Legislative Commentary: Jan. 10, 2019

Dear Friends,

Maybe you’ve heard the old line that suggests the making of laws is like the making of sausage. In that sense I guess the sausage-making that went on at my farm a week ago was like a warm-up for the lawmaking ahead -- because the start of the 2019 legislative session is now just 10 days away.

After a nice break from Senate business from before Christmas through New Year’s Day, I was back in the saddle bright and early Wednesday morning for a phone interview with one of the big radio stations in Portland. Today I met with the auditors from Adams and Spokane counties, and next week I’ll be at the Capitol and elsewhere west of the Cascades for a series of pre-session meetings. They run the range from the annual Associated Press forum (where legislative leaders and the governor take questions from the media) and the Seattle CityClub’s annual legislative preview to meetings with a coalition of Washington employers, Senate budget-committee staff and folks like the southeastern Washington representative on the state’s Traumatic Brain Injury Council. I’ll also get to meet the college student who will be my office’s session intern!

Inslee’s true priorities revealed

State law requires the governor to submit budget proposals to the Legislature ahead of our sessions -- an operating budget, a capital budget and a transportation budget. We’re not required to pay any attention to them, but they do give us a sense of what the executive branch is hoping to see from the Legislature.

The law also gives the governor the option to submit a budget proposal that is balanced with revenue that would come from raising taxes. As he’s done before, Governor Inslee rolled out the optional budget proposal (based on a new tax on income, and higher taxes on employers) with a lot of fanfare. Then his office dragged its feet on releasing the budget that is based on existing revenues, meaning no new taxes. There’s reason to suspect that budget was kept under wraps until past the legal deadline, as I recently blogged.

Our staff is still looking at the details, but it appears that without the new taxes he wants, Inslee would put less priority on things like improvements to the systems that aid people with mental illness and developmental disabilities; state need grants that assist low-income college students; and “levy equalization” assistance to school districts such as Pasco and Spokane.

Governor wants a 62% jump in his office budget

The budget Inslee rolled out in mid-December would raise overall state spending by more than 20%. That same budget would bump his office’s budget up by far more -- an eye-opening 62%.

Part of the increase has to do with behavioral health, and I’d be open to considering something like that. But other parts have to do with supporting or adding staff to address immigration policy and climate policy. Both are pet projects for Inslee, in that they are actually federal issues, which figure into Inslee’s potential run for President in 2020.

It’s bad enough that Washington taxpayers are already picking up the cost of providing security for Inslee as he hops around the nation for things that aren’t related to our state (like shooting a video in Paradise, California, which was destroyed by wildfire that he ties to climate change). Do taxpayers need to also cover new expenses that look to be related to his political aspirations? I don’t think so.