During 2009 TVW covered 303 legislative committee hearings — mostly in Olympia but also in other locations around Washington, and mostly during the legislative session (Jan. 12-April 26 in ‘09) but also during the interim.

The State Legislature has 38 regular committees, 24 in the House of Representatives and 14 in the Senate.  That doesn’t include the House and Senate Rules Committees, which schedule bills for floor debate, nor does it include several dozen joint, select, and other committees.  Here’s a list of committees from the legislative website.

303 divided by 38 means we covered each legislative committee, on average, 8 times during the year.  Coverage varies quite a bit, with the fiscal committees like House/Senate Ways & Means getting the most coverage, following by the House/Senate Transportation Committees, then the various policy committees.

Keep in mind the stats above represent only the committee hearings we televise, whether it’s LIVE or tape-delayed.   TVW LIVE webcasts and archives all committee hearings that happen at the Capitol.   At a given time during the legislative session there might be 8 committee hearings going on.  Typically TVW is televising one hearing LIVE, taping another to televise later, and webcasting the remainder.

Here’s some year-end statistics on the “what” and “how much” of TVW programming:

Total programming hours produced: 1,684

Legislative coverage: 907 hours, or 54% of total

Supreme Court: 106 hours, 6%

State agencies/boards/commissions: 268 hours, 16%

Produced programs–Inside Olympia, The Impact, Author’s Hour, Legislative Review: 131 hours, 8%

General interest/public policy/other: 272 hours, 16%

I’ll be blogging any news this week and next (although I won’t be around to post news on the two holidays). But: I won’t post a Thursday Q&A this week, nor will there be an Off-Set interview. Inside Olympia and The Impact are also on hiatus for the next two weeks.

We’ll all be back the first week of January — just in time to get ready for session.

Happy Holidays!

Tags: holidays, IO, The Impact, TVW

For today’s Q&A, I spoke with Sen. Karen Keiser, a Democrat who has worked in healthcare, and Sen. Linda Evans Parlette, a Republican and pharmacist. I asked both of them about efforts at the state and federal level to reform healthcare — and what else they’re working on. Read the entire interviews below — as usual, posted in the order in which they were conducted.

Sen. Karen Keiser:
Q: Health care reform at the federal level is moving fast. Can you give your perspective on what’s going on?
Keiser: Well it’s the legislative sausage-making season in Congress on healthcare reform. It’s always harder at the moment before breakthrough and I think that’s where we’re at. So I’ve been back to D.C. several times this year. I’m hoping this week’s trip was my last because I really need to turn attention to the Legislative session now. It’s a roller coaster. One day things seem to be coming together and the next they fall apart. I’m hopeful that they will get to yes by the end of the year.
I can’t tell you exactly what’s in and what’s out. I will say this: This is a very big piece of legislation not just in pages but in breadth of topics and it goes from accountable care organizations, which is a new way of providing for payment reform, to workforce training. From A to W, though I can’t find a Z. It’ s a very broad breadth. At least 85 percent of the bill is agreed to, so a lot has been agreed to, a lot would be a tremendous improvement in what we’re doing now. But there are some tough issues and the tough issues could derail or even wreck the whole deal. I’m hoping the tough issues get resolved.
(more…)

Tags: healthcare reform, Sen. Evans Parlette, Sen. Keiser

Here’s more on tonight’s edition of The Impact, courtesy of host Jessica Gao. You can watch The Impact at 7 and 10 p.m. tonight on TVW.

The massacre of four Lakewood Police Officers has raised a number of questions about public safety and the justice system. The suspect, Maurice Clemmons, was granted clemency by former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee and released from prison early before coming to Washington on parole. We wanted to know how the clemency process works here in Washington State, so we’re taking a look back at some high-profile cases like Barry Massey and Stevan Dozier. We’ll talk with the governor’s senior counsel about how the State Clemency and Pardons Board works, and how the governor uses its recommendations to make her decisions.

Also, we’re heading down to southwest Washington to the site of a proposed wind farm that would provide enough power for 18,000 homes. But this effort to embrace clean energy has hit an environmental roadblock: the endangered marbled murrelet. On The Impact, we examine the issue with bringing wind power to western Washington and its potential impact on wildlife. You can see the 3-year on-site study conducted by Energy Northwest here and the Department of Natural Resource’s scientific review here.

Tags: Clemmons, marbled murrelet, parole, wind power

Tonight on The Impact, host Jessica Gao will interview Peter Goldmark, state lands commissioner, about the proposed Radar Ridge wind project. I’ll have more on that later, but for now, here’s the Off the Set interview with Goldmark, where he talks about illegal shellfishing, budget cuts and what the department hopes to do in the future:

To read the interview referenced in the video, go here.

Tags: Goldmark

Unemployment insurance rates will increase “sharply” for employers in 2010, from an average of 1.55 percent in 2009 to 2.38 percent in 2010, according to the Employment Security Department.

The change is due to two factors: The Unemployment Trust Fund has been depleted, so the “social-cost” portion of the tax will rise, in ESD’s words, “sharply.” The second factor: Businesses who have laid off employees will see their “experience rate” increase.

On the depletion of the trust fund: Last session, Washington had among the healthiest Unemployment Trust Funds in the nation, with $4.1 billion. The fund was so healthy, the Legislature voted to increase the amount paid out to those who are unemployed. At that time, they did not expect the fund to be depleted to the point that the unemployment tax would increase (the tax increases automatically, according to a formula).

The fund is now at $2.79 billion — enough for 14 months’ of claims. The fund is considered “healthy” by the federal government with 12 months or more of reserves.

If you’re a business registered with the state, you should receive your 2010 tax rate information in the mail. But note: Unemployment taxes paid in January will not be at the new rate, since those are paid on the final quarter of 2009.

Tags: taxes, unemployment

Tonight, don’t miss Inside Olympia at 7 and 10 p.m. Host Austin Jenkins interviewed Marty Brown, legislative affairs director for Gov. Chris Gregoire, and Victor Moore of the Office of Financial Management.

After the interview, I talked to Marty for an Off the Set segment. So: Watch Inside Olympia, then watch the video below for Brown’s thoughts on what the state will look like without a tax increase, how the state is working with the federal government and much, much more.

Tags: Budget, Inside Olympia, off the set, taxes

Today’s Q&A: Representatives Timm Ormsby and Judy Warnick, who both sit on the House Capital Budget Committee. The Capital Budget, as was pointed out during last week’s Assembly Days, is usually the “happy budget” — projects are funded by bond sales and create jobs.

But this year, things are different: The state has a cap on the amount of debt it can assume. And, because revenues have fallen, we’re bumping up against that cap.

For more on what that means, I spoke with Ormsby and Warnick. The interviews appear below in the order in which they were conducted, as usual, and are unedited. Enjoy.

Rep. Judy Warnick
Q: Last week during Assembly days, we heard the state is in danger of hitting the constitutional cap. Can you give your assessment of the matter?
Warnick: You mentioned the word danger and that’s exactly what I’m afraid of is that we are going to bump up and possibly even exceed that statutory limit. In my other life, I’m involved in the credit industry. I see what happens when individuals spend beyond their means and I’m very afraid of what the state is going to do. I asked the governor this morning about her fear of our credit score or rating will be. She indicated that she didn’t think that was going to be affected. She said there are other states that have worse credit rating. She gave the figure that the state has an A- bond rating. But if we are up to the limit of the constitutional limit, I’m worried.

Q: What happens if we hit that limit?
Warnick: That, I don’t’ know. That, I don’t know. I’m upfront with that. We haven’t done that, at least in the time that I’ve been here. I’ve only been on the Capital Budget one session, so I’m still learning. But I certainly think that it can’t be good. And it will, I’m sure, affect our ability to borrow in the future to finance the projects that we’re having to finance through bonding.
It’s kind of interesting that the amount of capital budget bonding that we’re looking at doing — about 536 million — is about the amount we transferred out last session — $777 million. If we had kept the $777 million from last session from our Capital Budget funds, we would not be short. (more…)

Tags: capital budget, Ormsby, Warnick

Rep. Brian Baird said today in a statement that he won’t seek re-election next year. Here’s a link to a post on Politico.

“The time has now come to pursue other options, other ways of serving. Hence, I am announcing today that I do not intend to seek reelection to Congress in 2010,” Baird said.

Tags: Baird