Legislative Commentary

A year ago our new Majority Coalition Caucus was formally assuming leadership of the state Senate, and the transition from 10 years of one-party control made the first week of the 2013 legislative session a bit of a bumpy ride. Still, as I wrote to you then, it was encouraging to already see open discussion of ideas that had been stifled for many years.

There were no such bumps during the first week of the eight-week 2014 legislative session. Why? I have to believe the senators now on the minority side, having seen what our bipartisan coalition accomplished in its first year, realize that our priorities – jobs, education and a sustainable budget – are good for their constituents too.

Also, we proved in 2013 that we’re serious about making sure our state’s lawmaking process is free of the sort of bickering and gridlock seen in Washington, D.C.

The state House of Representatives is a different story; the majority there passed a politically charged bill right out of the gate on opening day Jan. 13. However, I’m going to concentrate on what the Senate can do, which is to move good legislation through and over to the House for its consideration.

Besides our continued focus on jobs, education and smart budgeting, we’re going to look for new opportunities to reform how government delivers services. Also, considering state government’s new two-year budgets all were adopted in 2013, there’s no good reason for the legislative session to extend past its scheduled close on March 13.

I have extra incentive to adjourn on time: a new granddaughter named Elise, who will be nearly three months old by then!

For 2014 it’s more budget, education and jobs

It’s worth repeating that the new state operating budget we adopted in 2013 was not only balanced without a general tax increase; $650 million in “temporary” tax hikes from 2010 were allowed to expire on schedule, which gave some important relief to employers and also gave taxpayers a reason to trust our coalition.

Another benefit of our approach became evident last week. We made sure the new budget didn’t outspend the available revenue, in accordance with the four-year balanced-budget law I pushed for as a budget negotiator in 2012. That hasn’t happened since the economic recession took hold in 2007-08.

Besides putting state government on the path to a sustainable budget, we did right by students and their families in 2013 with an additional $1 billion for K-12 education and enough new support for state-run colleges and universities to finally end a string of annual tuition increases dated to 1986.

The jobs part of our budget-education-jobs agenda fared well in the Senate this past year. We approved a passel of legislation that would make Washington a friendlier place to do business; unfortunately, most of it received an unfriendly reception in the House.

I’m hoping for a better result in 2014. The level of employment in Washington is still about 50,000 jobs short of the pre-recession level, and that can be seen on Main Street.

Considering how they supported new cost-saving measures for aerospace in November, the governor and the House majority leaders may find it difficult now to get in the way of cost-saving measures we’d like to extend to job creators statewide. A good example is a follow-up reform of the state-monopoly industrial-insurance system known as workers’ compensation.

Governor, justices already pushing for more spending

It was disappointing but not surprising that Gov. Inslee’s supplemental budget proposal called for $262 million in new spending. When his plan was released in mid-December that increase was supposed to be covered in part through some questionable transfers of money between accounts – but not tax increases. Something changed by Inslee’s Jan. 14 state-of-the-state address before a joint session of the Legislature.

He wants another $200 million in spending, spoke of ending tax incentives and echoed the new Socialist member of Seattle’s city council by calling for an increase in Washington’s minimum wage.

A minimum-wage increase would be bad news for Spokane, Whitman, Asotin and the state’s other border counties because merchants and other job creators would be at even more of a disadvantage compared to Oregon, where the hourly minimum wage is $9.10, and Idaho, where it’s far less at $7.25.

Finally, there’s the unexpected intrusion by the state Supreme Court, which has essentially ordered the Legislature to spend more on K-12 education. This is another result of the 2012 decision in McCleary vs. Washington, in which the court ruled Olympia needed to do better about funding basic education.

While I don’t question that we will again increase K-12 funding, it’s a matter of how much and how soon. That’s a matter for lawmakers to decide. The Supreme Court justices are supposed to uphold and interpret state law, not tell us how to write budgets.