Here, just in case, is what the Constitution says about special session (see the full section of the Constitution after the jump).

In short:

- If two-thirds in the House and Senate vote to do so, the Legislature can call itself into special session. If they go this route, they can limit the scope of the work that they do.

- During a special session called by the Legislature, a two-thirds vote of the House and Senate can add items to the agenda.

- If the governor calls the Legislature into special session, she can suggest what they work on but they are not bound to that suggestion.

- In either case, the special session is limited to 30 days a pop.

- Some recent special sessions include 2001 and 2003 — each had three special sessions.

- As reported by The Olympian, special session costs about $18,000 per day. Year-round staffers are not paid more — the money goes toward lawmakers’ “per diem” checks — $90 per day per lawmaker — and temporary staff (most of whom are laid off in the event of special session).

(more…)

Tags: Budget, Constitution, special session, taxes

Tags: Budget, Race to the Top, special session, taxes

I just got back from Gov. Chris Gregoire’s media availability — I’ll post it here as soon as it’s online. Here are some notes:

On the Boeing tanker bid: “We’re not done and we’re assuming nothing right now.”

On session: “The end is in sight … this is clearly a historic legislative session,” she said. She’s pleased with the Constitutional amendment on bail, the 520 bridge bill and progress on government reform.

On special session: There’s “potential” for special session. She said last year, 22 states held a special session and three are currently in special session. “What’s more important to me is get the job done and get it done well,” she said. She said one issue with special session is that once it’s called, they have 30 days and she can’t control what gets discussed — or limit the time to only a day or  two.

On things that aren’t quite finished yet: Race to the Top is an “essential step” — she said it was a “go home” issue, she wants to see movement on a jobs package, and she’s optimistic that the House and Senate can come to an agreement on the budget. She said she’s already started negotiating in private between the two.

The three things that need to be done to negotiate the budget: Agreement on the ending fund balance, agreement on the size of cuts and agreement on the revenue package size.

On the sales tax: She said she expressed concern to the Senate this morning about implementing a sales tax. But asked whether she’d agree to it under any circumstances, she said “never say never, never say always.”

On three big disparities in the budgets: 1. Public employees benefits 2. General Assistance – Unemployable 3. Institutional closures.

There’s much more. Stay tuned for the video.

Tags: Budget, Gregoire, special session, taxes

Here’s the full debate from last night/this morning:

Tags: taxes

Yesterday, the Senate started debate on their tax package. Today, they’ve taken it back up.

Sen. Randy Gordon: “We are doing the right things. We’re cutting costs. Contracting the budget for the first time … and we are also working together as a family to do what we can.”

Sen. Dale Brandland: “Driving in from Port Angeles, I thought, I’m just going to let this go,” he said, but he changed his mind. He said at the beginning of the year, he thought this session would be a good opportunity for reform. “Did we do anything in this budget to prioritize what government is supposed to be doing?”

Sen. Pam Roach: “The majority of the people of the 31st district don’t like this budget,” she said. “They don’t like the fact that we’re closing a bit of Rainier School,” she said, though added that she was thankful most of it would be kept open. She said some items in the budget and tax package will not be good for Washington.

Sen. Rosa Franklin: “We are at a time when many of you have not ever witnessed this before. The people who have witnessed and lived during the time of the Depression know what it means to have a great economic downturn. As for taxes, it is never a good time. Nobody ever wants to be taxed. They don’t find it a good time to be restructuring our tax system,” she said, whether it’s good or bad times. “When is a good time to talk about restructuring a regressive tax system and building a more sustainble budget.” She said she didn’t like some things in the revenue package but she will vote for it.

Sen. Lisa Brown: “My own mother, who is 73, works at Wal-Mart to be able to afford her prescriptions,” she said, adding that everyone has been affected by the recession. “We have addressed that problem with reforms,” she said, including reforms to social services and the way state government is administered. “We’ve done reductions in every functional area of state government” that isn’t Constitutionally protected or federal match money. She said the budget and tax package makes good changes. “The vast majority of it is temporary increases in revenue … and it embodies some very significant tax reform,” she said.

Sen. Jim Honeyford said it wasn’t the value of Washingtonians to start new programs — like publicly funded Supreme Court races — while other services are being cut. He also said he didn’t think Washingtonians valued taxing those who don’t have jobs. (more…)

Tags: taxes

Does she have 25 votes for the tax package: “I think it looks good for moving the bill out of the Senate maybe as early as tomorrow… I wouldn’t be surprised if there aren’t a few more amendments.”

What amendments? “From the other side of the aisle I imagine there’ll be a large number,” she said. Other than that, some language changes, some “other.” “I think we’re headed toward being able to support our budget with a revenue package this weekend.”

“We’re far from done yet,” she said, when asked whether the public was given enough chance to weigh in on some of the proposals.

“I think our processes are much more transparent than when I entered the Legislature,” she said. “I don’t think members are being somehow secluded from outside influence.”

She said there are 85 House bills up for concurrence. “Some things can have pretty big sticking points,” she said.

Is the sales tax a sticking point? “I assume it will be but I don’t think we’ll know for sure until the House actually passes a revenue package.”

Will the income tax bill be talked about again? “That idea is still moving forward. People are talking about variations on it and it’s not clear to me what exactly would move out of the Senate at this point … and we’d want to have some indication obviously that the House was willing to do it.”

She said five or 10 bills that were a priority for the Senate died in the House today. Likewise for House bills in the Senate.

On the Husky Stadium/local excise tax bill that didn’t make it: “My understanding is that the striking amendment … would have created more flexibility for King County with those revenue streams. It’s always been a controversial bill for the last how ever many years we’ve been considering it. I think there’s a lot of consensus around making sure the arts get their piece of the funding … but then when you start to broaden it out … it starts to get pretty complex and we didn’t believe we had enough support to move it.”

Is there time to do the income tax proposal: “There’s time but there has to be willingness on both places to do it.” She said there are other groups outside the Legislature who could be working on an initiative.

The storm water bill  — to triple the tax on hazardous substances is still alive, she said. But “I don’t think it would be anywhere near” tripling the tax. “We do have clean water issues that we are going to need to be working on,” she said.

Biggest stumbling block? “We’re fighting the clock right now with all the issues to be resolved but I think you can say that there’s not a big breakdown here. I don’t know that there’s a big breakdown there … resolving a very serious budget shortfall in a short amount of time is challenging,” she said. “It can be done… I’m not planning any trip home, I’ll tell you that, until we give it our best shot.”

Tags: Budget, taxes

With a week and one day to go in the legislative session, I sat down with Speaker Pro Tempore Jeff Morris to talk about the unresolved issues heading down the stretch.  He gave great insight into negotiations over a constitutional amendment on bail and called on the governor to wield influence in the debate. The business community will also be interested to hear about last-minute proposals to offset sharp increases to workers’ compensation and unemployment insurance rates.

On the tax front, I talk with Senator Randy Gordon and Rep. Ross Hunter.  Rep. Hunter gave a big plug to the power of public testimony.  You’ll hear about changes to the tobacco tax proposal after yesterday’s Finance Committee hearing. You’ll also learn where the House and Senate have found common ground.

In our weekly committee segment, we have Sen. Rosemary McAuliffe and Rep. Bruce Dammeier talking about education: basic education reforms, Race to the Top reforms, math and science graduation requirements, drop-out prevention, and early learning.

You can watch The Impact Wednesday nights at 7:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. on TVW.

Tags: bail, taxes, The Impact, unemployment insurance, workers' compensation

Margaret Viggiani with Sisters Organized for Survival said some of the taxes in the package are regressive — like the cigarette tax. She said she’d like to see fewer regressive taxes, more look at tax loopholes and a “graduated tax on the rich.”

“More than 100,000 people will lose their insurance,” if Basic Health and other programs aren’t funded, Gary Walmer, a concerned citizen, said. “I want to say that I’m a lifelong Republican. It was a difficult decision for me to come here and support a tax increase in the middle of a recession. But I had to do so… please raise the revenue to support community health centers.”

A cosmetic surgeon whose name I didn’t catch said taxing elective cosmetic surgery cost New Jersey $3.30 to collect $1 on that tax. “Eighty-six percent of our patients are working women,” he said, “this is a discriminatory tax against working women.” He also asked how the tax would be enforced — how can you tell if a patient is going in for cosmetic surgery versus reconstructive surgery. He said it’s impossible for surgeons to collect the tax.

Tags: taxes

I put the highest value tax proposals from Gov. Chris Gregoire, the Senate and the House into this chart to give you an idea of the bigger items they agree — and disagree — on.

Not on the list, of course, is the temporary sales tax increase proposed exclusively by the Senate.

Tags: taxes

“In this budget cycle, we’ve dealt with a change in our expected budget picture of about $12 billion,” Rep. Ross Hunter said. “We’ve dealt with about $11 billion of that problem” with cuts, federal funds and other actions to address “what we hope is really a once-in-a-century budget problem.”

Watch live on TVW now and read-along here by updating your browser.

He said he’s laying out a five-piece, $758 million revenue package. “Part one, we’ve made changes to House Bill 3176 and we’re incorporating them into the larger bill, which we will hear tomorrow in Finance” at 9 a.m. That was Hunter’s earlier bill to close tax loopholes and end exemptions. “We’ve made real changes. We’re going to use the funds from this to deal with maintaining the lower class sizes … and maintaining financial aid for college students.” He said the original plan has been out for three weeks.

Part three removes sales tax exemptions on some products and services — like elective plastic surgery, candy and gum, custom software, janitorial services and sales tax on bottled water. “This is very different from the governor’s proposal,” he said.

See the entire plan in the post below.

First question: Does he have 50 votes for the plan? “I can’t tell you I’ve got exactly 50 today … unlike many other proposals that are floating around today, I think this one’s pretty likely.”

He said he’s not a fan of increasing the sales tax. “A large percent of that are paid by small business across the state,” he said. What the House tries to do, however, is “close loopholes” and end exemptions that may not be fair in the current economy. (more…)

Tags: House, taxes