After Republicans and three Democrats successfully brought the budget up for a vote using a procedural maneuver, the Senate is now beginning to vote on about three dozen amendments to the budget. Watch live on TVW.

“If you support economic development, support this amendment… if you think that helping small businesses export their products is a bad idea, vote no,” said Sen. Derek Kilmer, of amendment 238.

“I urge a no vote,” said Sen. Don Benton. He said if legislators supported K-12 education, they should not support the amendment, which he says sends money to oversees offices.

The amendment failed. No amendments have passed so far.

“I’m sensing a pattern here folks. Amendment after amendment highlights a real pattern of cuts,” said Sen. Karen Keiser, speaking in favor of an amendment on public health funding. She says the cuts affect those who are the most vulnerable in the state, including the mentally ill, poor working families and more.

“My dear friend, you are seeing a pattern here,” said Sen. Cheryl Pflug. She said Republicans aren’t willing to make trade-offs that will put the state one billion dollars in the red next January.

Sen. Rosemary McAuliffe said “these are not trade-offs, these are people.”

Sen. Mary Margaret Haugen delivered a tearful speech, saying she believes we have an obligation to take care of those who can’t care for themselves. She said she was raised very poor and depended on public health nurses. “I guess I’m just really feeling very bad tonight,” she said.

After several hours of amendments, the Senate took up final passage of the budget.

“It is my hope that we will work together on many things that were brought up tonight,” said Sen. Joe Zarelli. He said “differences have arisen” but Republicans will continue to try.

“Congratulations, Mr. Minority Leader, you fooled me,” said Sen. Lisa Brown. She said week after week, they were told they’d see a proposal from Senate Republicans, but now she knows she was duped. “This is a promises broken budget,” she said, citing programs for the most needy that would be cut. “If you are a poor woman, let me just say, tonight is not your night.”

Sen. Mark Schoessler said the budget “moves the ball down the field” and should get a yes vote. He said if Democrats’ amendments would have been proposed, it would have spent too much money — meaning a summer special session.

Sen. Jerome Delvin said this is a “good, sustainable budget,” and that the state is “finally not kicking the can down the road.”

Sen. Steve Hobbs said he and other members of the “Roadkill caucus” worked hard on reforms this session. “We agreed to this,” he said, “and the pledge was that we would not pass a budget until these reforms go through,” he said. But he said tonight has been “unfortunate.”

“This budget cripples education, taking $44 million from K-12 and $30 million from higher education,” said Sen. Kevin Ranker. “I believe this budget is a back-room deal … this doesn’t represent who we are.”

“This is not a bipartisan budget. This is an old-time politics budget,” said Sen. Mary Margaret Haugen. She said people hate this type of thing. “Your constituents will not be proud of you,” she said to her colleagues. “We’re going to be here a long time. Mr. President, what do you think, a month?” she said, referring to special session.

“We’ve been sitting at basically a 24-24 standoff,” said Sen. Joe Zarelli. “For all the rhetoric … this thing was poised to go the other way if another vote showed up” for Democrats, he said.

Sen. Craig Pridemore said no one knows whether this budget is sustainable. He said he’s searching for a word to describe what happened tonight, “and I find hypocrisy.”

Sen. Michael Baumgartner thanked everyone for the “good, hard fight” tonight and said he thinks after being “mad for a few days” everyone can come back together and work on the budget.

The budget passed, 25 to 24.

Tags: Democrats, Republicans, Senate

Senate Democrats will introduce their version of the supplemental operating budget Tuesday morning at 10:30. You can watch live on TVW — and we’ll be blogging along here.

Sen. Ed Murray will unveil the budget — unlike last year, he won’t be joined by his Republican counterpart, Sen. Joe Zarelli. He will, however, be joined by fellow Democrats, including Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown and Sens. Derek Kilmer and Jim Hargrove. In addition to unveiling the budget, they’ll discuss job creation strategies and government reform.

With just about a week and a half left of session, we’ll be watching tomorrow to see how close the Senate proposal is to the House-backed plan introduced last week.

Tags: Budget, Jobs, Reform, Senate

Sen. Mary Margaret Haugen is introducing the Senate’s version of the transportation budget. Despite earlier talk of a major transportation package, Haugen said they “really felt they couldn’t do a major tax increase” this year.

Sen. Curtis King thanked Haugen for the bipartisan process by which they wrote the budget. He said he wants to highlight ferries and reforms. King said the budget includes $2.9 million in fuel savings that ferries achieved through smarter purchasing, authorized by the Legislature last year. The budget also includes funding for a second 144-car ferry. He said those and other changes to the ferry system don’t solve all the ferry system’s issues, but they do put it on the right track.

On the subject of reforms: He said the budget reduces the administrative workforce in the Department of Transportation by 5 percent. He said WDOT is required to increase the ratio of workers to managers. He said they’re also asking for more project updates from WSDOT. “These reforms will save the state money,” he said, and help “to make our overall transportation system more transparent” and less costly.

Sen. Tracey Eide said freight mobility is critical. “All the projects that we have put up play an important role in moving goods” into, out of and through the state. She also said rising gas prices necessitate better mass transit, and this budget provides for that.

Sen. Joe Fain said that the lack of a large transportation package doesn’t mean they’re slowing down on planning for the future. He said the northern portion of I-405 came in under bid, freeing up tens of millions of dollars in the budget.

Sen. Steve Hobbs said the budget makes three key investments in the state patrol, including upgrading their radio system. He said it also funds the facial recognition program, which he said will enable the Department of Licensing to catch 8 to 12 applicants each day who are illegally using another person’s identity.

Haugen said there just weren’t the votes for Gov. Chris Gregoire’s proposed fee on oil barrels.

She also said the transportation budget isn’t the most exciting — and that’s just fine with those on the committee.

Tags: Budget, Senate, transportation

Here’s a look at the Senate, where they’re currently working through the amendments to the same-sex marriage bill.

Several amendments have been adopted that are aimed at providing stronger protections for churches and religious organizations.

Sen. Swecker asked for an amendment that would have extended those protections to what he described as “blue collar workers,” such as florists or photographers who opposes gay marriage. The amendment was not adopted.

Sen. Hatfield, a previously undecided Democrat who announced shortly before the session that he would be voting yes on the bill, asked for a referendum clause that would send the issue to voters in the fall. Noting that opponents will likely collect enough signatures anyway, Hatfield said he wants to “trust the people of the state and let voters have the ultimate say.”

Sen. Lisa Brown said she doesn’t believe that’s fair. She said she opposes it for several reasons, including a personal one: Her sister has been in a relationship with a woman for 20 years, and she doesn’t think it’s fair to ask voters whether her sister should have the same rights that she has.

Brown said there were “sad times” in history where if people had voted, they would have been “tragically wrong.”

But Sen. Mike Padden said this is a critical issue to send to voters. Marriage is “a basic unit of society,” he said. “One of the reasons we have marriage laws is because of children and the idea that it’s a pretty neat thing for them to have a mom and dad,” he said.

The amendment failed, 26 to 23.

That was the final amendment — now, they’re on to debating final passage of the bill. We’ll write about that in a separate post, so please refresh your browser.

Tags: same-sex marriage, Senate

Sens. Jim Hargrove and Nick Harper are presenting some ideas for government reform right now to the Senate Ways and Means Committee. You can watch live on TVW.

“We wanted to look at the things that were working, because it certainly didn’t make any sense to cut something that’s working and then try some new, experimental ideas out into the future,” Hargrove said.

First: The state’s violent crime rate is below the national average. “We are doing this with about half as many people in prison per thousand as the national average,” he said, thanks to programs like drug court, juvenile offender rehabilitation and more. And that saves the state about a billion per two-year budget cycle.

Hargrove says they spent the holidays poring over reform ideas. “There was no silver bullet,” he said, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t valuable reforms to be made. He says the Senate Democratic caucus has a list of potential reforms and are working with Senate Republicans on reforms they can all agree on.

Watch the hearing now on TVW.

Tags: government reform, Senate

The Senate Judiciary Committee is holding a public hearing on the bills to address human trafficking. You can watch live now on TVW and I’ll be updating this post throughout the hearing.

Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles began by saying she’s proud of the work the state has done over the past decade, but there’s still more work to do. Sen. Jerome Delvin said his bill deals with cases where those with developmental disabilities are lured into prostitution. He said the bill originated from a case in his district.

Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn was first to testify, on SB 6251. He said Seattle has been working on the issue of underage children being advertised in escort service sections of newspapers — in print and online. “As has been mentioned, $2.1 million a month to Backpage.com and Village Voice Media,” which owns Seattle Weekly. He said he’s had discussions with Seattle Weekly to compel them to check identification of escorts to no avail. “I strongly support this bill,” he said, which would put that requirement into state law.

Jim Pugel, Chief of the Seattle Police Department, says the bill would help reduce the harm to sexually exploited youth.

Tags: human trafficking, Senate

Here’s the full statement from Sen. Mary Margaret Haugen on her vote for gay marriage:

Tags: gay marriage, Senate

The Senate hearing room, overflow rooms and hallways are packed with people who showed up to speak in support or opposition to a bill that would legalize gay marriage in Washington state.

The first group up to speak in support of the bill included a retired two-star admiral who has a son with his partner of 16 years, a Washington state trooper, and a student whose parents are gay and says he is tired of his family being treated as “second-class citizens.”

Fearing he might be killed in the line of duty, state trooper Tim Cowley said he registered in a domestic partnership with his partner – but it wasn’t the same as a marriage. “There was no ceremony,” he said. “It was signed in a bank in front of a notary.”

Steve O’Ban, a lawyer for opponents of the bill, said that it would force faith-based adoption centers to close their doors, and it wouldn’t allow small business owners — such as wedding photographers – to refuse services to gay couples for religious reasons.

Joseph Backholm of the Family Policy Institute of Washington said that gay marriage is “at least as important as sales tax,” and urged lawmakers to send it to voters.

Dozens of people came from across Washington to watch the hearings, including nuns and opponents wearing “One Man. One Woman” buttons, and supporters wearing  “Washington United” stickers.

Update: The hearing has adjourned. Sen. Mary Margaret Haugen, who has been an undecided vote, just announced that she will vote yes for the gay marriage bill, meaning it has the votes it needs to pass.

Sen. Craig Pridemore adjourned the committee saying that the committee plans to vote on the bill at the end of Thursday’s hearing.

Tags: gay marriage, hearing, Senate

The Senate has introduced the gay marriage bill requested by Gov. Chris Gregoire — it’s not yet online, but will be soon right here. So far, they have 23 sponsors, just two votes short of passing.

The AP reported earlier this week that the Senate was close to having the votes. Since that article was published, Sen. Rosemary McAuliffe announced her support, bringing the total to 23.

Tags: Gov. Chris Gregoire, same-sex marriage, Senate

This week: Senate Democrat Leader Lisa Brown and House Republican Leader Richard DeBolt share their views on the state budget, possible tax hikes, and other key issues facing the 2012 State Legislature. Enjoy.

Tags: Budget, House, Inside Olympia, Reform, Senate, taxes