My wife, Laura Gene ("Genie") and I live in the Mt. Baker neighborhood, a stone's throw from Franklin High. It's a neighborhood where the families watch each other's kids and we all know each other, and every year we throw a block party and hire a band. There's a strong sense of community here, among a diverse group of families. Every now and then I borrow neighbor Randy's kayak, and every now and then I help neighbor Joy get her car started, or chat with Eden across the street about our organic veggie gardens. We like that.

I met Genie in 1986, when we both showed up to audition for a role in a modern dance performance that had been choreographed for non-dancers--for lawyers, to be exact. I got a role, and I want you to know it was the second best role I got that day--the best being that of Luckiest Person in the World, the guy who married Genie. Genie had been a nurse for some 10 years when she suddenly, in about 1979, decided to go to law school. After about 17 years of practicing law, she's now a judge--and now I get to hear the old civics lesson about how the Courts can overrule the Legislature.

Add to this my daughter. Genevieve came in 1974, a bouncing redhead with a Woody Woodpecker giggle. And no, she wasn't born with a book in her hand, but under her mother's influence it came soon enough, and so did the cats. This fall, she'll enter the graduate program in Archaeology at Berkeley. (She's smarter than I am.) I still love to hear her laugh. In June a year back, she married her college beau, Matt Garfunkle. A mensch, I tell you.

Why This Happened Here

I came to Seattle with my wife on October 13, 1973, about 29 years ago, and I celebrate every anniversary of that date. It was culture shock. I'd spent almost two years, fresh out of law school, working for North Mississippi Rural Legal Services in the not-so-thriving town of Greenwood, in the Delta. My major project had been to help a senior lawyer enforce a federal judge's ruling that stopped the warden of the infamous prison-farm, Parchman Farm, from having prisoners beaten, starved, over-worked, and otherwise mistreated. It was the work I loved. But my wife and I were now expecting, and we were ready for the cool blue North.

Those two years were actually my second tour of duty in Mississippi. I'd been in that same town, Greenwood, during Freedom Summer, 1964. At the age of 20, I hadn't a lick of sense, and had marched off to fight my generation's battles in the same invincible spirit with which 20-year-olds do most everything. And in 1964, it seemed, everybody was 20 years old, and united in opposition to racial segregation and all its evils. My job in Greenwood was to register voters for the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, to which all were welcome regardless of race. I was one of a dozen or so volunteers in Greenwood with the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee, or SNCC. Our plan was to challenge the segregated Democratic party in the 1964 Convention, and seek to take its place as the official Democratic party of the state. We knew it wasn't goping to happen, but we'd have a national conversation about it, and the cause would be furthered. It would happen slowly, it would take years, but we would overcome.

I was a foot-soldier in our generation's battles, and the experience seems to have set the tone for the rest of my life. Back to college at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, and still in the spirit, I decided to take that year off from study and work in an SDS-sponsored organizing project in East Baltimore's slums. (Remember SDS--Students for a Democratic Society? We were radical, we were belligerent, and sometimes we were self-righteous. But you know something? By and large, we were right.) In a mixed African-American and Native American neighborhood, we practiced the art of neighborhood organizing, careful not to tread too heavily in other folks' turf, and mindful that our job was just to help the neighbors come together and focus on their common problems. It was a year well spent for a young man interested in social policy, and the lessons I learned are still with me.

Then through college, and then law school, all in Baltimore. (Oh, let's just hit the Fast Forward here. Let's cut straight to Seattle.)

After my time in the Delta, Seattle was a breath of fresh air, literally. I took a job with what's now Evergreen Legal Services, and spent the next three years representing people who were indigent and who needed legal help. For some of that time, I represented the residents of our state's six institutions for the developmentally disabled. That was an eye-opening experience, to see the conditions under which we kept people who were born disabled. They weren't much better off than prisoners in jails.

Since 1977, I've been in private practice in Seattle, representing injured folks in auto collisions, especially the victims of drunk drivers. From my office on Pioneer Square before it was chic, I got to see some of this city's social ills firsthand. I've volunteered as a pro bono lawyer for the ACLU, and had the most fun of my almost 30-year legal career in a case challenging a Tacoma ordinance that banned political yard-signs. (I got the Washington Supreme Court to overturn it, on constitutional grounds.)  But most of all, running my own little office on the Square gave me the feedom to get involved in the issues that define our current struggles: as a co-founder and chair of Washington Conservation Voter's local chapter; as a board member and chair of the political-action committee of NARAL, the pro-choice advocacy group; and as a member of the Legislatice Committee of the Washington State Trial Lawyers Association. For many years, I was active in Mothers Against Drunk Driving, both as its unofficial lobbyist in Olympia and later as its Seattle chapter president.

Political action is good for you.
 

Legislative Office: 431 John A. Cherberg Building; P.O. Box 40437; Olympia, WA 98504-0437; Telephone: (360) 786-7688; Fax: (360) 786-1999; Toll-Free Legislative Hotline: 1-800-562-6000; e-mail: kline_ad@leg.wa.gov
Democrat: Term expires January, 2003.
Elective Office: Appointed to State Senate, 1997; Elected, 1997, 1998.
Standing Committees: Judiciary, Chair; State & Local Government; Ways & Means.
Community Service: Cooperating attorney, American Civil Liberties Union; former co-chair, Washington Conservation Voters; former chair, National Abortion Rights Action League PAC of Washington; former legislative director, Mothers Against Drunk Drivers.
Education: Bachelor's degree, Johns Hopkins University, 1968. Law degree, University of Maryland, 1972.
Employment: Sole practice specializing in personal injury and civil rights law.
Personal: Sen. Kline lives in Seattle's Mount Baker neighborhood with his wife, Laura Gene Middaugh, who is also a lawyer. His daughter, Genevieve, is a graduate of Brown University and lives in Boston.