Legislative Commentary

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 look forward to the fall season for many reasons, and this year has been no exception. It’s a good time to take a break from farm chores and enjoy some of the unique benefits of rural life.

My dear friend and former fellow legislator Jim Buck came over from the Olympic Peninsula earlier this month, and it didn’t take long to fill our deer tags.

I took hogs to the butcher about a week ago, and then it was time to make sausage. There’s an old saying that compares the making of sausage with the making of laws. I’ll take the sausage-making almost every time.

Trade mission to Japan sows seeds for rural jobs

Several weeks ago I joined Senator Judy Warnick and Representative Tom Dent and others on a trade mission to Japan.

Our stops included Nagoya, Osaka and Tokyo, where we visited with people in the wheat, flour milling, chemical, and industrial sectors (such as Panasonic, Kawasaki, Hitachi) as well as Boeing representatives there. We also met with the governor of Aichi Prefecture – a state with an economic and geographical makeup similar to Washington.

The various discussions covered business opportunities related to agriculture, the Grant County International Airport and more. And seeing how the governor vetoed the legislation we’d passed this year to encourage manufacturing across the state, it’s clear that homegrown efforts like this (arranged and funded by the Port of Moses Lake) are incredibly important for preserving rural jobs in the short term and attracting new investments for the long term.

As Senate majority leader I have had the honor of meeting the Japanese consul to our state, and hosting visits to our Capitol by Japanese officials. Going to Japan helped me better understand, literally, where they’re coming from.

I enjoyed touring some of the country, seeing the things the Japanese people treasure (like old-growth forests) and taking part in cultural exchanges. The “bullet” trains were really something too.

It’s a long haul to and from Japan, but I think it was clear to our hosts that our part of Washington is serious about doing business.

In that sense, the several days we spent there could produce benefits for generations.

Business-group summit also focuses on rural jobs

Many of us who serve rural legislative districts wonder if the big-city legislators and bureaucrats view our parts of the state as though they’re recreational property – the places where their constituents go for the weekend.

Or the places where they get fresh food and world-class wine and cheap hydropower from dams. But not as places where other people actually want to live and work and raise families.

According to their website, the values of my House Democrat colleagues include “building strong and healthy communities” and “building a Washington that works for everyone.”

But there isn’t much of anything being built in rural Washington these days, because the same House Democrats have dragged their feet on a fix for the Hirst decision on water availability.

It’s hard for rural communities to attract industries that are economic anchors, with good jobs, when the Department of Ecology gets in the way.

And a $15 minimum wage requirement would put employers in our border counties at a major disadvantage. Keep that in Seattle.

I recently went to Big Bend Community College in Moses Lake to speak at this year’s Rural Jobs Summit, sponsored by the Association of Washington Business.

I laid out my priorities for promoting rural economic growth, starting with water, broadband/cellular and the regulatory environment, and discussed some of the things happening in Olympia that are and aren’t helpful to rural Washington.

Hopefully the Democrat legislators who were also invited came away with a better appreciation of rural needs.

Education-funding issue returns to Supreme Court

The two sides in the McCleary education lawsuit were back before the Supreme Court recently.

They presented their arguments as to whether the bipartisan education-funding solution adopted by the Legislature this year satisfies the court’s order in the 2012 McCleary decision.

The attorney general’s office argued that the legislation we adopted this year “achieved the promise” of the other McCleary-related legislation approved since 2013.

Those who had sued argued that the Legislature needs to put still more money into K-12.

This is in spite of the fact that our majority’s budget leader points out in his latest Economic Sense paper: the greatest infusion of funding for K-12 education in state history has happened only since our Majority Coalition Caucus began leading the Senate.

I’m confident we satisfied the constitutional mandate with our work this year, which addressed the biggest piece of the puzzle – the sustainability and equability of the funding mechanism for our schools. I hope we find out before the 2018 session (instead of during or after) whether the court agrees.

Progress on US 195 safety project

If you haven’t been on Highway 195 north of Colfax lately, I’m glad to share that the Department of Transportation is working to put in a passing lane in each direction. This is basically the first phase. Work on four more stretches of passing lane will begin next year.

This project is one of the reasons I supported the “Connecting Washington” transportation package in 2015, and it’s part of the broader effort to increase safety on a busy highway that gets even busier at times because of WSU-related traffic.

About the Nov. 7 general election

Legislators’ offices are getting questions about the tax-advisory votes on the general-election ballots that were sent out by the counties recently. Maybe this will help answer them.

The law created by Initiative 960 in 2007 automatically triggers a tax-advisory vote in the general election that follows a session when a change is made to the tax code.

We made three tax changes this year and those bills are identified on the ballot: like House Bill 2242, which is part of the new approach to education funding.

Tax-advisory votes are just that – advisory. They are not binding the way an initiative or referendum is but are intended to help measure public opinion about tax changes.

I-960’s primary purpose was to require a 2/3rds-majority vote in both the House of Representatives and the Senate to approve tax measures.

The state Supreme Court later overturned the 2/3rds-vote requirement as unconstitutional, but the rest of the I-960 law remained.

The advisory votes on the 2017 ballot are numbered 16, 17 and 18 because there have been 15 other votes up through last year.

If you received the state voters’ pamphlet and wondered why it mentions only the advisory votes, it’s because no initiative or referendum qualified for the ballot this year.

The Secretary of State’s office says that hadn’t happened since the 1980s.

Also, this election will decide Senate positions in five legislative districts. Four are in western Washington, and the fifth is in the 7th Legislative District (Pend Oreille, Stevens, Ferry and part of Okanogan).

Senate and House seats are typically on the ballot in even-numbered years, but these are up for election because of vacancies that were filled by appointments.

The positions in the 7th, 31st and 45th districts are held by our majority; Dino Rossi, who was appointed to the 45th District seat to succeed the late Andy Hill, did not put his name on the ballot so the seat is what we call “open,” meaning there is no incumbent.