Legislative Commentary

The Legislature has adjourned for the year. We wrapped up our voting late Tuesday night, on the 20th day of an overtime session that would not have been necessary if my leadership counterparts in the House of Representatives had simply followed the rules about preparing a budget proposal.

Now that the 2016 legislative session has ended, the scoring has begun. Groups representing business, labor, environmental and other interests will look at voting records and decide who deserves their praise. Newspaper editorials are already pointing at choices that were or weren’t made and offering credit and blame accordingly.

As Senate majority leader I keep score by comparing what was accomplished as of March 29 with what we’d set out to do when the 2016 legislative session began 79 days earlier, on Jan. 11. As 9th Legislative District senator, I listen as others tell me how we did. That happens over coffee in Ritzville or as farm business and legislative business takes me around the district.

Speaking of around the district: while it’s been a long time since I’ve been able to spend a weekend at home, I am hoping to slip down to Pomeroy sometime this weekend for the annual Spring Farming Days, presented by the Eastern Washington Agricultural Museum at the Garfield County Fairgrounds. The event goes from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. tomorrow and Sunday, and while the horse- and mule-farming exhibitions are worth the trip all by themselves, there’s much more to see and enjoy.

I don’t know if the TV stations will make it to Pomeroy, too – they ought to – but the cameras and microphones were all around the Senate and House of Representatives as the session drew to a close after 11 p.m. Tuesday. Some of the very first assessments of our work were part of the Wednesday-morning newscasts, and I appreciated what the political analyst for the FOX affiliate in Seattle had to say when talking about the final agreement on a budget update:

“The Republicans win on this one.”

I’ll offer more details in upcoming reports, but for now here’s a quick rundown of the 2016 session, and how our bipartisan Senate coalition built on the results of our preceding three years as the governing side in the Senate.

Jobs – The subjects of carbon reduction and raising the minimum wage were not seriously discussed during our 60-day regular session.

This meant two things: employers did not have to worry about more of their bottom line being lost because of government, and legislators could focus on addressing education issues and developing a sensible set of updates to the operating budget we adopted in 2015.

Winners: employers and the families who depend on those jobs (especially in border counties, such as those in the 9th District, where the impact of raising Washington’s minimum wage would be extreme).

Education – The first bill passed by the Senate this year established a different funding source for Washington’s voter-approved public charter schools. That was in response to the surprise September 2015 ruling by the state Supreme Court which prohibited charter schools from drawing their funding from the same place as traditional (known in the state constitution as “common”) schools. The House hemmed and hawed about the issue but finally agreed.


As for the complicated subject of education funding, the Legislature kept itself on track to reform Washington’s school-levy system in a way that will have the state pay for things considered “basic education” instead of those costs being paid in part by local-levy dollars.

The only plan on the table came from a bipartisan group of senators; it will not surprise me if the Senate continues to lead on this, just as we did with the charter-school solution.

Winners: the families who have chosen to send their kids to public charter schools instead of low-performing traditional schools, and all who have benefited from how our Senate majority has led the way to dramatic improvements in support for Washington’s K-12 system.

Budget – In 2015 it took some 10 weeks of overtime for the Senate and House to agree on a new two-year budget for state operations. Our Senate majority worked hard to make sure that budget was balanced without new taxes and also complied with the state law requiring the budget to balance across four years, not just two.

We came into the 2016 session knowing that adjustments needed to be made and determined to hold the line on taxes and remain in line with the balanced-budget law.

We should have wrapped up the supplemental operating budget before the March 10 end of our regular session, but as my March 25 report explained, the Democrats in control of the House wanted to ignore the balanced-budget law, which is the closest thing our state has to a spending limit.

In the end, the budget supplement we adopted is true to our principles. It provides funding for:

• Better care of our state’s most vulnerable, through improvements to the state-run mental-health facility west of the Cascades (Western State Hospital), and more home visits to look after people with developmental disabilities.

• Covering the higher-than-usual wildfire-fighting costs from 2015.

• More support for homecare workers, combined with taxpayer protections.

• Preservation of the popular tuition cuts for 2016-17 school year – something that would not have happened without our Senate majority leading the way.

This supplemental budget balances without tax increases and upholds the four-year balanced-budget law. Considering where budget negotiations with House Democrats stood early this month, those features support the television reporter’s conclusion that Republicans came out ahead. I like to think it is the people who came out ahead.



Winners: those in need of state-provided care, and most of all, Washington taxpayers who must live within their means and deserve a state government, which does the same.

I packed up the car and Colt the faithful Vizsla Thursday and headed home after many weeks straight at the Capitol.

It is good to be back in Adams County and home on the farm!