Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown, D-Spokane, announced today that she won’t be seeking re-election in the fall. Brown was elected to the state Senate in 1996, and has held the position of majority leader for the last eight years. Prior to that, she served four years in the House.

Brown said in a statement that she took stock of her 20 years in the Legislature in the weeks following the end of special session.

“I decided that, though it is still immensely gratifying to serve Spokane and the state of Washington in this capacity, I am ready for new challenges,” she said.

Brown cited same-sex marriage legislation and tougher human trafficking laws among highlights of her career. And she said that despite the economic recession and budget cuts proposed by Senate Republicans this year, she was “particularly pleased” with the final budget adopted by the Legislature, which makes no cuts to education and preserves the social safety net.

You can read her full letter here.

Tags: Lisa Brown

Senate floor

Legislators and lobbyists converse on Sine Die

People mill about the hallways while the legislature is on break

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Tags: Photo Gallery, sine die

Sens. Rodney Tom and Joe Zarelli talked to Jessica Gao this morning. Watch the whole thing here:

Some takeaways:

“If we pass the budget that the House Democrats are going to send over to us, what we have next January is easily a $2 billion problem,” Zarelli said.

Tom said his constituents are tired of budget shortfalls. “At some point, just like households, you have to live within your means. It’s not rocket science,” he said.

Tags: Budget, Sen. Joe Zarelli, Sen. Rodney Tom, sine die, special session

Here’s Christina, talking with Sen. Karen Keiser, who said she’s pleased with the work that has been done on the healthcare exchange bill that passed.

We’ll be posting all our interviews online as soon as we can, and they’ll be on TVW as soon as there is a break in floor action.

The Senate passed a bill that makes revisions to the Discover Pass program on Tuesday. The bill, which was passed 54 to 44 in the House a week ago, makes a few changes to the Discover Pass program, including adding transferability to the passes. Under this bill, each pass would be transferable to two vehicles, and a new Family Discover Pass would be transferable to any vehicle.

Sen. Kevin Ranker (D-San Juan Island) said this bill makes needed updates to the Discover Pass program that will make the program work. One update is for weddings held in state parks. Under this bill, each wedding guest would not need to have a Discover Pass in order to attend weddings in state parks.

Ranker said after the Discover Pass didn’t make enough money this year, state parks need this bill to survive.

“If we don’t pass this, we will be closing parks,” he said. 

While lawmakers said this bill had support on both sides of the aisle, a few Senators disagreed on amendments that were introduced.

One amendment, sponsored by Sen. Doug Ericksen (R-Ferndale) would keep the money generated from the Hotel-Motel tax imposed on campers in state parks funding local visitor’s bureaus. The overlying bill considered by the Senate would divert this money into state park funds.

Sen. Maralyn Chase (D-Shoreline) supported this amendment, and said that tourism dollars are needed to promote economic recovery. 

But these funds could be a stable source of funding for state parks, said Sen. Mark Schoesler (R-Ritzville). He urged a no vote on the amendment.

This amendment was adopted.

Ericksen sponsored another amendment that deals with opt-out fees that are collected at the Department of Licensing. This amendment renews a list of licenses that qualify for these fees and expands this list to include mopeds, RVs, trucks, and buses.

This amendment was adopted as well. Come final passage of the bill, Sens. Schoesler and Randi Becker (R-Eatonville) both said they were fine with the underlying bill, but the adoption of the amendment expanding licensing opt-out fees made it so they couldn’t support the final passage of the bill. 

Schoesler said opt-out fees are unfair to the public.

“What tie does a moped have to parks use?” Schoesler said after the amendment was introduced.

Later, he equated these opt-out license fees to a bait-and-switch method.

Becker agreed, and said that opt-out fees make her constituents feel like they were lied to.

“I want to keep parks open, but I can’t support the process that we’re going to do it,” Becker said.

However, Sen. Mary Margaret Haugen (D-Camano Island), said opt-out fees are made clear to the public at the Department of Licensing.

“They tell you very plainly ‘Do you want to opt out?’” she said. “I think it’s hard to believe that people don’t believe they have the option.”

The bill passed 30-17 in the Senate. 

Tags: Discover Pass, parks

Tonight, the Senate Ways and Means committee is hearing the proposed operating budget revealed in a press conference earlier today. I’ll be live-blogging with coverage of the hearing, so keep checking back for updates!

The budget, which doesn’t make any cuts to K-12 and higher education, was generally well-received by representatives in the education communities.

Ben Rarick, of the Washington State Board of Education, said he regards this budget as an “act of political courage.” He said the choice in the budget to make education apportionment payment delays permanent is sensible.

However, Mitch Denning, a representative from the Washington Association of School Administrators, did not agree that apportionment payment delays should be permanent. He said in tough times delayed payments help, but should not be looked at as a permanent fix.

Ramona Hattendorf, with the Washington State PTA, supports the proposed budget, but asked the committee to consider their cuts to the Office of the Educational Ombudsman. She said cuts would eliminate two positions in an office of six, which could adversely affect children who need an advocate.

Representatives from state higher education expressed similar support for the proposed budget.

Margaret Shepherd from the University of Washington said this budget will allow the university to accept approximately 500 students that were turned away from the engineering department this year due to lack of space.

A representative from the Evergreen State College said after 11 years working for higher education, this is the first time she’s signed in “pro” on a budget proposal.

Members from the health care community also expressed support for the proposed budget, but many said the state needs to look for more revenue solutions in the future.

Julia Weinberg, with the Washington State Nurses Association, said the proposed budget does the right thing in regards to public health, the health safety net, and higher education. She added that new revenue sources should be identified.

A representative from the March of Dimes also supported the proposed budget, and said today the legislature “took a step to protect the most vulnerable,” by keeping programs like maternity health services and Apple Health for Kids intact.

One item of concern was cuts in funding to clubhouse programs in Washington, which serve as community resource centers for people with mental illnesses. Seth Dawson, with Compass Health, said while he understands the reasoning behind disqualifying the clubhouses from certain funding sources, he hopes the legislature will find a way to fund these programs.

Erica Horn, who works with Hero House, said clubhouses have proven to be successful support networks for those with mental illnesses. She added that clubhouses in Washington have a placement and support rate of over 95 people a month of people working “competitive jobs at competitive wages.”

The proposed budget would increase license fees for adult family homes. One representative from the Washington State Residential Care Council said this license fee increase to $370 a bed is too abrupt for adult family homes to adjust to this year.

Check out Legislative Review on TVW tomorrow at 6:30 and 11 p.m. for full coverage of the Ways and Means committee.

Tags: education, Higher Education

A bill heard in the House Labor and Workforce Development committee on Friday would give smaller farms in Washington the opportunity to offer internships. Though the farms would be able to pay the interns, it is not required by the legislation. This legislation re-authorizes a internship pilot program that was established in 2010 and extends it until 2017.

Under the original pilot program, only farms in Skagit or San Juan county with gross sales of $250,000 or less were eligible. This bill keeps the earnings requirement in place, but extends the program to 12 additional counties in the state, including King, Spokane, and Yakima counties.

Each farm can have up to three interns at a time after the state approves the farm’s application. To get interns, requirements include having an established curriculum in place and paying industrial insurance for the interns. In addition, the interns are not permitted to serve as a replacement for experienced workers.

Addie Candib, with the Washington Young Farmers Coalition, said the experience she got while interning on small farms in Washington was “essential to get where I am today.” Candib owns a small farm today, and said she wants to provide the internship opportunity to others.

One thing still up in the air is the program’s funding source.

The bill originally stipulated that the internship pilot program be funded through workers compensation funds. Sen. Holmquist-Newbry (R-Moses Lake) brought forth an amendment that would change the funding source to the state general fund. The amendment was adopted in the Senate last Saturday.

Representatives from the business and farm communities expressed their support at the meeting for designating money from the General Fund rather than Workers’ Compensation. Patrick Connor, from the National Federation of Independent Business, said he supports the program, but not if the funds backing it come from workers compensation.

Tags: Agriculture, farm, internship

Monday: The House Judiciary committee voted the same-sex marriage legislation out of committee. A Senate committee heard a bill that would tighten up ethical rules for public employees, prompted by a case last year of an ethics claim against a Department of Corrections administrator who worked on behalf of nonprofit groups on state time. And a bipartisan group of 42 Washington state lawmakers sent a letter to the federal Drug Enforcement Administration asking for marijuana to be reclassified so it can be prescribed as a medicine by doctors and filled in pharmacies..

Watch Monday’s Legislative Review.

Tuesday: The House Labor committee on heard five bills related to the minimum wage, including one that would lower the base wage of tipped employees and another that would pay a lower “training wage.” The Senate Higher Education committee considered a bill that would prohibit state money from going to college athletics. And a bipartisan group of lawmakers asked that the state fund K-12 education separately from the rest of the budget.

Watch Tuesday’s Legislative Review.

Wednesday: In a late night floor session, the state Senate voted 28-21 to approve a bill legalizing same-sex marriage. We have full video and a photo gallery from the event. On the show, we covered the redistricting plan as it took a first big step forward, and legislation that would allow schools to have classes separated by gender.

Watch Wednesday’s Legislative Review.

Thursday: House Republicans offered details on a plan that would create a separate K-12 education budget. Also, lawmakers considered stricter rules for spraying pesticides on farmland.

Watch Thursday’s Legislative Review.

Friday: Today is the cutoff day for non-budget policy bills to be considered in committee. Catch tonight’s half-hour edition of Legislative Review recapping the week’s events at 6:30 and 11 p.m. on TVW.

Tags: education, same-sex marriage

Today the Senate Government Operations committee heard a bill aiming to tighten up ethic law in public service. Sen. Mike Carrell introduced this legislation in response to a case last year of an ethics claim against a Department of Corrections administrator who worked on behalf of nonprofit groups on state time.

The Department of Corrections investigated reports that Belinda Stewart, the communications and outreach coordinator for the department, was using state time and resources to do her work with nonprofit organizations. While the state Executive Ethics Board determined that there was “reasonable cause” to believe Stewart violated ethics laws, the DOC concluded that Stewart’s actions were not in the wrong because her work benefited the agency.

“It simply doesn’t matter if somebody is doing things that benefit the department if in fact they’re using state resources, cars, time, employees, to run a nonprofit corporation,” Carrell said at the public hearing.

The bill says that while agencies can help with ethics investigations, they must be overseen by ethics board staff. It also requires that investigators must reveal whether they have a personal conflict of interest with the case. If they do, they can’t continue with the investigation. The bill would also require every state officer to attend an ethics training within a month of being hired, and at least every two years after that point.

Carrell said this bill is aimed at executives — not “line workers” — and said the bill would help fight against favoritism that can occur when ethics complaints against higher-ups are investigated by fellow executives.

The committee took no action on the bill.

A hearing on abolishing the death penalty in the Senate on Wednesday got off to a heated start when Sen. Pam Roach interrupted the proceedings, saying “no one is representing the dead victims” because no one had signed in to testify against the bill.

“Where is the debate? Where is the opinion? This is a very important issue, and we only have one opinion at this hearing,” said Roach, who is a vocal supporter of the death penalty.

“No people have signed in on the con side. I can’t help that,” said committee chair Sen. Adam Kline.

Sen. Roach then called for a vote after only two people had testified. Kline allowed those signed in to testify to continue speaking.

The prime sponsor of the bill, Sen. Debbie Regala, has a personal tie to the legislation – her brother-in-law was murdered in 1980. But it is also a matter of cost. Regala said the death penalty is six times more expensive than life without parole. Often, capital punishment trials cost an excess of $2 million, she said.

“That’s money that could be used in so many more productive, positive ways in our state,” Regala said.

Click through to watch video of the entire hearing.

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Tags: death penalty