Eastern Adams County's Only Independent Voice Since 1887
Eastern Adams County's Only Independent Voice Since 1887
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A lot of folks take advantage of the Labor Day holiday to make one more late-summer trip, but for me Labor Day weekend means staying around Ritzville and taking part in our Wheat Land Communities’ Fair, which started Thursday and ran through Sunday. Besides taking a turn working the gate, I also participated in the parade and livestock auction. I’m also looking forward to being at the Palouse Empire Fair on its opening day Thursday, Sept. 6, as one of several elected officials who will cook food and serve it to senior cit...
There’s so much to do during harvest that my legislator duties naturally shift to the back burner. But sometimes farming and being a state senator simply have to overlap, and that’s when the cab of a combine can be a pretty good place to meet and visit, like this past week, when Japan’s consul general for our region came to town. Consul General Yoichiro Yamada had arrived at his new posting in Seattle last summer, coming from his nation’s embassy in Belgium, and following other postings in Russia, Poland, New York and Ken... Full story
Wheat harvest got under way on the Schoesler farm this week, after we finished up with the canola. It presented the familiar mix of rewards and challenges, as we tried to work at maximum efficiency and keep all of our machines going. Things look encouraging so far, but either way I can’t complain, not after seeing how fire destroyed thousands of acres of wheat in north central Oregon in a matter of days. Let’s hope no more crops are lost to fire this year. As I’m wearing my farmer hat, I’ll focus this commentary on two of...
A year ago today the longest legislative session in state history finally ended. It was no fun being away from the farm during the run-up to harvest, but at least the heavy lifting we did in 2017 had much to do with the 2018 session ending on schedule. This year’s wheat harvests are already under way, with asparagus and cherry harvests winding down, and the talk I’m hearing so far is positive from the areas that usually come in earlier. By the time you read this my own harvest may be going, hopefully a safe and fire-free har...
Driving around our legislative district on Senate business takes me away from my farm, but it also means I’m driving past someone else’s farm a fair amount of the time. I’ve been on the road to Pasco and Pullman quite a bit lately, and whether it’s wine grapes here or wheat there, the crops are looking better than average to my eye at this point in the season. The garbanzo beans (chickpeas) are looking especially good in Whitman County, which just happens to be the nation’s leading producer of that particular legume. I... Full story
When Thursday arrived, bringing the official start of summer, I was reminded how at this time a year ago the Legislature was still in session with no firm end in sight. In fact, June 21 of last year was both the final day of the second overtime session and the first day of the third overtime. It would be another 30 days before the 2017 session finally fizzled to a halt, in one of the most bizarre ways imaginable: majority Democrats literally walking out of the House chamber so Republicans couldn’t force a vote on the ... Full story
Recently I mentioned how one of the state Supreme Court justices, from Seattle, had attended a political rally put on in Spokane by the largest teachers’ union in the state. She did so shortly before she was to hear arguments in a lawsuit brought by that union and others against the state’s charter schools, and her appearance rightfully had people wondering if she could be impartial about that case. Part of Justice Mary Yu’s public excuse for speaking at the political event was that she wanted to encourage teachers to have...
Brimming with confidence and anticipation, I strolled to the tee box. In one gloved hand, I held my club, in the other the ball and tee. There was no doubt in my mind that the dimpled fuchsia orb atop the tee was about to be dispatched for a soaring and momentous distance. Laser-beam focused, feet firmly planted, hands well- positioned on the club handle, I began to lift and shift and BOOM! A 30 mile-an-hour gust of wind hit me from behind and I stumbled over the tee, knocking the ball to the ground. Conditions were not... Full story
The legislative session ended late Thursday night, on schedule. Unfortunately, wrapping up on time was about the only good thing I can say about our entire final week in Olympia. We saw the new Senate majority ignore the state constitution, starve the state’s rainy-day fund, and refuse to roll back the school-tax increase that has caused a property-tax spike statewide, and that was just in the final two days of the session. I’m glad it is over, and I am looking back to getting home and onto a tractor. In what is probably my...
It isn’t every day that I am able to talk about Harrington and Washtucna to my Senate colleagues, but today House Bill 1209 gave me a reason. Without going into great detail, the bill would lift the limit on deposits of public funds from rural counties into credit unions that are exempt from the business and occupation tax (banks aren’t exempt). To me this isn’t really about credit unions versus banks. It’s more about causing even more capital to be exported from rural Washington into big-city money centers, at a time wh...
The end of the 2018 legislative session is less than two weeks away. The session hasn’t produced a lot of positive things for the people of our state, but being an eternal optimist, I can point to one. Olympia’s new ruling party has less than two weeks left to impose its liberal special-interest agenda on the families and employers of our state, before we adjourn for the year. My favorite visitors for the week were my three grandchildren, for the Senate’s observance of Children’s Day. It snowed more than once at the Capitol t... Full story
Much has been happening at the Capitol, but before commenting on some of the key decisions I’ll point out that today is day 40 of our 60-day session. We’re at the stage where the Senate committees are considering bills passed by the House, and vice versa. More significantly, the first state revenue forecast of 2018 was released Thursday – and it’s an absolute game-changer in my book, as I’ll explain. The Senate and House budget writers will use the forecast to fine-tune their budget proposals, which should emerge next week... Full story
When we’re on the floor of the Senate chamber debating and voting on legislation, it’s known as “floor action.” At this point in the session, when the full Senate is working through bills that were moved forward by the various committees, the floor action can last all day, and then some. Our first day of floor action this past week had us in the Senate chamber until early the next morning. We spent the better part of the final two hours on two pieces of legislation that sure look like an attempt by a powerful labor union t...
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... Full story
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... Full story
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... Full story
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... Full story
Every week or so, friends meet us at the Tee Time Cafe for dinner on Friday evenings. We relax and enjoy an excellent meal while surrounded by the lush ambiance provided by well-manicured greens and fairways. It’s a park-like setting that’s available to golfers and non-golfers alike. Barbara, the cafe proprietress, is also an accomplished chef. She makes everything from scratch. I’m talking about the old time meaning of “scratch”, not the current “if it comes in a box and requires more than thawing out” application o... Full story
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... Full story