MOSES LAKE - Bill Finkbeiner, a Republican candidate for lieutenant governor of Washington, believes whoever holds the role should be more engaged in ending partisan gridlock.

The position is currently held by four-term Lieutenant Governor Brad Owen, D-Shelton, who now presides over the state Senate and serves as acting governor in the case of an absence.

"There's a lot of potential there to really make a change in how the Legislature works," Finkbeiner said. "What got me back into politics was being frustrated with way things were working - or not working - in this state. Somebody needs to get in there and make it work better."

Finkbeiner, 42, visited Moses Lake Tuesday while on a campaign tour of Eastern Washington. A former state senator from Kirkland, he won legislative elections first as a Democrat and then as a Republican, and was the leader of the Senate Republicans during his time in that caucus.

Finkbeiner believes his biography is ideal for the lieutenant governor position, and will help him work to bring Democrats and Republicans together - quite literally.

This week he proposed seating Senators alphabetically and removing the aisle from between the two parties in the Senate chambers, which he said promotes a culture of division and resultant gridlock.

He points to a friendship that formed between him and former Moses Lake Senator Harold Hochstatter when they sat next to each other in the Senate. While the two disagreed on several issues, Finkbeiner said talking them out helped to straighten out their differences.

"It's important that people express their ideas and they have differing views, but I think it's also important to solve problems," he said. "If you take that aisle away and you seat people alphabetically they're going to be more likely to strike up a conversation with the person next to them and hear another side of the issue than they're hearing from all the people in their own party."

It's up for debate whether or not Finkbeiner actually has the power to start moving desks around. While the state Constitution says the lieutenant governor resides over the senate, it also gives the senate the power to organize itself.

Regardless, Finkbeiner says he'll enlist the public to "push, nudge and cajole" legislators into considering the idea, as well as discussing it with the senators themselves.

"I think there is some power in the office that you could use and I also think legislators are a bit frustrated themselves," he said. "They don't feel like everybody loves them when they go home and talk to their constituents, I think they're a bit embarrassed they're going into a second special session, and I think they know it can work better."

While new seating assignments are perhaps the most eye-catching idea Finkbeiner has proposed, if elected he said he'd also provide a mediator to help legislators negotiate, change joint legislative rules to make conference committees more bipartisan and bring legislative leaders together with the governor on a regular basis to set priorities.

"That office, because you're not in either caucus, you have the opportunity to bring people together and be kind of an independent third party and help them set goals together," he said. "If they can set goals together and start to set a direction for where they want to go we can argue about how we're going to get there but it will be a common focus for what we want to do."

Another way Finkbeiner said state government can work better for the people is by making it easier for more citizens to get involved.

He suggests creating a system that allows constituents to testify on bills via video, which could be attached to bill reports and reviewed by legislators during committee. The concept would be relatively inexpensive when the benefits are considered, he said.

"It's not a big imposition for someone who lives in Tacoma to go down and testify on a bill," he said. It's easy for them to do, but for somebody who lives in Moses Lake to go testify it's ridiculous. It takes all day, and then you get to committee and maybe you don't even get to testify. The further people get away from Olympia the more frustrated they get, because they feel like somebody some place else is doing something to them, which is valid."

While he sees nothing particularly wrong with Owen's performance over the past 16 years, Finkbeiner said the incumbent hasn't done enough to change the legislative climate.

"The big difference between me and Owen is that if I'm lieutenant governor you're going to see some things happen and if he's lieutenant governor you're going to see the same thing we're seeing now, which is a competent person running the senate," he said. "I think the lieutenant's office is where you can make a change. We've got big challenges, big issues in front of us, and we've got to step up to it."

Also running to wrest the position away from Owen this fall are Republican House member Glenn Anderson and Clifford Mark Green, who lists his party preference on Public Disclosure Commission forms as Party of Commons.