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House Passes Budget Bill, and Argument Advances a Quarter-Inch

Still No Agreement on Big Reform Bills

House Ways and Means Chairman Ross Hunter speaks for latest iteration of House budget during Thursday's debate.

OLYMPIA, April 6.—Democrats passed their budget bill in the state House Thursday and the argument that stands in the way of adjournment advanced perhaps a quarter of an inch, but the biggest questions, about long-term reforms to state spending, remain far from resolution.

Lawmakers are finally back to work at the statehouse after weeks of inaction, during what many are calling the strangest special legislative session ever. It started March 12, but it wasn’t until Wednesday, the 24th day of the 30-day special session, that the 147 lawmakers were called back to town. Today is the 26th day. Legislative leaders are conceding that they are still far from agreement on the biggest issues before them. The immediate problem is a billion-dollar shortfall. But the budget hawks who took over the Senate early last month also are demanding big changes to state spending patterns that otherwise will put the state in the red, year after year. The Democrats who hold the majority in the House say they aren’t willing to go that far.

What happened Thursday in the state House was that the Democratic majority passed a slightly-tweaked version of a budget bill it passed on the final day of the regular legislative session March 8. The latest version of House Bill 2127 doesn’t reflect a major breakthrough at the bargaining table, as many lawmakers had hoped when they were called back to town. And it shows that budget-writers will have their work cut out for them this weekend if they are interested in reaching a compromise that will get them out of town on April 10, the final day of the current special session, and prevent it from ending in finger-pointing.

House Ways and Means Chairman Ross Hunter, D-Medina, said the budget bill mainly keeps things in motion and makes it technically possible for the Legislature to wrap up its work by the deadline, if leaders choose to do so. “It is important for us to complete our procedural work and make sure that we continue to have a budget that we can continue our negotiations with the Senate on,” he said. “This one is our current offer.”

The measure passed the House on a largely party-line vote of 54-43. Democrats voting no were Deb Eddy of Kirkland and Mark Miloscia of Federal Way; there were no Republican crossovers.

The lack of significance was underscored by the fact that the House spent a grand total of 11 minutes debating the measure on final passage. Significant budget votes in the House are generally preceded by an hour or two of debate, in which perhaps half of the 98 members rise to demand a say. In this case, only four members thought it worth speaking. And Republicans afterward said they really didn’t see any point in a floor fight – all it did was establish the House Democrats’ negotiating position.

“When you are the speaker of the House, this is the way you can do a major press conference, and that’s what I think this was,” said Charles Ross, the House Republican floor leader. “I think there is going to be plenty more negotiating going on about the budget, and this is Speaker Chopp putting out his position.”

Modest Changes

The key differences between the current House Democratic budget proposal and the last one are these. It abandons a plan to shunt $330 million in current school-district expenses to the next budget, thus expanding the size of a shortfall for 2013-2015 that is projected to be in the $2 billion range. Instead, it adopts a change in cash-management practices advocated by the governor that would allow the state to record a one-time windfall of $238 million. The budget also abandons a proposal to restore some cuts in welfare payments made last year, and it leaves the state with a smaller ending fund balance.

That isn’t anywhere close to the kind of movement it will take to reach agreement on a budget, Republicans say. This time they have plenty of standing to make the argument. The GOP is in the driver’s seat in the Senate, the result of the vote March 2 in which three Democrats joined with the 22 Republicans and wrested control of the upper chamber from the Senate Democratic Caucus. Democrats in the House were slow to recognize the new order of things, Republicans say – deliberately slow, in hopes of undermining the coalition.

Actually, by taking the House budget to the floor, and not leaving the argument in the negotiating room where it belongs, House Republican budget chief Gary Alexander said Thursday’s vote might actually represent a step backward. The latest proposal is really a matter of political posturing, he said. “It might have caused our negotiations to step back a ways.”

Many suspect that it will provide the basis for a blame game that will erupt if and when the current session ends in failure.

Big Issues Remain

Coalition members note that since the beginning of this year’s session,  signs posted on the Republican side of the Senate chamber have said “Reforms Before Revenue.” These days, they say, the slogan ought to be “Reforms Before Budget.”

Members of the Senate coalition say they won’t move on the budget until the big reform debates of the session are resolved. The coalition is holding out for changes to K-12 health-insurance policy, elimination of early-retirement incentives for newly hired public employees, and a balanced-budget constitutional amendment that would prevent maneuvers like the shift in school-district payments that the Democrats pushed this year. But that may not be the full list. Also under negotiation behind the scenes is a regulatory reform bill, Senate Bill 6406, which would streamline and delay the imposition of some costly state regulations. Those include requirements for stormwater drainage systems for cities and counties, a hugely controversial point for environmental interests and other advocates for Puget Sound cleanup.

There also is a proposal with broad Democratic support and perhaps some Republican support as well, to issue somewhere on the order of $1 billion in new debt for public-works construction. The plan has strong backing from labor and construction interests. But because bonds require a 60 percent vote, Republican votes are required, and for reasons of political leverage it is expected to be one of the last measures that will be acted upon in the session.


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