Senate Majority Leader Rodney Tom, D-Medina.
In this week of recuperation, following a grueling six-month legislative session and a 4th of July holiday break, the biggest news appears to be a fine idea from Senate Majority Leader Rodney Tom.
A fine, as in $250 a day. He’s suggesting that legislators’ paychecks be docked if sessions go into overtime. Consider it an expression of frustration with the way this session went, practically down to the last possible second. The state constitution gives lawmakers 105 days to finish the job in odd-numbered years, and 60 days when the number is even. Under Tom’s modest proposal, lawmakers wouldn’t get per-diem pay when sessions go long, and for every day of overtime, their wages of $42,000 a year would be garnished. So at $250 a day, the just-finished 153-day legislative session would have meant a $12,000 hit for every one of the state’s 147 lawmakers, and they would have been paying for their gas money and hotel bills from their own pockets. “We need some pressure to move this process, and right now we don’t have this kind of pressure in the system,” Tom says.
Tom started mentioning this idea to reporters a few days before session’s end — not that anyone wrote about it in the midst of the frenetic end-of-session dealmaking. But now that the policymaking world has come to a temporary dead-stop, a story like this one becomes the biggest thing in town. The Olympian has done a story, and the Seattle Times, and presumably every other idle reporter in Olympia is about to follow – why, by gum, even Washington State Wire is doing a story, the piece you are reading at this very instant. But it is worth noting that there are a few problems with this plan, and that state Sen. Michael Baumgartner, R-Spokane, may have a better one.
Deadline is Arbitrary
Certainly lawmakers might be frustrated with the amount of time it took to wrap up this year’s session, and as something of a general statement, Tom’s suggestion probably serves its purpose. But it is worth knowing a few things. The first is that there is nothing magical about the numbers 105 and 60. The current legislative-session schedule was established by a constitutional amendment 34 years ago, when the schedule established by the state constitution in 1889 clearly wasn’t doing the job. Originally the Legislature met every two years for a 60-day session. But the state’s business kept looming larger. When it came time to write a biennial budget in the odd-numbered years, they hardly ever got the job done on time. And they started meeting regularly in the even-numbered years, too. When former Gov. Dixy Lee Ray refused to call a special session in 1978 she dumped an even bigger job on lawmakers’ plate for 1979, and lawmakers finally had enough. One of the first orders of business was the drafting of a constitutional amendment to bring a bit of reality to the schedule. Naturally the amendment lawmakers sent to the voters that year gave them the authority to call a session on their own – just in case the state elected another Dixy. Annual sessions were set in stone, 60 days in even-numbered years, according to the tradition set by the constitution. But then came another question — how long should they make the sessions in the odd-numbered budget-writing years?
Some said 90 days was enough. Some said 120 days was about right. And in the well-considered way the Legislature always does things, lawmakers split the difference and settled on 105 days. Basically they pulled it from the air.
And ever since, the 105-and-60 has given lawmakers something to shoot for, and most often miss. Since 1980, special sessions have been called during 23 of 34 years, sometimes because of emergency, but usually because lawmakers have failed to complete their business in the allotted time. The only real deadline they face is the need to pass a budget before July 1 in the odd-numbered years, lest state government shut down. A sense of responsibility has always prevented that. This year’s down-to-the-wire finish on June 29 wasn’t exactly unique. The state actually came closer in 1991. That year Gov. Booth Gardner signed a budget a few minutes before midnight on June 30.
Which brings up another big problem with the idea – and which might make you wonder if Tom’s tongue was planted firmly in cheek. The suggestion would penalize rank-and-file lawmakers for their leaders’ inability to reach an agreement. A bit of mismanagement at the top might make it hard for a citizen legislature to pay the rent and electric bills back home. Take the odd decisions made at the highest level this year. Gov. Jay Inslee called lawmakers back for a special session on May 13 despite the fact that no budget deal was likely to be reached before a revenue forecast on June 18. Meanwhile House Democratic leaders decided to delay a debate on a transportation package until June 25 – so for more than a month there really wasn’t much for the Legislature to do. The average Joe on the floor didn’t have much say about that. Members of the minority caucuses in the House and Senate had nothing to say about it at all.
Finally there’s the thought that perhaps special sessions aren’t such a bad thing in and of themselves – particularly since special sessions costing a couple hundred grand involve matters of billions of dollars in state tax revenue. You might think it’s worth sticking around in Oly-town to get things right.
Can’t Haul Them Into Court
But let’s suppose there is something beneficial about an on-time finish. What might light a fire under the Legislature? The Washington Policy Center’s Jason Mercier ponders. “We share the frustration that special sessions have become all too routine and lawmakers may need extra incentive to get the job done on time but penalties for going into constitutionally authorized special sessions may not be the right approach. There is already a state law that requires the budget to be done by June 1 but it is never enforced. Perhaps adding daily penalties to that existing law and actually enforcing it would help break budget logjams earlier.”
Well? That idea has problems, too. Mercier is right about the law. It has been on the books since 1973. And in a sense the Legislature might collectively be charged with a misdemeanor for a violation – but how do you enforce it? A 1979 attorney general’s opinion notes that the law is directed at the Legislature in general, not individual members, meaning the Gang of 147 can’t be hauled into court. And it might also be noted that the constitution says members of the Legislature are exempt from arrest except in cases of “treason, felony and breach of the peace.” So maybe someone could file a citizen lawsuit against the Legislature, require the body to pay a fine, force it to take a few hundred bucks from the state treasury — and then put it right back.
State Sen. Michael Baumgartner, R-Spokane.
There are two other ideas that surfaced in the Legislature’s final days that are every bit as practical. One came from House Finance Chairman Reuven Carlyle, D-Seattle, who offered this idea on his Facebook page June 26, perhaps not altogether seriously: “The only responsible answer to the budget stalemate is to move the capital from Olympia to Seattle. I’m introducing the bill in the morning.”
But if lawmakers find themselves stuck in the paradise of Carlyle’s home town – a city of art, culture, opera, symphonies and the opportunity to eat at Dick’s Drive-in every day – why would anyone want to leave?
Baumgartner, on the other hand, may be on to something. During the final budget debate of June 28, he declared, “I hope we have some ideas next session so that it won’t take so long. One of mine that I will be introducing is that over time we should move the state capital to Walla Walla or someplace in Eastern Washington, and you guys can drive over the pass to see how it feels.”
Move the capital to Walla Walla? Now that’s good thinking. Lawmakers might even want to finish their job ahead of schedule. But somehow you have to think the people of Walla Walla will not take this as a compliment.
— Erik Smith
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