of dollars for implementation. It is difficult to propose alternatives because new programs require substantial investment during an economic downturn, and revenue continues to decline. Justifying new funding for alternatives to the Washington Assessment of Student Learning (WASL) will not be popular, but may be necessary.

The need for highly trained workers in the private sector is extremely high. We are starting to see a pattern of international recruiting develop in technology-based companies across the United States.

We also need to address the increased number of students requiring remedial education right after high school. Parents are important to any solution and we need to get them more involved in the learning process. We need to start rethinking how we teach our children to ensure they get the quality education they deserve. Most importantly, we need to protect funding for our school systems and to make sure it actually gets to the classroom.

Education is an integral part of my life. In high school I was an average student. I did just enough work to pass. This was not because I was lazy, but rather because I did not yet fully understand the importance of having quality education.

After graduating high school I was not prepared for the realities of the workplace. I did not understand why I could not get the jobs I wanted and did not really want the jobs I got. When I probed people for information regarding my problem, I received a universal response similar to “you need more education for those jobs”.

Knowing I did not want to work medial jobs the rest of my life, I looked at options to pay for college and decided the U.S. Army was the best possible solution. I enlisted in 1998 and took the college fund instead of a cash bonus. Four years later I had finished serving my country and began thinking about my future.

I enrolled in community college with the intent of getting an Associate’s Degree and heading back into the job market. It was at Highline Community College where my life changed forever. I took a political science course with Dr. T.M. Sell. He was the first instructor that really pushed me to do my best.

One day he asked me where I was going to get my Bachelor’s Degree. When I told him I was not going to, he replied, “Are you stupid?” That response woke me up. Until that moment I did not believe in myself enough to contemplate getting an advanced degree.

When I graduated from Evergreen with an emphasis in writing I talked to T.M. again and again he asked where I was going to get my Master’s Degree. I told him I was not contemplating going any further in school as I felt drained from Evergreen (I fought hard to keep my sanity in a place where the other students did not see the world as I did and it took a lot out of me).

This time he expressed that I not only had the ability to get a Master’s, he believed I could excel at UW despite having my undergrad from Evergreen. With his support I enrolled at UW and am on my way to a Master’s of Public Administration.

In February 1988, a drunk driver had a head on collision with my brother. My brother broke his collar-bone, fractured his pelvis and crushed his knee. Prior to that night, he was a star soccer player on his way to the minor leagues. As a result of the accident, the undiscovered bone cancer in his crushed knee spread quickly and he died the next year. The drunk driver was given a slap on the wrist and went on to live his life.

Here we are more than 20 years later, and we continue to lose kids to drunk drivers. We have not done enough to stop repeat offenders from getting behind the wheel. I remember how I felt when my brother was hospitalized, and the drunk driver went home the next day. No family should have to feel the pain of losing a loved one to a drunk driver.

As a legislator, I will work to make laws tougher on repeat offenders and drunk drivers who cause injuries or death. When we speak out and say the state should have a zero tolerance policy, we must also hold our elected officials to that standard. What I say is what I mean, and when I say zero tolerance, I mean zero tolerance.

We have a significant accountability problem in state government today. It has been a problem for several years, and for some reason we have been unable to do anything about it. My opponent talks about everything he has done to make government accountable, but for some reason we have yet to see any significant results.

We have long talked about what we would like to see from the state auditor’s office, but the reality is the state has not granted the auditor any real power. I recently attended a class at University of Washington that focused on performance evaluations and how to implement change. The first step is recognizing the need for significant change. State agencies like Labor and Industries and Department of Licensing do not see a need for reform. They enjoy the status quo and will fight tooth and nail to avoid change.

The problem is we cannot afford to maintain the status quo anymore. We can’t keep feeding the fire and expecting our house not to burn down. It is as if we were trying to protect our water supply by adding salt.

In order to bring about change, we need people who are willing to put in the time and do extra work. Mark Miloscia had the last 12 years to change government, it’s time for a change. This year he voted against the budget, but offered no alternative solutions and did not speak out against it in the media. If he really believes in accountability, then why is he not holding himself accountable for not offering any solutions or ideas to our serious budget problem?