Eastern Adams County's Only Independent Voice Since 1887
Eastern Adams County's Only Independent Voice Since 1887
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It looked like the House Democrats’ introduction of a capital gains tax bill might qualify as the worst tax news of this past week in the Legislature. That was until the Senate Energy, Environment and Technology Committee met Thursday evening for the sole purpose of advancing the massive tax on energy that the governor proudly called “America’s first carbon tax” last month during another climate-related jaunt to Europe. The policy committees wrapped up their work on Senate bills last week, but the fiscal committees had until...
The legislative session in Olympia has reached the one-third mark already. The dozen Senate policy committees have one more week to take action on bills, then those of us serving on budget committees (I’m continuing to serve on Ways and Means) will have four additional days to finish working through the legislation referred to us. The bills we see will include proposals forwarded by the policy committees because they include costs that would affect the budget. The Senate’s new Democrat majority continues to move heavy-handed...
Even though the pace of the “short” legislative sessions is always faster anyway, the Senate’s new Democrat majority seems to be in a particular rush to get certain bills through the process this year. With two notable exceptions, the long-overdue fix for the Hirst court decision and the new capital budget, the major bills Democrats have brought up for votes seem to be more about specific interest groups. Their emphasis on social issues is a big change from the jobs-education-budget focus our Republican-led coalition broug...
One of the more recent traditions in Olympia is a forum, hosted by The Associated Press, which brings news reporters and legislative leaders together a few days ahead of each new legislative session. This year, during the part where I and the other Senate and House caucus leaders took questions, I raised some eyebrows by suggesting that there are legislators who want to work for all of Washington, and then there are legislators who seem to forget that Washington includes places like our legislative district. Sure enough, the...
As leader of one of the Legislature’s four caucuses I’ve been crisscrossing our state lately, talking with groups about the challenges we expect to face in 2018. From the Othello Rotary and Pullman City Council to Greater Spokane Incorporated and Spokane Rotary, as well as the Washington Roundtable in Seattle, there’s a lot of interest in what our scheduled 60-day session will produce. The governor’s budget proposal has only added to the questions since its release this past week. I hope the holidays were peaceful and saf...
Earlier this week I was in Spokane to speak at the eastern Washington part of the “Farm Hall” series sponsored by the Washington Policy Center. It gave me an opportunity to share a favorite quote about the intersection of government and agriculture: something President Eisenhower said when he was campaigning for re-election in September 1956: “Farming looks mighty easy when your plow is a pencil, and you’re a thousand miles from the corn field.” For the past five years, the Senate has been led by a coalition of senators...
It’s been a little more than three months since the 2017 session finally ended, and we’re already less than three months from the start of the 2018 session. This “interim” period has been a busy one, between legislative issues that are still making headlines and some recent activities in the economic-development arena. There’s also a special election coming Nov. 7 that involves three of the Senate seats held by our majority. The ballot includes advisory votes related to the new state budget and education-funding plan. I l...
For a while this past month my office at the state Capitol was taking call after call from people who had been transferred there by an automated phone call, better known as a “robo-call”. Some callers were surprised to find a real person on the other end of the line; others were upset because they thought the robo-calls originated from our office. Not true – I’ve only used this technology during legislative sessions to invite constituents to take part in telephone town-hall meetings. The recent wave of callers seemed to be p...
As a farmer whose wheat crop gets water only from the heavens, I like to say that when it comes to rain, there’s no such thing as “bad” rain. But I almost had to rethink that earlier this month, when rain arrived while we were out cutting wheat. Fortunately, we were just about at the tail end of harvest, so it was still a successful year with yields that were significantly above average. It’s been great to wear my farmer hat more than my senator hat for the past month, since our third overtime session of the year ended. Howev...
More than once in this column I’ve mentioned the eternal optimism I have, being a dryland wheat farmer, and how that spills over to my work as a state legislator. But I don’t remember Olympia testing my optimism like it has this year – and particularly this month. Ten days ago I would have said we had a good shot at concluding the 2017 legislative session on a positive note. Then good old-fashioned politics threw a wrench into things. That’s why I am home on the farm, with harvest under way, with the Legislature still l...
By now I had hoped to be back home, with all of our legislative business completed. We approved a new state budget on June 30 along with the long-awaited plan for fully funding public schools, which is in line with the Supreme Court’s McCleary decision. But our Senate majority isn’t ready to leave the Capitol. We still want a permanent fix for last year’s Supreme Court decision, in the Hirst case, which has basically put a freeze on rural homebuilding. Once that’s settled we could quickly wrap up the session by approving a ne...
It’s one thing for the news media to report on the possibility of a state-government shutdown, but now organizations with political agendas are trying to make hay out of the situation. The Washington State Democrats and the activists at a liberal group called Fuse Washington have taken to calling me “Shutdown Schoesler,” behind the ridiculous claim that I have kept our Senate majority from negotiating a new state budget in good faith. Through their contacts in Olympia, groups like these know full well that Republicans and D...
A newspaper in Tacoma recently suggested several ways that lawmakers are supposedly “killing time behind the scenes” of this overtime session. Some of the examples were absurd enough (“performing car-tab burning rituals”) that I’ll assume the whole editorial was meant in jest. Either way, here’s the truth: maybe 10 percent of the 147 legislators are even present at the Capitol at any given time. None of them need to kill time – eight are regularly locked in negotiations about education funding and policy, and the rest are lea...
The Legislature is now in a second special session. The governor made it official on Tuesday, May 23. That’s frustrating, because it means more time away from my loved ones and the farm. But Tuesday is also when the commander of the Ritzville post of the American Legion, Mark Shepherd, offered me the honor of saying a few words at our Memorial Day observance in Ritzville. I tell you, that puts things into perspective. The sacrifices that go with being a citizen legislator do add up, but obviously there’s no comparison with th...
Most lawmakers are back home while those involved in negotiations, and leaders like me, have spent much of these past four weeks at the Capitol. Once the negotiating teams reach agreements that are ready to go before the full Senate and House, everyone will return to Olympia for the votes needed to bring our work to a close for the year. There is progress on reforming the state’s education-funding system and figuring out the K-12 portion of the new state budget (which will be the largest part, so it takes priority). But the n...
The Senate passed a new operating budget on Friday after debating amendment after amendment for the better part of six hours. Our balanced plan would support critical constitutional reforms of the state’s school-levy approach, add more funding for basic education and strengthen the social-services “safety net” without calling for new taxes. When we made our budget proposal public earlier in the week, I figured the fact that it increases spending but still stays within available revenue would draw criticism from Gover...
A year ago at this time the Legislature’s regular session was over, because it is limited to 60 days in even-numbered years. However, we already had been called into a “special” session to iron out disagreements related to changes proposed to the state budget, and it ran to the end of March. There is no reason for the Legislature to go into overtime this year – no good reason, that is. But last week the governor’s budget director effectively scoffed at the idea of adjourning on time, and Thursday the House Democrats...
Washington’s constitution does not clearly prohibit a state income tax, contrary to what many think. I’d like for the voters of our state to finally have the chance to shield themselves from an income tax – at both the state and local level. The Senate minority doesn’t share that opinion, however. Please keep reading for the details. On Wednesday evening the Senate wrapped up its voting on bills introduced by senators. For the next few weeks the action will again be focused at the committee level, as we consider bills p...
Last week was the busiest week of our session so far. We spent each day in the Senate chamber, with all 49 members present and voting on legislation that has come forward from the Senate policy and budget committees. While voting all day and into the evening allowed us to move many good policy changes over to the House of Representatives, it unfortunately left little time for visitors this week. I was unable to follow up with Latino Civic Alliance members Monday afternoon, after offering brief remarks in the Capitol Rotunda,...
After today all legislative committees will take a break until mid-March. The Senate’s policy committees wrapped up work on Senate bills a week ago, and our two budget committees did the same. We will then have through March 8 to work in the Senate chamber (“on the floor,” as it’s called), debating and voting on bills that came forward from the Senate committees. Because I’m on the Ways and Means (budget) committee, which took action on dozens of bills this week, there unfortunately was less time for visitors. Still, I...
One of the realities of coming up with a new state budget every two years is that the cost of the things which are “must do” and “nice to do” always exceeds the amount of revenue available. It forces the Legislature to prioritize. That brings me to one of the questions that will face us this year: is spending $11 million more on vacation time a priority? Please keep reading for the details. My week started with a visit from Mary Fairhurst, who became chief justice of the state Supreme Court late in 2016, followed later M...
Our 2017 session will pass the one-third mark on Sunday – President Abraham Lincoln’s birthday. Not only was Lincoln among our greatest presidents, and the author of the Emancipation Proclamation, and the founder of the Republican Party, but as you might guess, our state’s Lincoln County is named for him. According to my legislative history book, Lincoln County was part of the Ninth District from 1965 to 1972, with Adams and Whitman counties. Feb. 12 used to be a legal holiday in our state; the Legislature ended that with...
This week the Senate approved a bill that would fully fund K-12 education in a way that upholds the state constitution and addresses the state Supreme Court’s McCleary decision from 2012. The Education Equality Act is certainly one of the most important pieces of legislation we will see in 2017, and the fact that we passed it so early in the session is proof of our Senate majority’s commitment to students. In addition to a pair of meetings with the governor, I welcomed Pullman firefighters, tree fruit growers, Whitman Cou...
The state senator for much of northeast Washington, Brian Dansel, stepped down from the Senate three days ago to accept a job in Washington, D.C. It was not a surprise, as his name has been mentioned in a Trump-administration context for some time. Legislative leaders know the process for appointing a new senator or representative and are aware that it can be handled fairly quickly. The vacancy in the Senate has not created a problem for our governing coalition, because the Legislature’s focus through mid-February is at t...
The section in the state constitution about legislative sessions does not give lawmakers a break on national holidays, so we were at work on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day (and will be again on Presidents Day next month). The House and Senate annually acknowledge the commemoration of Dr. King’s birth through resolutions. To me the day serves as a reminder of the great African-American leaders I have had the privilege to know, including my late friend Dr. Elson Floyd, the former WSU president who was taken from us by cancer i...