Add Sen. Ken Jacobsen of Seattle to the list of members who have decided this is the year to retire.

Jacobsen, who has served in the Legislature for 28 years, said in a statement that he’s given the matter “careful thought and consideration,” and decided that the stress of the job — which has lead to high blood pressure and a stay in the hospital — lead him to reconsider running. “I’m proud of my work on behalf of veterans, the environment, higher education, Holocaust education, gender equity in college sports and helping to solve my constituents’ problems,” he said.

Read after the jump for the list of accomplishments Jacobsen included in the press release: (more…)

Tags: retirement, Sen. Jacobsen, Senate

The lawsuit over federal healthcare reform that Attorney General Rob McKenna joined has been refiled — and the 13 original states have grown to 20.

Indiana, North Dakota, Mississippi, Nevada, Arizona, Georgia and Alaska joined the lawsuit today, along with two individual plaintiffs and the National Federation of Independent Business. The group filed an amended complaint, which you can find here.

“The additional plaintiffs joining our suit today share our passion for ensuring that Congress passes health care reforms that do not violate the Constitutional rights of individuals across our country,” McKenna said in a statement. “Health care reform is a vitally important issue—much too important to build on an unconstitutional foundation.”

The plaintiffs argue in the suit that mandating that everyone either purchase healthcare coverage or pay a fine is unconstitutional, and that that fine constitutes an unlawful tax, according to McKenna.

Oral arguments in the original case are scheduled for September.

Tags: healthcare

Here’s this week’s Inside Olympia. Host Austin Jenkins interviews Greg Devereux with the Washington Federation of State Employees, Tracey Thompson with Teamsters Local 117 and Adam Glickman with Service Employees International Union Local 775.

Tags: Inside Olympia

This week’s Q&A is with Sen. Rosa Franklin, who announced last week that she’s retiring from the Legislature after 20 years.
I spoke to Franklin, who was at home in Tacoma, over the phone. I’m also trying to reach Sen. Dale Brandland, a Republican who also announced his retirement this year. I’ll keep you posted on that interview.

Q: Why did you decide to retire?

Franklin: Well, it was after a long consideration and talking with my family and then looking at the length of time that I had been there, plus my granddaughter is graduating from high school. Two (of my grandchildren) were born since I’ve been elected — and one was born the year I was elected. So I want to now also spend maybe a bit more time with them. The youngest is 11, my granddaughter is graduating from high school and is going to enter college in August and I want to be ready to go — if she has an event, I want to be a bit more free to travel. Then, our 11-year-old, the youngest, is in Renton and is in school and I want to be able to attend more of his functions and be available to go and be with him, to spend a bit more time with my family.
And then I also figure 20 years was a long enough time for me. It’s my second career, I had already had one career. Also, I wanted to come back and work more closely – to return to what I refer to as becoming a community organizer — not like Obama, but a community organizer.
I want to rebuild my district — it seemed to become a bit stagnant. And then I want to work with young people — and not only just young people. I really want to work within the community to encourage people to become more engaged in the political process, learn more about how it works and for the average person to say your voice on an ongoing basis makes a difference, and to learn what the issues are, to have the information so that they can make decisions without a lot of the ra-ra-ra, if you will, that goes around, especially with some of the more controversial issues.
And then I want to encourage them to participate on an ongoing basis and not just to come out for one election. And also to encourage young people to look forward to running for office. I want to help the everyday, average working person become knowledgeable, become active, become involved.

I want our government to be open and responsive to everyone — not just a select few. That is one of the things that I worked on before I became a legislator.

Q: What do you consider your biggest accomplishments in the Legislature?
Franklin: I had worked on several bills — prime sponsored and also cosponsored and supported several. One was planning community designs for walkability and physical activity. Way back then, I felt communities were not designed so that people will be able to go out and walk and have their physical activity and stay healthy. It was one of the first bills in the nation and so our communities are designed for physical activity. (more…)

Tags: Franklin, retirement, Senate

Find out the latest on high-speed rail — Is it worth the $590 million price tag? — the latest on whether Gov. Gregoire will soon be Solicitor General Gregoire and the latest from Arun Raha on the state’s revenue on this week’s edition of The Impact:

Tags: Budget, Gregoire, High speed rail, revenue, The Impact

Puget Sound Partnership — the agency tasked with cleaning up Puget Sound — spent state money that should have gone toward clean-up efforts on lip balm, monogrammed clothing and gifts, according to an audit by the State Auditor’s office. PSP says it has already stopped the improper spending practices.

Jordan Schrader has the scoop here.

Tags: audit, PSP

I’m at the GMAP forum, where Gov. Chris Gregoire and others in her cabinet are hearing about education performance.

First up, Bette Hyde with the Department of Early Learning. She said ECEAP is among the department’s most important efforts because it focuses on 3 and 4 year old children who are low-income or have other risk factors.

Gregoire said she was concerned that the department can’t really track whether ECEAP is prioritizing the right children. She said the department has “the ability to track how many that are enrolled meet that criteria, but you don’t know who they turned away at the door… is there a way for us to be able to make sure that these contractors actually are putting those children who have high risk factors in as a priority?”

Hyde said yes, in the future she thinks they will be able to do that. Gregoire said she wants DSHS and DEL to work together to make sure if a 4-year-old foster child, for example, is not in ECEAP, the state knows why and can address it.

Now for Charlie Earl with the state Board of Community and Technical Colleges. He said they’re working to elevate student achievement via the Student Achievement Initiative. “Though completions — graduations — are very, very important, we do a lot of good other than just completions,” he said. People may attend community or technical colleges for one class or for continuing education, and even though they don’t graduate, it’s still a benefit.

He said they don’t want to be only held accountable for degrees for that reason. He said they’ve started tracking results and appropriating money based on results, not plans.

“I can’t tell you how excited I am about this. I think we ought to be doing this in early childhood education. I think we ought to be doing this in K-12. I know we should be doing it” in four-year colleges, she said, but added she’d need some luck to get that done.

Earl said they’ve been able to reward performance despite budget cuts, in part due to grants and in part from their existing funding. He said they need to find out how to fund the program in the long run because it has affected big change in a short time and he wants to continue to improve performance.

Gregoire said performance agreements with four-year universities have resulted in no change. She said she will “desperately” try to get a similar program in place there.

Earl said in the community college system, the schools were given $31 per point improvement in each area.

Now for Eleni Papadakis with the Workforce Training and Education Coordinating Board. (more…)

Tags: GMAP

With President Obama’s nomination of Solicitor General Elena Kagan to the U.S. Supreme Court, Washington’s governor is rumored to be on the short-list to replace her, according to this article from a Washington, D.C. publication.

So what happens if Governor Gregoire moves to the other Washington? It depends on when she would resign:

• Before May 31: primary and general election to replace her
• After May 31 but before October 3: general election only – winner takes all
• After October 3: Lt. Governor Brad Owen succeeds her until the 2012 election, but his post would be on the 2011 ballot

The governor’s predecessor, Gary Locke, has already staked a post in the Obama Administration.  He serves as the Commerce Secretary.

Tags: Governor, Gregoire, solicitor general

I just returned from a two-hour bus tour of high-speed rail projects funded by federal stimulus money.  The tour was part of a Joint Transportation Committee meeting in DuPont today.  Washington received $590 million to improve passenger service throughout the I-5 corridor.  We ask lawmakers if the improvement projects will really get people out of their cars and onto the rails.  Sen. Mary Margaret Haugen, chair of the Senate transportation committee, talks about her long-term vision for high-speed rail service extending to eastern Washington. On set, I’ll be talking with a rail expert from the Washington Department of Transportation.

Also on The Impact this week, the state’s top economist Arun Raha joins me in the studio to talk about his newly released economic and revenue update. You’ll hear his latest predictions on construction, manufacturing, unemployment and tax collections.

You can watch The Impact Wednesday nights at 7 p.m. and 10 p.m. on TVW and on our new channel KBTC on Friday nights at 7 p.m.

Tags: economy, High speed rail, The Impact

Gov. Chris Gregoire, U.S. Sen. Patty Murray and Boeing joined for a press conference yesterday where they announced that 11,000 jobs would be created or saved by the tanker deal.

During the press conference, Gregoire said the state is “ready to start building it tomorrow” – or as soon as the $35 billion deal is rewarded. Read the full report here.

Tags: boeing