Carlyle in the 36th; White in the 46th

Two open seats in solid Democratic Seattle neighborhoods have produced several good candidates for the Legislature this year, an election that provides the first test of the state's new top-two primary.

Reuven Carlyle, Democrat, is the strongest candidate to fill the 36th District seat in north and northwest Seattle vacated by the Legislature's long-serving Rep. Helen Sommers.

Carlyle knows government and public policy, having been a teenage page of the late U.S. Sen. Warren Magnuson, a legislative aide to former state Rep. Gary Locke and a graduate of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. In the private sector, he has handled government relations for several startup companies, all involved in providing new technology to the public sector. Lately, he has been working with a company developing technology for electric cars.

One weakness of the Democratic caucus has been the lack of experience in private business. Carlyle has it. He has the entrepreneur's spirit and an appreciation of the private sector as the principal source of jobs. "The No. 1 job of the state," he says, "is to create a world-class work force."

He also has an appreciation of the public and nonprofit sectors, having spent his early childhood in foster care and the welfare system. His wife is a doctor at Virginia Mason, and his kids are in the Seattle Public Schools.

His principal opponent, John Burbank, is the founder and leader of the Economic Opportunity Institute, a liberal Seattle think tank that promoted the state's inflation-indexed minimum wage and the ill-fated proposal to fund child care with a 10-cent tax on lattes and other espresso drinks. Burbank is an articulate advocate of social programs, but he lacks Carlyle's knowledge of 21st-century business and green technology, both of which relate well to his district.

A pair of earnest Democrats have emerged to fill state Rep. Jim McIntire's open seat in the 46th District of north and northeast Seattle, but only one, Scott White, offers the right constellation of skills, contacts and personal work style to go to Olympia and dig right in.

White rose through the ranks of King County government to become chief of staff for the County Council, a complicated job, before moving on to work for Executive Ron Sims.

Interestingly, he has the support of the entire 46th District legislative delegation, including state Sen. Ken Jacobsen, Rep. Phyllis Kenney and the man he would replace, McIntire.

White's opponent, Gerry Pollet, is a hardworking community activist who approaches issues like a pit bull. But sometimes his activism is wrongheaded. He was the architect of an ill-considered statewide initiative that promised to clean up the Hanford nuclear reservation. The net effect was a huge legal bill taxpayers had to cover. Pollet has to take responsibility for a bad initiative.

White, not Pollet, scored the solo endorsement from Washington Conservation Voters.

Both Pollet and White are likely to advance to the general election under the top-two system. White is the better candidate for now and later.