By Jerry Cornfield,
Political columnist

Little Marko was on fire.

The man most know as Sen. Marko Liias, D-Lynnwood was riffing on all the goodness in the supplemental transportation budget Tuesday evening and dropping kudos to Gov. Jay Inslee along the way.

He praised the governor for jumping in “to find solutions” to problems afflicting the I-405 toll lanes, coming up with the “creative idea” to deploy more incident response vehicles on highways and pushing to increase the number of electric vehicle charging stations.

In all, Liias dropped in a dozen or so shout-outs to the governor.

That proved about a dozen too many for Sen. Joe Fain, R-Auburn, AKA the Floor Leader for the Republican majority.

“I want to congratulate Little Marko,” began the smiling Fain who then restarted to address the senator more formally.

“I want to congratulate Sen. Liias for his 12 references to Gov. Inslee in his floor speech. I cannot imagine anyone in this chamber is going to be able to best that tonight nor am I going to allow that to happen,” he said, promptly calling for the vote which passed the budget.

Liias, along with a couple Democratic senators who spoke before him, might have felt a need to remind the Senate majority of Inslee’s existence because the governor has deliberately kept his head down and voice removed from the legislating scuffles in the homestretch of the session. It was scheduled to end Thursday.

Inslee, by his own admission is being quiescent, which Webster’s and Random House dictionaries define as quiet, still or inactive.

The governor steadfastly refrains from offering insight or commentary on budget negotiations between the House and Senate. He’s said he wants to avoid mucking up the mood and flow of the talks.

“I have been quiescent in these negotiations,” he told reporters Monday. “I’ve been passive about requiring any particular thing because they need to get their budget done.”

He did vow to veto bills if an agreement isn’t reached before the end of session. His declaration immediately imperiled dozens of bills sitting on his desk awaiting his signature.

Lawmakers in both parties responded with a collective ho-hum. A few snickered and dared him to carry out the threat. They said many of those bills came from state agencies he oversees. Essentially, they said, he’d be rejecting bills he requested.

In the meantime, while the governor may explain his distance as a strategy to not get in the way, he also seems to still be smarting from the Senate’s firing of his transportation secretary, Lynn Peterson. And the lingering cloud of the Department of Corrections foul-up continues to cast a shadow on his administration.

Inslee is certainly counting the hours until lawmakers leave. Then he can hit the campaign trail for re-election rallies where he’s certain to recapture his mojo.

He’ll be able to preach about combating climate change and abolishing economic inequality. He’ll be able to champion the need to reduce carbon emissions and raise the minimum wage, proposals he’s failed to advance in four legislative sessions.

Inslee is a renowned practitioner of retail politics and really enjoys this aspect of electoral politics.

And after Little Marko’s performance this week, the governor may want to bring him along as the opening act.

Political reporter Jerry Cornfield’s blog is at www.heraldnet.com. Contact him at jcornfield@heraldnet.com.