Legislative Commentary

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 new capital budget to fund public construction projects and make other community-level investments.

The Legislature’s overtime sessions are limited to 30 days, making next Thursday the last day of this third overtime – and our final day to take action on legislation.

I don’t see the governor calling another overtime, and this year has already set another record for the number of days spent in session. So one way or another, our time at the Capitol will be over soon. I have a farm to run!

Why a Hirst fix this year is so important

A well that draws no more than 5,000 gallons of water daily for residential use is exempt from the level of permitting that requires a water right.

There are places in all 39 counties where municipal water hookups don’t exist, meaning such residential wells are the only sources of water for new homes.

Historically, counties would consult Department of Ecology data when deciding whether water was available to allow drilling these “exempt” wells.

The Hirst ruling requires counties to independently verify the availability of water, instead of relying on information from Ecology.

That makes it nearly impossible for a property owner to get permission to drill an exempt well.

No well means no building permit, and no building permit doesn’t just crush the dreams of a family.

It affects local lenders and construction workers and all others involved in the homebuilding industry, and the local governments that rely on such growth for revenue.

Here in mid-July, construction season is in full swing. Imagine how many dreams have been put on hold, and how much economic damage has already been done.

It’s been six months since I wrote about how Hirst was the easier Supreme Court decision to fix and should be addressed by the first major legislation passed in 2017.

Sen. Judy Warnick of Moses Lake, chair of the Senate committee on water, has seen the Senate pass her Hirst-fix legislation four times in less than six months, most recently on June 29 and always with solid bipartisan votes.

Her counterpart in the House reportedly supports her bill but hasn’t even allowed his committee to vote on it.

The governor hasn’t been much help either – until very recently he didn’t seem to view Hirst as a serious concern, and now he keeps telling our Senate majority to put the capital budget ahead of a Hirst remedy.

I see it the other way. Let’s settle Hirst first, as the more pressing issue. We agree that the capital budget is vital, but it also isn’t controversial this year. An agreement could be reached quickly if Democrats stopped blocking a fix for Hirst.

They have until July 20 to decide how important it is for families to have affordable access to water.

‘One Washington’ budget wins strong support

I had little doubt that we would get to a budget agreement in time for state services to continue without interruption July 1. The Senate vote was 39-10 in favor, and the House vote was a similarly bipartisan 70-23. The new plan is a win for hard-working taxpayers, as I pointed out in this statement following the Senate vote.

As I had hoped, the new 2017-19 budget supports what is largely the Senate’s approach to fully funding our public schools.

That means a big dose of additional money ($3.8 billion), plus the once-in-a-generation policy changes we’re making to put the state back to being the primary provider for schools (instead of local districts).

I believe this will resolve the constitutional concerns raised by the state Supreme Court in the McCleary case.

The reforms we approved deserve a report of their own, but the charts above and below offer a sense of the progress they represent in the 9th District.

Also, as Tacoma’s daily newspaper finally acknowledged this week, our majority’s position that the levy reforms also lower property taxes in most parts of the state “is about right.”

The new spending plan protects the state’s social-safety net and makes major investments in services for people with mental illness. It promotes improvements in the foster care system and offers new support for seniors and those who care for them.

There are gains in health care and public safety, and $50 million to maintain and extend state need grants for college-bound students – that’s 1,650 new slots.

The good news doesn’t end there. This budget keeps a record amount in reserve (more than $2 billion) and is balanced without the unnecessary new taxes that were high on the agendas of Democrat leaders in the House, and the governor: a capital-gains income tax, a 20 percent jump in taxes on most employers, a “carbon tax” and a change in real-estate taxes.

They wanted these new taxes even though our state is already expecting nearly $3 billion in additional revenue due to economic growth.

While it’s true that we needed time to sort out a response to the McCleary education-funding decision, the Democrat tax push had much to do with why we are in a third overtime session.

We did compromise on a sales-tax change so Main Street employers won’t be at a disadvantage when competing with online sellers.

The tax-change revenue also will help pay for the $1.7 billion cost of the labor contracts the governor’s staff negotiated last year with state-worker unions, during his re-election campaign.

Inslee veto goes against working families, family businesses, even Boeing

You may remember that Governor Jay Inslee called the Legislature back to the Capitol for a short special session in November 2013. It resulted in the passage of two measures to attract more aerospace jobs in general and specifically the next phase of Boeing’s 777 jetliner.

I was among those who pointed out, prior to the voting, how other Washington employers should be receiving the same level of legislative consideration.

That’s because the same factors (such as complying with government regulations, and paying fees for unemployment insurance and workers’ compensation) that drive up the cost of doing business for a big aircraft manufacturer in the Puget Sound area also affect the bottom line of other family businesses across the state.

Fast forward to the last week of June.

In the course of reaching agreement on the new 2017-19 budget, the negotiators also agreed to reduce the business-and-occupation tax rate on non-aerospace manufacturers, to match the aerospace rate, over a five-year period.

People from the governor’s office were in the room for that agreement and helped bring it together. The Legislature approved the new flat rate for manufacturers on June 30 as part of Senate Bill 5977.

I was looking forward to telling small manufacturing operations around our state that they were on track to receive the same tax consideration as Boeing. But one week later, Inslee snatched the hope away by vetoing that part of SB 5977.

He claimed he hadn’t agreed to the lower tax rate, which is hard to figure considering his staff members were part of those talks.

I made my outrage clear and this week questioned on Seattle radio whether we can trust any other deals offered by this governor.