State Rep. Zack Hudgins, D-Tukwila, reads from a scripted colloquoy on the floor of the state House during the final debate of the day — on a measure permitting state college financial aid to go to the children of illegal aliens. The measure passes with bipartisan support, 77-20.
OLYMPIA, March 14.–Some say guns don’t kill people, but it appears gun-control bills have a fatal effect. Carnage, violence and bloodshed broke out on the House floor Wednesday as a legislative deadline came and went for the passage of bills out of the Washington House and Senate. Dozens of bills were killed for lack of action, and the finger might be pointed at the day-and-a-half shutdown in the state House Monday and Tuesday while Democrats fruitlessly sought votes for a gun-show background-check bill. Among the dead was a large portion of the agenda of the Washington State Labor Council.
Meanwhile in the Senate, high-profile casualties of the self-imposed legislative cutoff were a bill that would have allowed a lower minimum “training wage” for teen-agers and other entry-level workers, and a measure that would have eased the requirement that utilities purchase a steadily increasing share of their electricity from windpower developers.
And so it went on deadline day, the make-or-break mark for the policy bills that will be allowed to advance in this year’s legislative session. A couple of biggies squeaked through just before the five o’clock bell – in the Senate, a climate-change bill favored by Gov. Jay Inslee, and in the House, a measure that provides state financial aid to children of illegal aliens attending state colleges and universities. Other bills skidded into the ditch. Although there are dozens of parliamentary maneuvers that can revive a bill even after the cutoff, the deadline offers an indication of whether it has enough support in the Legislature to win eventual passage.
Now the deck has been cleared for the big work of this year’s legislative session – the writing of a budget and the scramble to find $1 billion or more to pay for a Supreme Court ruling that held the state isn’t spending enough on basic education. Also coming up is debate and back-room dickering over a $10 billion transportation package. Lawmakers are roughly at the halfway point of the 2013 Legislative session – today is the 60th day of the 105-day regular session. Work on the budget begins in earnest after March 20, when the state Economic and Revenue Forecast Council is due to release a projection of the amount of tax revenue the state will be able to spend during the 2013-2015 biennium.
Minority House Republicans will get a jump on the process today when they release a partial budget proposal, outlining the amount they would spend on education. But the “fund-education-first” proposal will represent a suggestion, nothing more – the real decisions about spending will be made by the House Democrats, who hold firm majority control of the lower chamber, and by the Republican-leaning Majority Coalition Caucus in the Senate.
Leaders Pronounce Themselves Pleased
Oh, the humanity! Frantic lobbyists and members of the public throng the doors to the House chamber Tuesday seeking action on remaining bills.
While there were big disappointments for some, particularly for the House Democrats who gambled and lost on the gun bill, leaders in both chambers said they made a good showing. They understand a truth that may not be readily apparent: If a Democrat bill can’t pass in a Democrat-controlled House, its chances in a Senate controlled largely by the opposing party are pretty grim. Same goes the other way, too. Senate Republican Leader Mark Schoesler took it a step further: There were a few measures, like the training-wage bill, that might have passed the Senate with a bare caucus-line 25-24 vote. But why push it if support is that weak?
More important is what did pass, he said – bills extending the workers’ comp reforms passed by the Legislature in 2011, other business legislation and a few big education-reform measures. He pointed to the fact that the Senate passed 276 bills before the deadline, the most passed by the upper chamber by cutoff since 2009. That’s an indication that the coalition majority formed by the 23 Senate Republicans and two Democrats has managed to click, he said. “The most interesting thing is that people said this would never work, and we worked together – the minority passed more bills than ever, and the total number of bills was larger than ever, not because we wanted more bills, but because people worked together.”
In the House, failure of the gun bill left some crestfallen, conceded deputy Majority Leader Larry Springer, D-Kirkland, right after the final debate of the day. But one bill is hardly the measure of the chamber’s work product. “The real work is still ahead of us,” he said. “We have got education to pay for, we have a transportation package to deal with, we have to got to make sure the social safety net stays intact. And here, at the end of the day, we pass a bill that allows more kids to qualify for higher ed, so we have got to put more money into higher ed. We have a lot of work to do. This was sort of the prelude. This was the pre-function. Now it is time to get to work.”
One Big Irony of Gun Drama
State Rep. Maureen Walsh, R-Walla Walla.
The biggest drama of the final days came in the state House, where work came to a halt late Monday and most of Tuesday as Democrats searched in vain for a last few votes to pass a bill requiring background checks for purchases at gun shows. Advocates said they were three votes shy of a majority, and anyone perceived as a fence-sitter found themselves in the gunsights. Though that vote-count indicates many Democrats peeled off the party position, most public attention seemed to go to state Rep. Maureen Walsh, R-Walla Walla, who signed on as a sponsor of the bill, and then let it be known that she had changed her mind. Walsh was one of only two Republicans who co-sponsored the measure. She said switched her position after soul-searching and a massive email campaign coordinated by the National Rifle Association. Walsh said she already had second thoughts before the emails started flooding her in-box, but said they helped remind her that guns are a way of life in Eastern Washington.
So Walsh found herself face to face with Gov. Jay Inslee on the House floor as he pressed her to change her mind again. Which might have seemed a bit amusing to anyone who knows Inslee’s background: He represented Eastern Washington’s 4th Congressional District for a single term, from 1992 to 1994. Inslee was defeated for re-election in large part because of his vote for an assault weapons ban and a furious opposition campaign coordinated by the NRA.
“It was my first question to him,” Walsh said. “I said governor, you’re from Yakima. What don’t you get about this?”
The bill never did get a vote.
Defeat for Labor Council
Because lawmakers spent the better part of two days milling about on the House floor while Democratic leaders counted votes on the gun measure, the House passed only a handful of bills as the deadline approached. A grand total of five passed on Tuesday, when lawmakers might have burned the midnight oil and covered most of the 50-odd measures that appeared on the floor calendar. On Wednesday, when work resumed, the clock finally ran out at 5 p.m. Among the casualties were measures that were a high priority for labor interests and liberal lawmakers, including an extension of Seattle’s paid-sick-leave policy to the entire state, increased apprenticeship requirements for public works projects, extensions of prevailing-wage rules on publicly funded projects, and a bill that would have imposed big restrictions on employers’ ability to hire “independent contractors” rather than bringing them aboard as employees.
So minority Republicans were happy to sit and watch the time-killing drama play out. Members were called in and out of meeting rooms all day long. Reporter Jim Camden of the Spokesman-Review noted that idle lawmakers spent their time wondering which party had the longest caucuses, and this question led to much snickering. Some Republicans remarked that there might be some good to the gun-control bill after all. State Rep. Matt Manweller, R-Ellensburg, noted that only a couple labor-backed bills made it through. “I would bet the Labor Council is probably not happy with the House right now,” he said.
Not that passage in the House would have made much difference in the scheme of things – the measures faced near-certain death in the Senate. Which might help explain why things turned out as they did.
I-937 Bill Falls Short
One of the highest-profile deadline-day casualties was a measure that would have eased the “renewable energy” purchasing requirements imposed by Initiative 937 in 2006. By 2016, utilities will be required to purchase nine percent of their power from green-energy developers, 15 percent by 2020, even if they don’t need additional resources to satisfy electricity demand — and consumers ultimately will wind up paying the bill. The bulk of that power comes from wind energy, at a cost double or more that of existing sources. Senate Bill 5468, known as the “don’t buy before need” bill, would have relaxed the rules so that utilities could meet the requirements with conservation efforts, and new power purchases would have been required only if utilities needed the electricity. Senate Energy Chairman Doug Ericksen, R-Ferndale, was counting votes right up to the final hours in the Senate, but came up a couple short – though some Democrats were willing, some Republicans were not. So it’s back to the drawing board, and another effort comes next session. Ericksen said he plans public hearings statewide after the session concludes to raise consciousness of the issue. “It is obvious to everyone that Initiative 937 is not working and it is driving up the cost of electricity, and yet the environmental community has chosen to put its pick in the sand and say no to any common-sense reforms when it comes to energy policy in Washington state,” he said.
Sponsor Sharon Brown, R-Kennewick, said a new coalition of interest groups – minority organizations and poverty advocates, together with public-utility interests and others — offers prospects for support that has been elusive during years of political battle. Among those who opposed the measure was state Sen. Steve Litzow, R-Mercer Island, who noted that the issue does not break along party lines. Suburban lawmakers need to be sensitive to environmental issues, he said; he noted also that Puget Sound Energy, which has invested heavily in wind farms, is headquartered in his district. “It splits utilities, it splits the state; you’ve got a lot of moving parts in this, and coming in with a blunt instrument like this bill doesn’t help us,” he said.
Scramble on for Other Measures
Right now the scramble is on to ensure that a few of the bigger measures that missed the cutoff will remain alive during the remaining weeks of the session. Under legislative rules, bills that have an impact on the state budget can still be introduced and passed in their house of origin right up until the final day. At this point it isn’t clear which policy-level bills might be deemed necessary to implement the budget – the rulings are up to House Speaker Frank Chopp and Lt. Gov. Brad Owen. But leaders say likely candidates to survive include a Senate measure that would repeal the state’s never-implemented family leave program, a bill that would reduce taxes for liquor retailers and a proposed constitutional amendment that would require a two-thirds vote for tax increases.
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