Legislative Commentary

I’ll start with a good word for our regional Department of Transportation folks and the contractor who got the overpass at the Tokio interchange on Interstate 90 repaired and back open this week, ahead of schedule.

The bridge that was damaged (in July, by an oversize load) takes Danekas Road over I-90 east of Ritzville. The timing was bad because the vehicles that were forced to take turns going across included trucks hauling commodities from our local farms. But on the bright side, once DOT closed the bridge completely on Oct. 1 to make the repairs, the work was completed more than a week early.

Update on SR 26 detour

We checked with DOT yesterday to see if the work on the State Route 26 railroad overpass east of Othello is on track. A spokesman replied that most of the upper deck has been demolished or removed, along with the guardrail, and the bridge rails will be next. The contractor hasn’t run into any problems, and the weather has cooperated.

DOT still intends to complete the bridge deck replacement and reopen the 17½-mile stretch of SR 26 no later than November 21, in time for Thanksgiving (the following day) and the Apple Cup game that weekend. This means Cougar football fans traveling to and from Pullman via SR 26 should still expect to detour through Connell (or Washtucna or Ritzville) through November 17, when Arizona comes to Martin Stadium.

DOT had no way of knowing the first WSU home game affected by the SR 26 closure (the October 20 win over Oregon) would also be featured on the popular ESPN Gameday show. The thousands of additional fans who came to Pullman because of the national spotlight made for an unexpected test of the detours, but the alternate routes accommodated the high traffic volumes just fine, the spokesman said. Click here for the project webpage.

State Parks public meeting Monday in Washtucna

My calendar this week included a couple of meetings related to groundwater management in the Odessa subarea (the second as part of the annual meeting of the Columbia Basin Development League). And speaking of important resources, there’s a public meeting early next week that involves long-term plans for three state parks in our region: Palouse Falls and Lyons Ferry, both in the 9th District, and Lewis and Clark Trail, which is on the Touchet River outside Dayton, in the 16th Legislative District. The meeting is from 6 to 8 p.m. this coming Monday (November 5) at Washtucna High School (730 E. Booth Avenue). Click here for more details from State Parks.

Imagine a debate about…tax cuts

Our state’s governor is on TV and postcards pushing the ballot measure that would impose a new tax on energy. And as a previous commentary mentioned, I fully expect he and legislators from his party will again propose our state’s first tax on personal income (meaning capital gains). Compare that to Idaho’s governor, who – to quote a February headline from the Spokesman-Review – “welcomes debate over competing tax-cut bills.”

It’s true that Idaho collects some taxes which aren’t part of Washington’s tax code, and those were the focus of the tax cuts debated in the Gem State earlier this year. But it’s also true that for more than a year, our state treasury has been collecting far more revenue than expected – and more than is needed to keep the state budget in balance. That’s why, while Governor Inslee continues to pursue tax increases, our state’s Legislature should have its own debate about tax cuts when we convene in January.

The people of Washington haven’t seen a straight-up tax cut in who knows how long. The closest things I can think of in recent years are the first-ever tuition cut at our public colleges and universities, approved in 2015 (thanks to our side of the aisle, which was leading the Senate then), and the cap on local school levies approved as part of 2017’s K-12 funding reforms. Amazingly, that cap is being targeted by the left before it even takes effect and begins to benefit taxpayers in 2019 – which means yet another potential tax increase.

We’ve seen how recent tax changes from Washington, D.C. have encouraged economic activity; I would welcome the chance to debate tax cuts in Olympia the way they were in Boise. We could start by discussing a new effort to lower the tax rate on non-aerospace manufacturing in our state and looking at an even broader form of tax relief, like a small cut in the state sales tax.

Advice about U.S. 395

The U.S. 395 Stakeholder Advisory Group will have its second meeting November 13 in Richland, to look at the best uses of $15 million appropriated by the Legislature (in 2015’s Connecting Washington package) to improve the U.S. 395 freight corridor between Pasco and Ritzville.

Unfortunately, I’ll have to miss the meeting because it conflicts with the Senate’s Assembly Days and other session-planning activities that traditionally take place at the Capitol after the general election and before Thanksgiving. DOT is already planning for the project to include acceleration and deceleration lanes and improved left-turn lanes, to reduce congestion and collisions. But if there are other ideas you’d like the group to see, let me know and we’ll get them into the proper hands.

A win for Washington’s charter public schools

I’ve used the term “once in a generation” to describe the K-12 education reforms we agreed on in 2017, partly because they are aimed at making our school system more equitable. The idea is that a student’s access to learning opportunities shouldn’t depend on whether they’re in Benge, or Bellevue, or Renton, or Rockport. I think the voters of our state had something similar in mind when they authorized charter public schools back in 2012, because charter schools offer an alternative when a traditional public school doesn’t meet a student’s needs.

In 2016 the Legislature changed the funding source for charter schools in response to a state Supreme Court decision; that change was challenged in a case that reached the high court earlier this year. A majority of the justices upheld the Legislature’s approach in a ruling issued late last month. Hopefully this was the last of the legal challenges by interest groups, so these public schools can get on with serving children without fear of being shut down.