House Ways and Means Committee passes its version of the budget Saturday afternoon on a party-line vote.

OLYMPIA, Feb. 25.—A Democrat-controlled House committee passed a budget bill Saturday that at the very least promises a roiling debate on the House floor, perhaps as soon as Monday, because of a budget-balancing trick that shunts a big portion of this year’s billion-dollar shortfall onto next year’s Legislature.

But it appears the real battle is going to come in the Senate, where Ways and Means Chairman Ed Murray, D-Seattle, has finally confirmed what legislative leaders have been hinting at for days. The Senate Democrats are going to be writing a budget of their own, without help from the minority Republicans. And that means that the faction of middle-of-the-road Democrats in the Senate who call themselves the Roadkill Caucus are going to play the decisive role in determining how this year’s budget debate plays out. They have the votes to swing things either way.

Murray, speaking to a reporter for the News Tribune in Tacoma, said Friday that Republicans and Democrats are just too far apart. He said Republicans haven’t been interested in the Democratic plan that he will be unveiling Tuesday, and the Democrats haven’t been much interested in the plan the Republicans have presented. “I’m not sure they have the votes for their own proposal,” he said.

And so ends a year of bipartisanship that last time around resulted in a budget-cutting scheme that passed with votes from both sides – a necessity last year because the majority Democrats could not unite. Will they stand together this time? Don’t be so sure. Prominent moderate Democrats in the Senate have been hinting that they will withhold votes on the budget unless the Legislature makes an effort this year toward bringing state spending into line with tax revenues. But there also are signs that more liberal members of their caucus are fighting back in a way they didn’t last session.

Showdown Possible in Senate

What happened is that pressure for big reforms evaporated over the last week when a pair of positive forecasts, on tax revenue and caseloads, dumped $400 million into the Legislature’s lap. Suddenly it became possible for majority Democrats to write a budget without counting on a tax increase. Until that point the general gameplan was that legislators would seek voter approval for the governor’s proposal, a half-billion-dollar sales tax increase, or something else of a similar scale.

In return for their votes, moderate Senate Democrats were demanding that the Legislature make controversial big-picture decisions to reduce state spending in future years. In that they had support from Senate Republicans.

But what a difference $400 million makes! Not only did House Ways and Means Chairman Ross Hunter, D-Medina, ditch the idea of a tax increase when he released his budget proposal last week, he went the opposite direction. His budget avoids some tough cuts by shunting $405 million in current state expenses into the next budget.

No telling what the Senate Democratic leaders will propose. But they are considering something like it, by making the shift permanent. That leaves it to the four or perhaps six Senate Democrats who sit in the middle to decide whether they will buck their caucus, demand that Republicans remain at the table to negotiate a bipartisan budget, and vote no until that happens.

“I think at this point everything is in question regarding that,” state Sen. Jim Kastama, D-Puyallup, said last week. Kastama, a prominent member of the Roadkill faction, said that the House budget proposal threw all talk of long-term reform out the window. “I think at one time the idea was that there would be balance if there was revenue. I think that again they forgot the overall focus was on sustainability.”

Kick the Can

The possible standoff over the budget was set in motion Saturday as the House Ways and Means Committee approved its version of the budget, House Bill 2129, on a party-line vote of 16-11. The bill delays payments to school districts for “apportionment,” which are the primary means by which the state funds K-12 programs, and for levy equalization payments to school districts. Most of that money would be held up for a single day, but by making the payment on July 1, 2013, the first day of the next budget, the House Democrats would make the shortage of money a problem for next year’s Legislature to deal with. Next year’s legislature isn’t expected to have the money, either.

Critics say it reeks of irresponsibility.

“I was a boy when I learned how to play a game called ‘kick the can,’ ” said state Rep. Gary Alexander, R-Olympia. “But I didn’t expect to be playing it as an adult in the state Legislature. That’s what this budget does – kick the can.”

House Ways and Means Chairman Ross Hunter, D-Medina, said it was the best way to balance the state’s needs against its cash shortage. Lawmakers are rewriting the 2011-13 budget they passed last year, when they relied on overly optimistic forecasts for tax revenue.

“This is a reasonable way to move forward in difficult economic times,” he said. “We are responding to historic inter-biennial declines in revenue. We were fortunate in the last week to get some good economic news, but this is still a budget that makes significant reductions in areas we care about.”

Perhaps the most important element of the debate is that the budget-balancing tactic – essentially a payday loan that the next Legislature must pay – allows Democrats to preserve the Basic Health Plan, the state’s subsidized health insurance program for the working poor, and the “Disability Lifeline,” which provides housing vouchers and medical assistance for unemployable adults.

Referring to the Basic Health Plan, Hunter said, “Making a decision that 50,000 people would no longer have access to affordable health care is a difficult decision for me to make. We have tried very hard to structure a budget to not make that decision.”

Republicans say it’s a decision that ought to be made. They also would place a greater priority on education, public safety and programs for the elderly and disabled, and they would reduce spending on environmental programs. As is traditional, they offered a series of amendments in committee that enacted their proposals, and as expected, the Democrats voted every one of them down. In the House, Republicans are at a 56-42 disadvantage, and have little opportunity for leverage.

Breakdown in the Backroom

Things are different in the Senate, where Democrats have a more modest 27-22 majority. Until this point, Republicans and Democrats in the Senate have been talking about working together this year as they did last year. But there have been rumblings for the last couple of weeks that all is not peaceful, and that more liberal members aren’t going to let the Roadkillers have their way without a fight.

An internal debate among Senate Democrats over education reform measures two weeks ago provoked a remarkable standoff that shut down a Senate committee and resulted in a stormy closed-door caucus meeting. Roadkillers were hoping to pass a charter-school and teacher-evaluation bills that were favored by business and education reform groups, but are opposed by the state’s largest teachers’ union, the Washington Education Association. What eventually passed the Senate was a weakened compromise on teacher evaluations; charter schools appear to be a dead issue.

Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown, D-Spokane, chose interesting words two weeks ago as she insisted Senate Democrats will pursue reform measures this session.

“I know that it tends to get framed as if our arms are being twisted by four members of our caucus …[but] the reform agenda started before Roadkill and it will go on after Roadkill.”

Yet as recently as Thursday Brown was saying that Democrats were continuing to negotiate a budget with Republicans: “As far as I know, we are still talking, so we will see how that pans out next week.”

The signal from Murray on the budget the following day is the strongest indication yet that the “middle way” has broken down.

What Was the Fight About?

At this point, Republicans and Democrats in the Senate haven’t revealed competing budget proposals, and so it is difficult to say precisely where their negotiations failed. But in a meeting with reporters last week, Senate Minority Leader Mike Hewitt said the Republicans were insisting on a big reserve – some $800 million – and no budget gimmicks.

Hewitt said Republicans are counting on the Roadkillers to remain firm. “This is the way we are working over here and trying to get a responsible budget out of here,” he said.

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