State Senate Republicans set new date to finish negotiating with themselves on transportation plan they don’t have votes for

Top law­mak­ers in Wash­ing­ton’s dys­func­tion­al Sen­ate Repub­li­can Cau­cus said today they still plan to release their own revised statewide trans­porta­tion pack­age, despite blow­ing past anoth­er self-imposed dead­line to get it done.

Speak­ing with The Olympian’s Brad Shan­non a day after the new pro­pos­al was sup­posed to have been released, Major­i­ty Leader-in-Name-Only Rod­ney Tom said, “We’re going to look at it and tweak it. What we are try­ing to do is get this process kick start­ed and get back to the table.

“It’s hard to nego­ti­ate with your­self,” he added.

Tom’s com­ment cer­tain­ly speaks to the sor­ry state of affairs in the Leg­is­la­ture’s upper cham­ber, which he sin­gle­hand­ed­ly caused with his pow­er coup in late 2012. When you have to nego­ti­ate with your­self, you don’t know what you’re doing.

Ever since Tom and Tim Shel­don crossed over to for­mal­ly join Mark Schoesler, Andy Hill, Don Ben­ton, Pam Roach, and the Repub­li­can Cau­cus fol­low­ing the pres­i­den­tial elec­tion, it’s been ama­teur hour in the Wash­ing­ton State Senate.

On no front has that been more clear­ly appar­ent than on transportation.

There is wide­spread agree­ment that Wash­ing­ton has many unmet trans­porta­tion needs, espe­cial­ly in the wake of the 2000 Leg­is­la­ture’s fool­ish rein­state­ment of Tim Eyman’s I‑695, which wiped out bil­lions in fund­ing for fer­ries, roads, and transit.

But Sen­ate Repub­li­cans haven’t been able to agree amongst them­selves on a pack­age. Last year, they were so con­sumed by inter­nal squab­bling that they weren’t even able to pro­duce a plan in com­mit­tee pri­or to the end of the sec­ond spe­cial ses­sion. Nor did they take up the pro­pos­al passed by the House of Representatives.

Instead, they declared they would hold a “lis­ten­ing tour” in the fall to find out what peo­ple want­ed in a trans­porta­tion pack­age. Before and dur­ing the tour, they spoke of an end-of-the-year spe­cial ses­sion to address the state’s trans­porta­tion needs.

But it did­n’t hap­pen, because when the time came, they did­n’t have their act togeth­er. The most they’ve been able to do since the tour is out­line what some of them want: a heav­i­ly roads-cen­tric pack­age that stu­pid­ly reduces fund­ing for our pub­lic schools. Democ­rats, nat­u­ral­ly, aren’t on board with that, and so noth­ing has hap­pened except for point­less nego­ti­a­tions behind closed doors.

Mean­while, the clock con­tin­ues to tick, and King Coun­ty lead­ers, fed up with the inac­tion in the state­house, are work­ing on a Plan B. They are mov­ing to ask vot­ers in April to raise rev­enue to pre­vent dra­con­ian cuts to Metro bus routes and give the belea­guered, heav­i­ly defund­ed coun­ty roads divi­sion a shot in the arm so it can address the coun­ty’s grow­ing main­te­nance backlog.

If any­one thought Dow Con­stan­ti­ne’s announce­ment last month would light a fire under Sen­ate Repub­li­cans, they were mistaken.

Weeks have gone by since Con­stan­tine announced that the coun­ty was pur­su­ing Plan B and Sen­ate Repub­li­cans have yet to even sched­ule a vote, which Democ­rats want to see hap­pen before they’ll resume nego­ti­a­tions. (Democ­rats don’t see the point of bar­gain­ing with a Sen­ate Repub­li­can Cau­cus that can’t agree with itself).

It’s telling that Rod­ney Tom and Mark Schoesler both “ques­tioned” the need for a vote when Shan­non talked to them. Evi­dent­ly they’re at least capa­ble of basic arith­metic. Since they can’t agree amongst them­selves, their only options are to admit that they are at log­ger­heads inter­nal­ly, or to go on stonewalling.

They have cho­sen the lat­ter. House Democ­rats sus­pect they will go on stonewalling right through the end of session.

Refer­ring to Cur­tis King, who is sup­posed to be the Sen­ate Repub­li­cans’ point man on trans­porta­tion, House Trans­porta­tion Com­mit­tee Chair­woman Judy Clib­born observed, “He doesn’t want to say that they are not going to move any­thing, but they are not (mov­ing any­thing). Every week he’s moved it anoth­er week (for announc­ing a new pro­pos­al) and we’re sort of at the end.”

“I’m not sure they want to have some­thing,” she concluded.

Iron­i­cal­ly, Sen­ate Repub­li­cans’ inep­ti­tude might ulti­mate­ly lead to bet­ter pub­lic pol­i­cy. If a roads-cen­tric statewide pack­age falls through this year and King Coun­ty vot­ers pass Plan B, pro-tran­sit advo­cates will be free to push for a more mul­ti­modal pack­age at the state lev­el with­out hav­ing to wor­ry about Metro’s fate.

All we have to do to defeat the Four Horse­men of the Bus­poca­lypse is to pass Propo­si­tion 1 to Move King Coun­ty Now. Then we’ll be in a posi­tion to craft a much smarter and more sen­si­ble statewide trans­porta­tion pack­age, freed from hav­ing our bus ser­vice as a pawn in Rod­ney Tom’s pow­er games.