OLYMPIA – African American foster children. Motorcycle helmet choice. Clean campaign money and clean air. Performance audits. “You need directions?”
Thirty-two-year-old state lawmaker Kevin Van De Wege – who in November wrested the 24th District House of Representatives seat from longtime legislator Jim Buck – is a freshly unwrapped sponge tumbling through the Olympian spin cycle.
The freshman legislator stands out, a boyish face among the craggy.
When other lawmakers ask how he’s doing, they get a sunny “I’m good!” or “Good, good, good!”
One elder, seeing him in a Capitol hallway for the second time in as many minutes, ribs him a little about not knowing the way to his committee meeting.
But Van De Wege – a Clallam County firefighter-paramedic originally from rural Whatcom County who is now representing constituents in Clallam, Jefferson and parts of Grays Harbor counties – seems to have no trouble finding his way around the state Capitol, nor around the surrounding hotels where receptions are held every day and night of the legislative session.
He talks fast and walks faster, up and down staircases, through the biting wind downtown.
That’s necessitated by the 8 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. schedule he has been keeping weekdays since the start of the session Jan. 8.
