OLYMPIA, March 19.—Legislative budget-writers met behind closed doors Monday for the first real day of budget talks between the players in the House and Senate, an agonizingly slow start for a negotiation that lawmakers a few months ago said could be completed lickety split.
It has been 17 days since it became clear who the real players are – the majority Democrats in the state House, and a coalition of Democratic and Republican budget hawks in the Senate. And it has been a full week since lawmakers convened a special session ostensibly for the purpose of negotiating a compromise to the state’s billion-dollar budget problem.
The rather late and rather unenthusiastic beginning to the budget talks is an illustration of the Legislature’s fast-hardening impasse, and it is prompting plenty of speculation about the role the House Democrats are choosing for themselves. Prospects for an all-Democratic budget with the barest minimum of cuts were shot down March 2 when the majority Democrats in the Senate were upended by a revolt among their own members. Three centrist Democrats voted with the 22 Senate Republicans for a far more fiscally conservative spending plan.
Now the statehouse is rife with talk of power plays. The new ruling coalition in the Senate is talking about passing a new budget plan on its own that appears to meet the House Democrats halfway. That’s even if the House Ds aren’t saying a word about it and the Gang of 25 has to run over the Senate Dems again to get it done. Meanwhile the governor continues to threaten to veto unrelated bills if lawmakers can’t reach agreement.
As for the House Democrats’ side of things, speculation is the order of the day largely because House Speaker Frank Chopp rarely speaks publicly and hasn’t held a media availability in over a year, a situation that leaves the naturally gossipy Capitol crowd to fill in the blanks. A dandy rumor swept the state’s business-community associations Monday. That one had it that the less-than-cooperative caucus is planning to wait for the June 20 revenue forecast before coming to agreement on the budget. That presumes the state’s budget picture will improve over the next couple of months and will give lawmakers more money to spend. By delaying, the House Ds might be able to break the power of the Senate coalition.
Melinda McCrady, spokeswoman for the House Democratic Caucus, called it absurd. “That’s ridiculous,” she said. “We’re at the table with everyone else, working on the negotiations.”
Governor Attempts to Maintain Control
Such is the atmosphere at the Capitol these days, filled with distrust, frustration and deep suspicions.
Monday was the first day that budget-writers have gotten together to talk about the fundamental fiscal disagreement that separates the two camps. Up to this point, Gov. Christine Gregoire has called party leaders together for meetings that she admits have gone nowhere. Last Thursday she convened a meeting of the members who are designated by their parties to do the actual writing of the budgets. Participants later called the meeting a fruitless gripe session.
And after the Senate coalition went public with its new budget proposal Thursday, the governor sputtered with anger that lawmakers had taken matters outside the secrecy of the backroom. She started canceling bill-signings en masse and threatened to begin vetoing the bills lawmakers passed in the final days of their regular session. Gregoire told reporters Monday that she expects progress within 48 hours, or else. “They are going to have to make some good progress,” she said.
But the governor, a Democrat, is demanding that lawmakers negotiate on her terms. Among other things, she is demanding that the Senate Democrats and the House Republicans participate in the talks, even though they don’t have enough votes to change the outcome. And while that might seem egalitarian, Gregoire didn’t insist on minority participation in previous years, when Democrats were firmly in charge.
Gregoire’s Secret Plan
In brief remarks to reporters following an unusually short bill-signing session in the Capitol’s Columbia Room, Gregoire told reporters that she has presented a new plan to the budget negotiators to break the logjam.
Right now lawmakers are struggling to close a budget gap of about $1 billion created by a sluggish economy and an overly optimistic $32 billion budget they passed a year ago. They were counting on a turnaround last summer that didn’t materialize. Although there have been a few promising signs since the beginning of the year, fast-rising gas prices threaten to dampen consumer spending and slam on the brakes once again.
Democrats favor a plan that would shunt some $330 million in current expenses to the next budget period, by delaying a payment to school districts. Critics say that will make next year’s expected $2 billion shortfall even worse. Republicans favor a plan that would delay a pension payment for public employees, which also would create additional costs for the state down the road, but they would balance it with pension reforms and retirement-policy changes that would give the state a net savings of about $1.9 billion over 25 years.
Gregoire said the two sides have dug in, both proposals have become “toxic,” and now it’s time for Plan C.
Reporters Play Guessing Game
Gregoire said if lawmakers embrace her plan in the next couple of days, they could finish the budget talks by the weekend. But exactly what that plan is, she’s not telling. “I am not willing to negotiate in the press,” she said.
About all the governor was willing to say was what her plan wasn’t.
In response to reporters’ questions, Gregoire said it doesn’t involve securitizing state revenues, privatizing the state lottery system, allowing slot machines in non-Indian casinos or a general increase in cigarette taxes.
Before reporters could guess correctly, Gregoire aides called time and whisked the governor away.
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