Offering frequent news and analysis from the majestic Evergreen State and beyond, The Cascadia Advocate is the Northwest Progressive Institute's unconventional perspective on world, national, and local politics.

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Six Democratic senators go on record opposing Homeowner's Bill of Rights

Earlier today, as NPI reported, the Washington State Senate passed SB 5895, the 2009 version of the Homeowner's Bill of Rights. While the victory is significant - and everyone who helped lobby for the legislation should be proud of their efforts - the margin of victory for this year's bill was as narrow as it could have been.

Twenty five senators voted in favor of the bill. Twenty four senators voted against. The Senate is comprised of only forty nine senators. Pretty simple math.

Joining the entire Republican caucus (always happy to oblige the BIAW) in opposing this critical consumer protection bill were six Democrats: Senators Sheldon, Haugen, Kilmer, Jarrett, Ranker, and Shin.

Longtime readers of the NPI Advocate are probably familiar with Senator Tim Sheldon, who is considered by many Democrats to be a Democrat in Name Only because he espouses so few Democratic values, and because he publicly backs Republican candidates (he supported Dino Rossi and George W. Bush in 2004).

So Sheldon's no vote was no surprise. We already know that he reliably votes with the Republican caucus and shares their ideological beliefs.

We also expected to lose Senators Kilmer and Haugen, who refused to vote for the Homeowner's Bill of Rights last year. We've heard reports that Haugen claimed that she voted no then because she didn't want to anger the BIAW, which later sent her an eight hundred dollar check. And this year, we know she is upset at former Homeowner's Bill of Rights sponsor Brian Weinstein, and wanted to exact retaliation by torching SB 5895 - even though Weinstein's not involved with it.

It's unclear to us why Senator Kilmer opposes the Homeowner's Bill of Rights, as we've never received an explanation from him, but we'd love to hear the rationale for his no vote. His constituents probably would, too.

That brings us to the other three Democratic senators who defected.

Senator Fred Jarrett, who is Brian Weinstein's successor in the Senate, has made no secret of his opposition to the Homeowner's Bill of Rights, and has been sending this prepared response to his constituents outlining his concerns. He says:
I will not be voting in support of this particular bill when it comes before me on the Floor of the Senate. My vote will be intended to motivate the process of bringing forth and passing a new bill that will include the best of both the House and Senate versions.

A good aspect of SB 5895 is the inspection process. We need it to deal with water penetration. Current inspections only deal with structure and fire, which may have been adequate in 1920, but technology has moved on and our regulation needs to as well.

Problematic in the bill is the warranty language. We do need warrantees [sic] - they are essential to making accountability work. However, the warrantee [sic] language must be fair to both the buyer and the seller. It must be enforceable, efficient and insurable. This bill does not cover these needs.
What we'd like to know is what's unfair about asking behind builders to stand behind their work for the same amount of time that we already require condo builders to stand behind theirs. Senator Jarrett has not specified what kind of a warranty he thinks would be better. All we know is he doesn't like the proposal that his Eastside colleague Rodney Tom put together.

Like Mary Margaet Haugen, Fred Jarrett is the recipient of BIAW money; he was quoted by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer in August of 2008 as saying he didn't think there was anything wrong with accepting a check from the state's meanest, nastiest right wing lobby, even though he agreed that the BIAW's anti-Gregoire ads were "unconscionable", as the P-I phrased it.

At the time, responding to that article, I wrote:
The BIAW, like other business interests, does not donate to a candidate for no reason. They expect to get something in return. Like lawmakers agreeing to use their influence to kill the Homeowner's Bill of Rights. That's the whole point of their campaign contributions. Money buys influence.

Politicians who deny that are kidding themselves.
If money didn't buy influence, there would be no reason for organizations like Washington Public Campaigns to exist.

Senator Jarrett can say that BIAW's support of his campaign didn't influence this vote, and doesn't influence his votes at all, but even if that's true, the problem is that the connection exists. BIAW donated money to his campaign, and he accepted it... even though he found BIAW's political tactics reprehensible.

And now that he's in office, he's voted against an important bill that the BIAW freely admitted it wanted to kill and stamp out. People watching and listening can't help but wonder if that's not a coincidence.

The other two Democratic senators who joined the Republican "no" chorus surprised us. Senator Kevin Ranker, who is fairly progressive, voted against SB 5895, as did Senator Paull Shin, who, when asked last year if he would back the Homeowner's Bill of Rights, he cheerily replied: Of course... Under Hammurabi's code, if the builder builds a bad house, you can kill him.

(That's not an exact quote, but it sums up what he said.)

So Senator Shin's "no" vote is also puzzling, considering that he voted for the Homeowner's Bill of Rights in 2008.

We plan to follow up with them and ask them to present their concerns, as well as their justification for siding with the Republicans in today's vote. We'd like to give them an opportunity to explain what they were thinking.

We'll be sure to report what we find out.

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