1.10.17

Suggested lead:  For one key lawmaker in Olympia, compromise looks to be the ticket as the new legislative session kicks off.  Dan Frizzell has that story.

Wrap (:77 total): It's only day two of Mike Chapman's legislative career, but the freshman representative isn't sitting quietly in the back row and waiting to be called on. The Port Angeles Democrat came to Olympia with nearly two decades of elected service under his belt as a Clallam County commissioner, plus another career in law enforcement. Like his fellow first-year lawmakers, he's eager to work, and Washington's longstanding school funding problem looks solvable to him.

CHAPMAN: "The time to talk is over.  It is time to roll up our sleeves and to get to work and find a solution that will work for our entire state and for our districts.  That's my focus and that's what I'm going to be working on." [:11]

Chapman acknowledges a workable solution to the McCleary dilemma will require more than rolled-up sleeves, and that the something more is money.  He sees Washington's much-criticized tax system as a major stumbling block.

CHAPMAN: "As state lawmakers it's important for us to work collaboratively, to work with the Senate, to work with our colleagues across the aisle to solve problems.  I think the people in our state expect us to do that:  to work toward compromise to solve those problems in our state." [:15]

No one expects that system to get a complete makeover in 105 days . . . but Chapman says that won't be because he and his nearly two dozen fellow freshmen in the House won't be trying. In Olympia, I'm Dan Frizzell.