Legislative Commentary

Last week saw the Senate complete its first round of all-day voting for this session. During a seven-day pause from committee work all 49 senators relocated to their desks on the “floor” of the Senate chamber to cast votes on approximately 190 Senate bills that had already come through the committee process. The deadline for voting was 5 p.m. Wednesday, and as usual, reporters and other Capitol-watchers were curious: which bill would our Senate majority choose for the final vote before we return to committee work?

We could have brought up a controversial bill that would cause verbal fireworks in the chamber. I have seen that happen in years past, when others were in charge. Instead, our choice for the final bill of this stretch of voting may have surprised onlookers: Senate Bill 5915, a measure with bipartisan sponsorship.

Simply put, SB 5915 would require the state Office of Financial Management to expand how it estimates the cost of implementing a bill, so that lawmakers may also have a real-world view of a bill’s economic effect (a good example: special tax rates for industries such as food processors, which mean less direct revenue to the state but more than make up for that with the jobs they support).

Our bipartisan coalition has worked hard to move the Senate away from the sort of partisan bickering seen in the “other Washington,” and we have put high priority on bringing common sense to the state budget. SB 5915, a bill I am co-sponsoring, fits with both of those goals. It passed unanimously.

The visits from back home this week started Monday with our daughter Veronica, who didn’t have to teach on the Presidents Day holiday, accompanied by grandson Kaegen and granddaughter Elise. I also welcomed 9th District members of the Service Employees International Union, and in-district representatives of Thrive Washington. Art Swannack, Whitman County commissioner, and the presidents of Eastern Washington University and Gonzaga University also came by for meetings.

Seattle Seahawks receiver Jermaine Kearse paid us a call to talk about the importance of programs and services for youth from military families, and veterans – having grown up in Lakewood, next to Joint Base Lewis-McChord, he knows something about military communities. Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers, whose district includes our legislative district, had breakfast with our MCC leadership Wednesday. Two state-agency heads also made a point of coming to meet with me today: the new acting transportation secretary, Roger Millar, and the head of the state parks department, Don Hoch.

Friday was day 40 of our 60-day session, meaning I should be packing up the car (and Colt the dog) and heading for home in a few weeks. There is still much work to do at the Capitol between now and then, though.

Governor wants to create agency to take over part of DSHS duties


The state Department of Social and Health Services has a dismal record when it comes to the safety of Washington children who are supposed to be under its protection. Mismanagement within the Children’s Administration arm of DSHS has led to $105 million in lawsuit payouts in the past five years alone.

Rather than hold DSHS accountable for its poor performance, Gov. Jay Inslee wants to relieve DSHS of its responsibility to serve children and families by creating an agency to take over that work. Yesterday he issued an executive order creating a 16-member commission that will make recommendations – by Nov. 1 – regarding the setup of such a new agency.

Knowing how our Senate majority has made a point of holding state agencies accountable, news reporters wanted to know what we thought. Here’s what I shared:

“Addressing the appalling mismanagement at DSHS by creating a new agency is a start – if handled correctly. We hope the task force follows through with the governor’s claim that it will be working with the Legislature. The new agency must have the most effective management systems in place so it doesn’t turn into an echo of DSHS.

“It is completely unacceptable that so many children are being victimized twice: once by abusers then again because of incompetence on the part of the agency that is supposed to be protecting them. This will only work if we don’t recycle a dysfunctional framework.”

The idea of taking children’s services away from DSHS is nothing new. In 2005 the Legislature unanimously approved Senate Bill 5872, sponsored only by some of my fellow Republican senators, which created a task force that ultimately recommended the creation of a separate agency to advocate for children and families.

Former Governor Gregoire chose to keep DSHS intact, however, and the timing of Inslee’s action seems unusual considering how that agency’s record of failing children was widely known long before he took office.

Revenue forecast for slower growth confirms cautious budget approach

Wednesday’s release of the first state revenue forecast for 2016 brought the state budget picture into better focus. The Economic and Revenue Forecast Council, which includes legislative budget leaders and the state’s chief economist, is projecting that the slow, steady growth seen in our state’s economy for the past few years is going to taper off some

Serving on budget committees for many years has proven to me that like so many other things in life, economies go up and down in cycles. Government can do things to encourage economic growth (like hold the line on taxes, as our Senate majority has done) or endanger an economy (by raising taxes, as the governor proposed to do this year), but it cannot change the cyclical nature of things. As a dryland wheat farmer I always have to plan for an especially dry year, and budgeting is no different. Earlier this month I mentioned how I had yet to say “yes” to any new spending requests and had already said “no” – sometimes “heck no” – several times. This revenue forecast is exactly why.

Now that the forecast is in hand I expect a burst of progress on the budget front in the next week, because budget writers use these new numbers to put the finishing touches on their proposals. I hope the House, which will release its budget proposal first, takes the same approach I expect we will take in the Senate: act as though there is little if any money to spare (because that’s the case) and protect the state’s rainy-day fund.

This forecast highlights what a problem it is when a state agency outspends its budget, as the Health Care Authority has by hundreds of millions of dollars. It also shows how wrong-headed it is to suggest breaking into the rainy-day fund just to drop $300 million on homelessness, as the Senate minority leader proposed recently.

Schoesler-sponsored legislation moves forward

Twenty of the bills I have introduced or sponsored this year have won Senate approval and moved across the Legislative Building to the House of Representatives. Here is an update on a few mentioned earlier in the session:

Senate Bill 6265 was passed this week by a 35-14 vote. This pro-agriculture legislation would put some “grace” into the weight limits on public highways (not counting interstates, or bridge weight limits) by allowing a farm vehicle carrying agricultural commodities to be overweight by up to a ton and still be legal. SB 6265 has broad bipartisan support and is already scheduled for a public hearing Monday before the House Transportation Committee. 


Senate Bill 6267 received a 44-1 vote in favor and is scheduled for a public hearing before the House Judiciary Committee on Feb. 23. It is also scheduled for a committee decision on Feb. 26, which is an even better sign.

I am the prime sponsor of this bipartisan bill, which would simply allow people holding concealed-carry permit applicants to provide an email address and request to be notified 30 days prior to the expiration date of their permit. The idea is to reduce the chance that a person with a concealed-pistol license will not renew the permit on time and be forced to pay a $10 late-renewal fee. It would be no different than the automatic reminders people get to renew their driver’s licenses and license tabs.


Senate Bill 6254 also is scheduled for a public hearing during the Monday meeting of the House Transportation Committee, after winning unanimous approval from the Senate.

This bipartisan bill would allow recipients of the Purple Heart medal to buy additional Purple Heart license plates by paying a fee that would go into the Veterans’ Stewardship Account (a person’s first Purple Heart plate carries no added fee). That account funds programs and services for homeless veterans; establishes memorials honoring veterans; and may be used to maintaining a future state veterans’ cemetery.

Senate approves bill to tighten control over agencies’ authority


One of the more important bills the Senate approved this week is meant to get a better handle on the ability of state agencies to make their own form of law. By “own form” I mean the rules that implement the laws that make up the Revised Code of Washington. Agencies in the state’s executive branch have been granted authority by the Legislature to make rules, which are contained in the Washington Administrative Code (WAC).

The average person doesn’t have much need to know the distinction between laws and rules, so here’s an example: in 2006 the Legislature updated the state’s anti-discrimination laws to include “gender identity” under the definition of sexual orientation. At the end of 2015, a rule stemming from that 2006 change took effect.

You may have heard about it – the rule authorizing people, including transgender people, to choose restrooms or locker rooms according to their gender identity. That rule was made by the state Human Rights Commission earlier in the year, and as I’ve explained to many concerned people, it’s not a law made by the Legislature, although it has the force of law.

Employers and voters may also remember how the state Department of Labor and Industries adopted a controversial workplace rule related to ergonomics in 2000, and how that rule was thrown out at the ballot box in 2003.

Our deputy Senate majority leader, Sen. John Braun of Centralia, recently compiled some recent statistics about the WAC that raise new concerns about the number of public-policy decisions being made by agency officials who are not elected and therefore not directly accountable to the people affected by their decisions.

These are from the latest edition of his series of “Economic Sense” policy papers – titled “Who Makes Our Laws?” The most startling figure is the 38 percent growth of the WAC in the past decade: state agencies added over 6,100 pages, pushing it over 22,000 pages.

Senator Braun introduced Senate Bill 6396 to slow the rapid growth of the WAC. I am co-sponsoring the bill. Modeled after Colorado’s approach to the delegation of legislative authority, SB 6396 would require agencies to submit proposed rules to the attorney general for an opinion as to their legality before adoption. If adopted by the agency, a new rule would automatically expire after one year, unless the Legislature approves a bill to postpone the expiration.

This change would not affect existing WACs – repealing them and starting over would be unworkable. It would, however, allow the Legislature to start regaining the balance and accountability that is now missing from the rule-making process.

SB 6396 passed 26-23 earlier last week. It’s one of the few measures that saw the Senate split along majority-minority lines (votes on most of the nearly 200 policy bills approved by the Senate this year have been unanimous or close to it).

Next step on education-funding reform receives Senate approval

Led by our Senate majority coalition, the Legislature has made historic investments in our schools – including an additional $4.6 billion the past three years. There is still, however, much work to do to reduce school districts’ overreliance on local levies and have the state absorb the costs of basic education. This is the more complicated part of responding to the state Supreme Court’s McCleary ruling on education funding.

Last year a bipartisan group of senators produced an initial proposal for reforming our state’s school-levy system. It represented a strong start but was not ready for a vote.

The work continued after the 2015 session, but we knew coming into 2016 that this short, 60-day session probably would not provide enough time to assemble a set of reforms that can win approval from both the Senate and House.

This week the Senate formally acknowledged the amount of work left to do, by approving Senate Bill 6195. This legislation would create a bipartisan task force to make recommendations on teacher pay, benefits and recruitment efforts, collective bargaining, and how state and local funds are used to pay for education.

SB 6195 was amended before our vote to align it with the corresponding legislation passed by the House, meaning work on the measure should be essentially complete.

An important piece of SB 6195 would seek K-12 compensation information from local school districts and an analysis of what state versus local money is being used. Once the Legislature has that information it can better address the levy-reform issue.