Article by Erik Smith. Published on Monday, March 15, 2010 EST.

No One Seems to Believe in Seven-Day Promise

Nice catch! State Rep. Reuven Carlyle, D-Seattle, finds a way to stay busy in the House.

By Erik Smith

Staff writer/ Washington State Wire

OLYMPIA, March 15.—You know the Legislature is in trouble when it’s been open for business three hours and members start saying they’re bored.

            Normally a special session drags on for at least three days before you start hearing that one. But three hours?

            “There’s a real feeling of drift,” said state Rep. Brendan Williams, D-Olympia. “I’m feeling pretty underwhelmed.”

Williams offered his assessment at 3 p.m. on Monday, the first day of the Legislature’s special 2010 session. Gavels fell in House and Senate at noon Monday to open the overtime session. Lawmakers were unable to finish the work of the 2010 Legislature in the 60 days allotted by the state constitution, and after a three-day weekend, they were back at work on Monday.

If you could call it that.

The most important thing that happened on the House floor Monday afternoon was that state Rep. Reuven Carlyle, D-Seattle, brought his catcher’s mitt and demonstrated to all that he could toss a baseball twenty feet into the air and still manage to catch it. “He almost bonked me in the head,” Williams said.

But lucky Carlyle caught it every time.

            Big Differences Between House and Senate

Last week Gov. Christine Gregoire said she expected the Legislature to wrap up its business in a week, but she seems to be the only one. State Sen. Jerome Delvin figures it will take considerably longer, and he has been looking for someone who will bet the governor’s position. But he hasn’t been able to find a taker.
            He sighs. One of the longest-serving members of the Legislature, Delvin has been through more special sessions than most. And he knows how they go. “The majority party will try to look like they’re busy, while we mill about smartly. That’s what we used to call it in the military. ‘Milling about smartly.’ “
            For Republicans the situation is particularly frustrating, because they have nothing to do with it. A single party – the Democrats – controls both houses of the Legislature, as well as the governor’s mansion. But the House and the Senate couldn’t come to an agreement on the state budget, nor on the nearly $1 billion in new taxes that will be required to support it.
            Senate Democrats favor a nearly $900 million tax package that eliminates business tax exemptions, adds a buck to the price of a pack of cigarettes, and imposes a three-tenths-of-a-cent sales-tax increase.

The House Democrats, meanwhile, have punted the important decisions to the negotiators. It passed a nearly $700 million tax package that rejects the idea of a sales tax increase, but didn’t come up with anything to take its place. The House tax plan is nearly $200 million short of the amount that would be required to enact its budget.

There are big differences as well in the two chambers’ spending plans – closures of prisons and homes for the retarded, for example, and whether to raid nearly $100 million from an account set aside for hazardous-waste cleanup projects.

            Underlying those tough decisions is the fact that the state faces a $2.8 billion shortfall this year, in the wake of a record $9 billion shortfall last year. Democrats complain that they’ve already cut everything that’s easy to cut.
            “We’re not close on negotiating this out,” said House Finance Chairman Ross Hunter, D-Medina, in an interview with TVW’s The Impact on Thursday, the final day of the regular session. “This is a problem that would be hard in a full, normal 105-day session, and we’re trying to get it into a short session. It’s just too big to get done in 60 days, and so my take on it has been [that] it’s more important that we get it done right then we get it done last week.

“So I’m willing to spend a week or two extra working on it and trying to get the product sustainable, and get all the details worked out. That’s more important to me than [finishing in] a week.

“But I sure don’t want to be here all summer.”

            Many Idle Hours Loom Ahead

            About the only other major issue that remains on the Legislature’s plate, besides the budget, is a proposal from the state’s environmental lobby to raise taxes on oil and other hazardous substances to pay for water-pollution programs. Other issues may come up as well – leaders resisted the idea of a resolution that might limit the topics that might be introduced.

But the opening of the session offered a picture of the empty hours that now stretch before the Legislature. Pomp and circumstance marked the opening of the regular legislative session in January, with high-minded speeches and processions of uniformed police officers carrying flags to the rostrum. This time, in the Senate, a couple of legislative staffers carried the Washington and United States flags to the front, and only 10 of the 48 members were in their seats. Other senators drifted in as their names were called for a routine vote on an opening resolution. Then they returned to back offices to drink coffee and answer emails.

            The Senate passed its budget again by a 25-19 vote, a necessary procedural step. In contrast to the hours of debate that accompanied the vote the first time around, there were only a handful of speeches, and all of them were short. The work was done in 10 minutes.

            “There’s a reason there were no amendments,” said state Sen. Mark Schoesler, R-Rizville. “The only thing that could fix this budget is divine intervention.”

            The House opened its session at the same time. The first order of business? A long lunch.

            Nearly $20,000 a Day

            Cost of the special session is nearly $20,000 a day, in part because each of the 147 members is entitled to a $90 “per diem” payment for meals and lodging. But that cost may go down somewhat. In the Senate, 14 lawmakers have announced their intention not to take the extra pay – Randi Becker, Don Benton, Mike Carrell, Mike Hewitt, Janea Holmquist, Jim Honeyford, Derek Kilmer, Curtis King, Chris Marr, Bob McCaslin, Bob Morton, Linda Evans Parlette, Val Stevens and Joseph Zarelli. In the House, there are six who will forego the payment – Fred Finn, Williams, Tim Probst, Ruth Kagi, Sam Hunt and Dan Roach, as well as two others who seek only partial payment – Kevin Parker and Norma Smith.

            “There’s nothing special at all about this session,” said Zarelli, R-Ridgefield. “Any time you go into special session to raise people’s taxes, the only people who see anything special in it are the people who get a reprieve.”

            The Rodney Tom Drama

            In perhaps the strangest sidelight to this year’s budget negotiations, Sen. Rodney Tom, D-Bellevue, the vice chairman of the Senate Ways and Means Committee, voted against his own budget. Tom, a former Republican who became a convert to the party of Obama, said he thought the budget spent too much, and forced too large a tax increase. Because he is a “no” on the budget and tax plan, Tom won’t be named to the formal conference committee.

            A story in the Seattle Times over the weekend pointed out that Ways and Means Chairwoman Margarita Prentice, D-Seattle, sent flowers to every other Democratic member of her committee. Last Thursday their desks on the Senate floor were covered with flowers. Tom’s desk was bare. Prentice called him a “horribly conflicted individual.”

            On Monday, though, there were two enormous vases on his desk.

            Tom declined to say who sent the flowers. But he said, “I’ve gotten a lot of emails from different groups that have said they’re going to send bouquets.”

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