by Mark Matassa
Seattle Times staff reporter
Unable to find a nearby public school that was right for her daughter, who uses a wheelchair, Chris Balk of Seattle enrolled Lizzie, 7, in a Montessori school. She has also discovered in herself a spring of political activism that led her, this election season, to the Front Porch Forum.
With Tuesday's primary election nearing, Balk accepted the Forum's invitation to ask candidates directly for their views on a topic. Frustrated by some of her own experiences with public schools, she wanted to know what the leading U.S. Senate candidates would do for disabled students.
We promised to take her and other readers' questions to the candidates and then publish them, along with the candidates' answers.
Today, in the first installment of what we plan as a regular feature through the November general election, we offer an exchange between nine Puget Sound residents and four of the Senate candidates - Democrats Scott Hardman, Mike James, Ron Sims and Jesse Wineberry.
Sen. Slade Gorton, the Republican incumbent who has token primary-election opposition, chose not to participate.
In addition to Balk's question, the candidates tackle population growth, crime, gun control, health care, school vouchers and affordable housing.
The Senate race tops a ballot Tuesday that also features contested primaries to succeed retiring Congressman Al Swift, D-Bellingham, and to oppose House Speaker Tom Foley, D-Spokane.
But the best race may be in southwest Washington, where state Sen. Linda Smith, R-Hazel Dell, near Vancouver, is trying to become the state's first write-in congressional candidate.
Her last-minute campaign against Rep. Jolene Unsoeld, D-Olympia, follows the surprise withdrawal this month of Republican Tim Moyer.
In addition, the entire state House of Representatives and half the state Senate is on the ballot, along with judicial races, incorporation drives and assorted financial measures.
Asking political candidates onto our metaphoric Front Porch is the latest development in the Forum, a joint reporting project that began in May among The Seattle Times, National Public Radio stations KPLU-FM and KUOW-FM and the Poynter Institute for Media Studies.
One of the project's goals is to explore the fraying connections among citizens, the media and government, and to do something about repairing them.