Legislative Commentary

The main things keeping legislative leaders and budget negotiators at the Capitol are the same as last year: taxes and spending. The Democrat-controlled House of Representatives basically wants more of each, and our Senate majority does not. That’s why we are, as of today, nine days into an overtime session.

The talks toward a budget agreement are at the top of the list of news items coming out of the Capitol last week.

House Democrats still want more taxes, spending: The lack of a budget agreement is what forced the Legislature into the special session called by the governor late on March 10, a matter of minutes after our regular session ended. As I’ve mentioned before, the agreement we are after is not a brand-new budget but a supplemental budget that makes necessary and sensible adjustments to the two-year operating budget adopted in 2015.

For the past week, leaders and budget negotiators from the Senate and the House of Representatives have been exchanging offers. At mid-week the reporter from the Everett newspaper summed up the situation this way:

“Those in the majority, that’s Democrats in the House and Republicans in the Senate, do agree reserves should be tapped to pay last year’s bill for fighting wildfires. The two caucuses butt heads on the sums they want to spend to retain teachers, treat mentally ill and help the homeless.

What isn’t mentioned: how each offer our Senate majority has put on the table is balanced without tax increases and complies with Washington’s unique four-year balanced-budget law. The House Democrat leaders can’t say the same thing. They would have to raise taxes to cover the hundreds of millions of dollars worth of additional spending they want. Unfortunately, just as in 2015, they haven’t voted on any tax increases – only on the spending part of their offer.

It’s like being stuck at the grocery store behind someone who doesn’t have enough money to pay for all the things in the cart, but won’t admit it and also won’t take anything out of the cart and leave it for the next shopping trip. In the meantime, the rest of us have to wait.

Overriding the governor’s vetoes

A year ago, as the Senate and House worked to reach agreement on a new budget, Governor Inslee declared that he would sign a budget only if it contained new revenue. That’s a big reason why it took more than two months of overtime for House Democrats to give up and agree with us on a no-new-taxes budget (which had been our position all along). If Inslee had declared the reverse this year – that he would not sign a budget if it contained new revenue – I’ll bet we would have reached agreement before the end of the regular session.

Instead, for some unknown reason, Inslee decided that a veto threat would prompt the Senate and House to reach a budget agreement. That strategy failed, because the House Democrats still want tax increases – so the governor vetoed 27 of the 37 bills he had originally targeted, even though some were requested by his own executive-branch agencies. All of these were Senate bills, coincidentally.

We have three choices when it comes to the vetoed bills. One is to override the vetoes during this special session by voting again; any bill that receives a two-thirds majority “yes” in the Senate and the House will become law, as though a veto had never happened.

If there isn’t support for an override, the bills will remain dead – or someone can introduce new versions, by filing the same language under different numbers. The hitch there is that the bills could be amended, which would produce a different result than if Inslee had just left things alone.

Senate hears more testimony in felon-release investigation

The overtime session has given the Senate Law and Justice Committee extra time to further its investigation of the Department of Corrections scandal, which allowed thousands of dangerous felons to be released prematurely. The committee held its fourth public hearing Wednesday and might have cause for another before wrapping things up.

It is already clear that the Senate’s open investigation will get closer to the truth about this disgraceful example of government mismanagement than the behind-closed-doors approach taken by the governor. A news report about Wednesday’s hearing concluded that the testimony from current and former DOC employees is “blowing holes in the governor’s investigation” – which tended to lay blame lower down the organizational chart and went easy on former corrections secretary Bernie Warner, who was reappointed by Governor Inslee in 2013 but left for an out-of-state job this past fall, a few months before the scandal came to light.

“Five people in a row have found discrepancies in the governor’s report, and we ought to wonder if he is singling out the right people,” said Sen. Mike Padden, R-Spokane Valley, who is leading the investigation. “As we get to the bottom of this, it certainly appears that former secretary Bernie Warner bears a significant amount of responsibility, and that perhaps the governor’s office should have been looking over Warner’s shoulder.”

High court hears arguments on I-1366:

We came into the 2016 legislative session knowing two things about Initiative 1366: that its passage in November was yet another sign that Washington voters want tax reform, and that the measure’s fate would be decided in court.

Last week the state Supreme Court listened to arguments on both sides of the issue. The question is whether I-1366, billed as a path to a public vote on a two-thirds tax-vote constitutional amendment, is constitutional. No one was sure whether the case would be settled during the legislative session, but knowing how long it typically takes for the justices to rule, I certainly hope to be back home for the year before a decision comes down. Regardless of how the justices rule, I will continue to support the idea of letting the people decide whether to give themselves an added shield against tax increases. A measure like either Senate Joint Resolution 8211 or SJR 8215 would do the job.

Gray wolves still endangered here…but no longer in Oregon

The state Department of Fish and Wildlife is reporting a 32 percent increase in the number of gray wolves in Washington, based on a population survey completed just this month.

According to WDFW our state has at least four new wolfpacks, all in north central and northeast Washington. By the end of 2015, the state was home to at least 90 wolves, 18 packs, and eight breeding pairs (a pack is two or more wolves traveling together in winter; a successful breeding pair is an adult male and female with at least two pups that survive to the end of the calendar year).

I met this week with the agency’s leader on wolf policy, who acknowledges wolves from four packs were responsible for injuring a guard dog and killing a total of seven cattle in 2015. However, WDFW claims, this past year saw fewer “conflicts” with livestock than in 2014 even though the wolf population was larger.

It’s interesting to compare Washington’s wolf situation to Oregon’s. In November the fish and wildlife commission there voted 4-2 to remove gray wolves from the state’s endangered-species list, even though the known number of wolves was 81 – fewer than in Washington. A month later, three groups filed suit, claiming state officials relied on “flawed science” when delisting the wolves.

This week, according to a report in The Oregonian, Oregon Gov. Kate Brown signed a “controversial” bill to block judicial review of the commission’s decision that the Oregon wolves are no longer endangered.

“I support wolves,” Brown said. “I also recognize challenges arise in rural landscapes where wolves exist. Minimizing divisions between well-meaning Oregonians and providing the social space for wolves demands compromise and collaboration.”

So many public-policy issues these days end up as lawsuits so it stands out when something is essentially taken out of the court’s hands. Good job, Oregon.