The Senate is about to start debate on the operating budget, which you can read here. You can watch the debate live on TVW.

Sen. Margarita Prentice said revenues have tanked. “We’re responding to a revenue shortfall similar to what 47 states have already faced,” she said. “We aren’t offering an ugly budget — ours is a positive budget,” she said, that will get communities “through and beyond” the recession. “None of us wants to put our schools, our colleges, our universities and our economic futures at risk.”

Sen. Joe Zarelli: “What we have before us is a budget that spends about $1 1/2 billion more than we have,” he said. He said voting on the budget before the revenue package is putting the cart before the horse. “When you vote for this, I guess that assumes that whatever anybody says you’re going to do to pay for it, that’s what you’re going to do.”

Sen. Jean Berkey said she was voting for the bill only to facilitate negotiations. She said she has concerns with how the revenue will look.

Sen. Don Benton said the budget calls for the closure of Frances Haddon Morgan, where a friend’s son has lived for some time. He said it is “the safest environment for these individuals who need this special help.” “I’m hoping that we can still continue to work on specifically this issue of the DD centers … and keep at least one or two of these open so that these individuals are not forced to go into community placement.”

Sen. Mike Carrell said he would be voting against the budget, though he does appreciate “token” changes. He said he’s concerned the budget doesn’t account for a multi-year economic crisis. “We’re going to use the excuse that ‘We can’t make any more cuts,’ but there have not been any systematic, systemic changes in this budget.”

Sen. Lisa Brown: “The goal of this budget is to move the process forward, to lead the state through difficult times,” she said. She said significant reforms are being made in this budget and that cuts and reforms are needed for a successful budget. (more…)

Tags: Budget

The Senate passed their transportation budget.

“Transportation is the bright spot in an otherwise gloomy economic picture,” Sen. Mary Margaret Haugen said, kicking off debate.  “Over 18,000 jobs have been or will be created to sustain the (transportation) budget that we passed last year,” she said. She said this supplemental transportation budget doesn’t add much from last year. Except: “In the last budget cycle we did not fund two patrol classes. We felt that there would not be any attrition,” she said, but they found out that wasn’t the case. She said this budget funds a patrol class.

Sen. Curtis King: “We have developed what I think is a good budget here.” He said they’ve worked hard on several policy aspects — including how the Department of Transportation sells excess property.

Sen. Chris Marr said he also supports the budget. He said projects are coming in, on average, 17 percent below engineer estimates. That money can then fund other projects, he said.

Sen. Mike Carrell said he is sad to say he won’t be supporting the budget. He said the reason is that there’s an appropriation to turn a small rail stop in Lakewood — his district — into a hub for SoundTransit and other trains. He said at least 50 times a day, traffic will be harmed in the Lakewood area where the station will go.

The budget passed 41 to 3 and now heads to the House.

Tags: Budget, transportation

The Senate just unanimously passed a House bill that bans the term “mentally retarded” in state laws and replaces it with “intellectual disability.”

Sen. Dale Brandland said he’s always hated the term “retarded” and that in testimony on the bill, people with intellectual disabilities told lawmakers the word feels disrespectful. He said there’s a man in his district who has been working on this bill for a long time.

The House also passed the bill unanimously.

Tags: intellectual disability

Susan Torngren, who owns a childcare center, said the opt-in would allow those who are interested in unionizing to do so — but wouldn’t force other centers to participate. “Please give us this opportunity to see if it will help.”

Kim Cook with SEIU 925 said those working on the bill have made changes to it — including removing arbitration — that lower the future cost of the bill and get more people on board. “This is really just about choice,” she said.

Sen. Rodney Tom said the state doesn’t have any money for K-12 education and isn’t funding it fully. He asked Cook what made her think the state would have increased revenue for childcare subsidies that would likely result from allowing them to unionize.

Cook said the bill wouldn’t go into effect for several biennium, giving the state time to bounce back. She also said unions are working to make sure there is a more stable revenue picture in the future.

But Ginger Still, who owns Kids World Daycare, said she does not think this is a good bill. She said everyone is feeling the effects of the economy. “Our communities have faced vital cuts to programs … to waste even one dollar of the state’s money — let alone $1.4 million — on a piece of bad legislation would be a tragedy.”

Amy Bell with YMCA said no other state is doing anything like this. She said money from the state wouldn’t go to children, which is where it should go.

Sen. Cheryl Pflug said the state made a commitment not to unionize child care workers.

Watch live on TVW now.

Tags: union

Monday: The Senate unveiled its transportation budget, Sen. Zarelli’s bill to fund schools via a property tax shift got a hearing, the Senate voted for the final time to suspend most of Initiative 960, and the House and Senate announced that they’d release their budgets on Tuesday.

Tuesday: The Senate and House unveiled operating budgets that each call for new revenue. The Senate unveiled that three-pronged revenue plan, including a cigarette tax and 3/10ths of a penny sales tax increase. The House held another hearing on the “tuition setting authority” bill. I made some pictures about the budgets:

Wednesday: The Senate held a public hearing on the bill to require pharmacies to track cold medicine sales in real-time. Gov. Chris Gregoire signed into law the bill to suspend most of Initiative 960. Jessica Gao hosted a robust debate on taxes and the budget on The Impact. And the Senate Ways & Means committee held the first hearing on the three tax bills.

Thursday: Sen. Adam Kline and Rep. Mike Hope were on the Thursday Q&A, focused on the Constitutional amendment on bail. Rep. Lynn Kessler was on the Off the Set interview, during which she described the tight timeline they’ll have to meet in order to get out of Olympia on time. And on Inside Olympia, Austin Jenkins talked to lawmakers about the budget and taxes.

Friday: The Senate Judiciary Committee passed their version of the bail bill, to Rep. Hope’s protests. And the House considered 100+ amendments to the budget.

And don’t forget to visit the blog tomorrow — the Senate and House will both be on the floor, which means I’ll be blogging.

The week in videos:
Inside Olympia:

The Impact:

Off the Set:

Tune into TVW now to hear the House discuss the budget — here’s a link to all 200-some pages.

Right now, they’re running through amendments. I’ll update here should the discussion heat up.

Up now: Rep. Jeannie Darneille’s amendment to close the state ethics board. She said in 2009, their nearly $500,000 budget resulted in 11 state employees getting a slap on the wrist for inappropriate use of the internet. She said those “inappropriate uses” included saving a home mortgage on their work computer. She said this is a difficult time in the state and she couldn’t justify spending $500,000 on 11 employees.

Rep. Kelli Linville asked if Darneille to clarify whether the ethics board was the same one that oversaw legislators. Darneille said it was not.

Rep. Larry Seaquist said he thought it actually increased the oversight because right now, it’s too easy for state managers to toss problems to the ethics board. He said defunding it would force people to take more responsibility.

But Rep. Bill Hinkle said he’s not sure that cutting the budget for the ethics board would be the right thing to do. He said it would send the wrong message.

The amendment was adopted. There was some discussion about the board being “scalable” — so maybe they’ll cut it partially and not fully.

Tags: Budget

The Constitutional bail on amendment is up in the Senate Judiciary Committee right now. There are two bills being considered — the House bill and the Senate striking amendment. You can read about what the sponsors of each have to say below. Here is the bill.

“Today is the day and now is the time,” said Rep. Mike Hope, one of the sponosors of the House bill. He said they spent time with stakeholders to make sure they were crafting the right bill. “I believe that we’ll have an overwhelming amount of support if this goes to a vote of the public.”

There has been some emotional testimony this morning from relatives and friends of victims, including families of victims.

“I know that the first thing lawmakers see is the cost of things, but whatever it is, it’s nowhere close ot the price I’m paying,” said the daughter of one officer who was killed.
(more…)

Tags: bail

Today’s Q&A is with Sen. Adam Kline and Rep. Mike Hope. The two disagree substantially on how the state should amend the Constitution in order to change the bail system.

Bail is a Constitutional right in Washington for all but capital crimes. In the wake of the Maurice Clemmons shooting, when a three-strike criminal facing life in prison was let out on bail and went on a killing spree, the Legislature is reconsidering that policy.

If they pass a Constitutional amendment, it would be put to the people. Here, lawmakers discuss in depth what they think should happen.

First up, Sen. Adam Kline:

Q: Tell me where you’re at now on the bail issue.

Kline: The goal is a Constitutional amendment that does the least violence to the Constitutionally protected right to be released on bail when one is presumed innocent pending trial. The governor had a proposal that was worked on by law enforcement and prosecutors and it was rather broad. It would have allowed the judge to deny bail not just in capital cases, where it’s already deniable, but also in cases in any charge regardless of the charge in which the judge feels – and I want to say feels, because there isn’t a way to describe that any differently — feels that the defendant may be dangerous.

There isn’t any psychological assessment tool that allows us to predict dangerousness with any accuracy. So what we’re left with is a hunch
If we’re going to allow judges to keep people in jail with a hunch, I have a problem with that. There’s a certain tradition in America that we don’t deprive people of their freedom unless there’s a very good reason to keep them in jail. The governor’s proposal would have allowed judges to deny bail based on a feeling of dangerousness regardless of the charge. We felt that was too broad.
In the Senate and House, there are now competing versions that don’t necessarily track.

In the Senate, the bill is written by Sen. Carrell – it was somewhat narrower but, I felt, not narrow enough. And so Sen. Carrell and I worked out a compromise by which it would allow but not require judges to deny bail to a person to, in addition to capital offenses, a person charged with any offense that could result in a sentence of life without parole.
There were 30 or 40 charges in the last year in which that bill would have applied. Those are third strike cases, aggravated murder, or second strike in certain sex offense cases.

The House, at the same time, had a very different version that was also not the governor’s. We – Sen. Carrel and I – thought it was way too broad.
It would have allowed in about 1,300 to 1,400 cases a year in which charges were brought. It went far beyond just life without parole charges. They sent it over here, we sent ours over there and that’s when the fun began.
We have the House version here and we’re going to amend it. The amendment will reflect language Sen. Carrell worked out. It expands it a little bit over our original version to a list of behaviors – not referring to the crime, because the criminal definitions can change in statute — but a Constitutional amendment stays there. So we listed behaviors like intentional murder. That’s first degree, murder in the second degree and aggravated murder 1. Also, intentional assault in which great bodily harm is done – so assault 1 or assault of a child 1. And sex offense punishable by life in prison – that’s rape 1 and 2, child molestation 1, and rape of a child 1 and 2. Any Class A felony committed with sexual motivation.
And then additionally, the third strike of a three-strike case. Second strike of a two strike sex offense.
It adds up in terms of charges. This past year there were 643 charges to which this would apply.
That’s expanding it and it, I believe, reaches a compromise. I believe this is not as narrow as I would have wanted nor is it as broad as I would want. But that’s the nature of compromise. (more…)

Tags: Hope, Kline, Thursday Q&A

Here’s Rep. Lynn Kessler, who appears on tonight’s edition of Inside Olympia. Don’t miss that at 7 and 10 p.m.

Tags: off the set, taxes

Today’s been a strange day because not a lot happened until this afternoon. So: Stay tuned for this week’s Off the Set interview with Rep. Lynn Kessler — during which she lays out the tight schedule the House and Senate will have to meet in order to leave Olympia on time — the Thursday Q&A with Sen. Adam Kline and Rep. Mike Hope — about the divergent ideas the House and Senate have about Constitutional bail amendments — and more.