This week’s Off the Set Interview: Rep. Dave Upthegrove

Yesterday on The Impact, Jessica Gao interviewed Rep. Dave Upthegrove and Sen. Jim Honeyford about clean energy. After that, we chatted briefly with Upthegrove about gay marriage, digital billboards, and one of his preferred pieces of legislation — a bill aimed at cleaning up oil and gunk from Washington’s boat marinas.

Watch The Impact at 7 and 10 tonight.

Tags: Rep. Dave Upthegrove, The Impact

The “Toxic Toys” bill, which would ban certain flame retardants from being used in children’s toys and products, would cost the state an estimated $400,000 in the next two-year budget cycle to implement. But the state isn’t considering the cost of treating more burn victims, said David Heimbach, the former director of the University of Washington Burn Center, who testified at the Senate Ways & Means committee on Thursday.

“Burns are the most expensive disease people can have,” Heimbach said. Children from lower socio-economic classes make up the majority of burn victims, he said, and they tend to be Medicaid patients who cost “money out of the state budget.”

Physician Laura Hart countered that the bill would “save significant healthcare dollars” in the long run. That’s because diseases like asthma, cancer and birth disabilities are linked to the chemicals in question, she said, and cost $1.8 billion a year to treat. The committee took no action on the bill.

Tags: toxic toys, Ways & Means

Last year, the Legislature created the Discover Pass to fund state parks. This year, they’re considering some changes to the system, including making the passes transferable between vehicles. But there is a question of how exactly to do that.

With such a new system, there have been some surprises: “We wound up selling more passes in the parks than we did electronically,” said Steve Milner with the Washington State Parks and Recreation Commission. He said they also sold more day passes — at $10 a pop — than $30 annual passes, something they didn’t expect.

There are two bills being considered now in the House General Government Appropriations Committee — House Bill 2153 would allow the pass to be transferred between two vehicles. And House Bill 2217 would allow the pass to be used for all vehicles at one address.

Jonathan Guzzo with the Washington Trails Association says they polled their members — 3,000 responded and said being able to transfer between two vehicles would be a big help. He said the organization considers that an “elegant” solution.

A bill to legalize same-sex marriage in Washington was approved in the Senate Government Operations, Tribal Relations & Elections committee on Thursday with a 4-3 vote along party lines.

The vote followed discussion of four amendments, including one that would allow faith-based adoption centers to refuse services to gay couples. None of the amendments passed. Republican Sen. Don Benton asked for a referendum clause that would send the issue to the ballot in November.

“A change this significant in state law and in accepted societies around the world requires more than a simple majority vote,” Benton said. The referendum clause did not pass.

The bill is headed for a floor vote in the Senate.

Tags: gay marriage

This morning, the Senate Government Operations, Tribal Relations & Elections committee is expected to pass a bill that would legalize gay marriage in Washington state. We’ll be live with coverage starting at 10 a.m. on TVW, and we’ll have more on the blog and tonight’s edition of Legislative Review.

Also live on TVW today: At 2 p.m., the House Government Appropriations & Oversight committee is hearing several bills related to the Discover Pass, including one that would allow the pass to be used for more than one car. The pass costs $30 per year, and is required to access nearly 7 million acres managed by the state.

And at 3:30 p.m., the Senate Ways & Means committee is holding a public hearing on the “Toxic Toys” bill, which would require manufacturers of children’s products to replace certain chemicals with safer alternatives.

Tags: Discover Pass, Environment, gay marriage, toxic toys

On tonight’s edition of The Impact, host Jessica Gao had some great interviews with state lawmakers. Watch it right here:

And on Legislative Review, we’ve got all the details on the death penalty hearing, teacher evaluation reforms and workplace bullying:

Tags: Legislative Review, The Impact

A hearing on abolishing the death penalty in the Senate on Wednesday got off to a heated start when Sen. Pam Roach interrupted the proceedings, saying “no one is representing the dead victims” because no one had signed in to testify against the bill.

“Where is the debate? Where is the opinion? This is a very important issue, and we only have one opinion at this hearing,” said Roach, who is a vocal supporter of the death penalty.

“No people have signed in on the con side. I can’t help that,” said committee chair Sen. Adam Kline.

Sen. Roach then called for a vote after only two people had testified. Kline allowed those signed in to testify to continue speaking.

The prime sponsor of the bill, Sen. Debbie Regala, has a personal tie to the legislation – her brother-in-law was murdered in 1980. But it is also a matter of cost. Regala said the death penalty is six times more expensive than life without parole. Often, capital punishment trials cost an excess of $2 million, she said.

“That’s money that could be used in so many more productive, positive ways in our state,” Regala said.

Click through to watch video of the entire hearing.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: death penalty

Next week, besides our wall-to-wall coverage of the State Legislature, TVW will cover two significant public policy events:

On Tuesday, Jan. 31 TVW we’ll cover former President Jimmy Carter, who’s speaking in Seattle at an event hosted by the World Affairs Council.  We won’t be live with this, but will tape it to televise later.

On Wednesday, Feb. 1 we’ll be live on tvw.org with a webcast of an event that brings together the six state university presidents — from UW, WSU, Western, Central, Eastern and Evergreen — to talk about higher education funding.  The event is being jointly organized by Town Hall Seattle and The Seattle Times.   Here’s Town Hall’s blurb about the event.  Besides live webcasting, we’ll tape to televise later.  Legislative schedule permitting, it will air initially on TVW Friday, Feb. 3 at 7 p.m.

Tags: Jimmy Carter, Seattle Times, Town Hall Seattle, University presidents, World Affairs Council

Former U.S. Sen. Slade Gorton was just honored in the Senate. “Coming back to Olympia is a homecoming. Sally and I lived here for more than the 12 years that I was attorney general,” he said. Over the past year he said his trips to Olympia to be part of the Redistricting Commission have been a walk down memory lane. He ended his short remarks by saying he hopes all the lawmakers are happy with their legislative districts. Lawmakers clapped and laughed.

Tags: Slade Gorton

A bill that would abolish the death penalty in Washington state is set to receive a public hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee this afternoon.

Washington is one of 35 states that has capital punishment. The state’s current death penalty law was enacted in 1981; most recently, Cal Coburn Brown was executed by lethal injection in September 2010 for the rape and murder of a Seattle-area woman in 1991.

Rachel La Corte of the AP has a more detailed story about the issue. We’ll be following today’s hearing for the blog and tonight’s edition of Legislative Review.

Tags: death penalty