Here’s a list of bills that Gov. Chris Gregoire signed into law today:

• Second Substitute House Bill No. 2396, relating to emergency cardiac and stroke care.

• House Bill No. 2465, relating to breath test instruments approved by the state toxicologist.

• Substitute House Bill No. 2487, relating to increasing costs for administering a deferred prosecution.

• Substitute House Bill No. 2555, relating to authorizing the department of labor and industries to issue subpoenas, but only with respect to enforcement of chapter 19.28 RCW.

• House Bill No. 2592, relating to prohibiting incentive towing programs for private property impounds.

• House Bill No. 2598, relating to disposal of dredged riverbed materials from the Mount St. Helen’s eruption.

• House Bill No. 2707, relating to the method of calculating public utility district commissioner compensation.

• House Bill No. 2740, relating to the definition of land use decision in the land use petition act.

• House Bill No. 2823, relating to permitting retired participants to resume volunteer firefighter, emergency worker, or reserve officer service.

• House Bill No. 2858, relating to purchasing authority of institutions of higher education with group purchasing organizations.

• Senate Bill No. 6279, relating to the clarification of regional transit authority facilities as essential public facilities.

• Engrossed Senate Bill No. 6287, relating to the disposition of existing voter-approved indebtedness at the time of annexation of a city, partial city, or town to a fire protection district.

• Senate Bill No. 6297, relating to certification for speech-language pathology assistants.

• Substitute Senate Bill No. 6299, relating to animal inspection.

• Engrossed Substitute Senate Bill No. 6306, relating to crop adjusters.

• Substitute Senate Bill No. 6341, relating to transferring food assistance programs to the department of agriculture.

• Substitute Senate Bill No. 6357, relating to policies for the academic recognition of prior learning.

• Substitute Senate Bill No. 6367, relating to responses to public records requests.

• Substitute Senate Bill No. 6371, relating to money transmitters.

• Substitute Senate Bill No. 6524, relating to unemployment insurance penalties and contribution rates for employers who are not “qualified employers”.

• Substitute Senate Bill No. 6556, relating to changing fees for certain types of agricultural burning.

• Substitute Senate Bill No. 6577, relating to modifying the transportation system policy goals.

• Substitute Senate Bill No. 6749, relating to the transfer of commercial real estate.

Tags: new laws

The Senate is now debating its supplemental operating budget.

“We cannot continue to pit rural communities against the cities,” Sen. Margarita Prentice said. She said it’s easy to do that in debate. She also said people have given their lives for the ability to collectively bargain. She urged her colleagues to vote yes on the budget.

Sen. Joe Zarelli said he’s still a no vote. “We’ll have to raise close to a billion dollars” to pay for the budget, he said. “This budget spends about $350 million more in new policy,” he said.

Sen. Lisa Brown said the “new policy” isn’t really that. She said there are more children in schools and “that doesn’t seem like new policy to me.” She said worker retraining is another “new policy” — but it’s to benefit people who are waiting to go back to work. “Turning that back makes absolutely no sense.”

Sen. Cheryl Pflug said it’s wrong to decide on spending and “then figuring out who they’re going to go and take the money from” to pay for it. “This is the wrong way to do it. Obviously we wouldn’t be here if it was the way that people want to do it,” she said. “I hope that people would consider voting against this and let’s do it right this time.”

Sen. Jim Hargrove: “I don’t have my calculator so I’m not sure how much new policy this counts for, but shortly before session we had a man named Clemmons” who shot four police officers. Hargrove said there is new policy in the budget to address that shooting and another in Skagit County. “Some of the new policy, I think, are things that have passed out of here unanimously.”

Sen. Mike Hewitt said much of the policy is admirable. But, he said, there need to be “offsets” — each time an item is added, something needs to be taken out.

Sen. Linda Evans Parlette said the Senate hasn’t addressed public employee benefits. She said the taxpayers pay 88 percent of state employee’s healthcare costs and that’s not fair. “I’m going to vote no,” she said.

The Senate re-passed the budget 25 to 19, sending it back to the House.

Tags: operating budget

The Senate just passed a bill to extend a Business and Occupation tax credit of $4,000 for each new job created that pays more than $40,000 (or a $2,000 credit for jobs that pay less than $40,000).

Sen. Derek Kilmer said the economy is starting to recover and businesses want to add employees, but they need the extra incentive.

The bill passed last week unanimously in the Senate, but didn’t make it out of the House. By re-passing it, the Senate is sending the bill back to the House.

The bill passed 44 to 0.

Tags: B&O tax

Beginning today, the Legislature is in special session. And beginning today, TVW will offer special coverage to keep you informed on what’s happening.

Tonight at 7 p.m., Jessica Gao will host a special edition of The Impact. She’ll explain how special session works and what’s at stake. Later, at 11 p.m., Legislative Review will recap the day’s events.

Tuesday through Friday, Legislative Review: Special Session will air at 6:30 p.m. and will include recaps of the day plus several exclusive interviews with lawmakers.

The Impact will air at its regularly scheduled time on Wednnesday at 7. And Inside Olympia airs Thursday at 7 p.m.

And, of course, you can read the blog all day every day to find out what’s happening. Right now, you can tune into the Senate floor session. And look for an update on the schedule soon.

Questions? Suggestions? E-mail nikir@tvw.org.

Tags: Inside Olympia, Legislative Review, special session, The Impact, TVW

Good morning. Here’s last night’s press conference:

Gov. Chris Gregoire is joined by Sen. Lisa Brown and Rep. Frank Chopp.

She said there’s nothing regular about this session. “We are confronting the worst economic times in 80 years,” she said.

“This session is about moving forward. Tonight and today I congratulate the Legislature” for taking “major steps” forward on school reform and levy equalization.

She thanked the lawmakers for sending a Constitutional amendment to voters. “There is much that has been accomplished in a very short session, but there is more to do.”

“Tonight I’ve issued a proclamation calling for a special session that will begin on Monday at noon,” she said, and hopefully last 7 days or fewer.

Sen. Lisa Brown said they’re looking forward to coming back on Monday and getting the budget and revenue package done.

“I’d like to say it really is about jobs and fortunately we have a transportation budget that’s fully passed through both the House and the Senate,” she said. With that alone, she said thousands of jobs will be created.

Speaker Frank Chopp: Said they’re proud of the education reform, early learning bill, levy capacity and Race to the Top reform. “We were so hopeful we could get that done today and we were able to get that job completed.”

He said the Legislature will be “really focused in on our jobs agenda” during special session. “The package that you’ll be seeing refreshed next week will be very aggressive.”

So: Everyone will be back on Monday. They’ll reintroduce budget bills “and start passing those immediately” so that when they are done negotiating, they can pass the budget, Sen. Lisa Brown said. She said budget and jobs are the only topics that will be discussed. She said negotiations will begin this weekend.

As for the size of the revenue package, Brown said they “more or less cut the difference.”

Gregoire said she hasn’t read the cell phone bill yet, but it seems like not talking on the phone while driving is good public policy.

Tags: special session

Details to come on any special session … stay tuned.

Gov. Chris Gregoire just announced that she’ll hold a press conference at 9:15 p.m. to discuss the end of session. TVW will be there live, as will I.

The bill to make talking on a cell phone while driving a primary offense passed the House as-is. Now it will head to Gov. Chris Gregoire.

The bill will also ban texting while driving. The House initially took away the provisions making cell phone chatting a primary offense, but left in the texting provision and made both a primary offense for teens. They gave up on that position and agreed with the Senate bill.

The Senate is now debating the Race to the Top education reform bill.

“The hour is late but this is a very, very important bill. I think this is the right time to end the session on this note,” she said. “This bill is something that we have waited for for many years,” she said. “It is acompromise agreement” among all “education stakeholders.” She said Washington “will be qualified and will be selected” for federal funding.

Sen. Curtis King said he approved.

The Senate passed the bill 47 to 2. It now heads to the governor.

Meanwhile, the House is finishing up on the education funding bill. Watch live here.

The House just passed the Race to the Top bill and the Senate just moved to adjourn.

That passed unanimously. But they’re not adjourned yet: They’ll have to wait for the House.

While waiting, they can still pass more bills.