Washington State Legislature adjourns Sine Die; special session to begin next week

With a great deal left undone, the Wash­ing­ton State Leg­is­la­ture adjourned sine die this evening, two days ahead of the dead­line for adjourn­ment of an odd-year reg­u­lar ses­sion fixed in the Wash­ing­ton State Constitution.

The Demo­c­ra­t­ic-con­trolled House and Repub­li­can-con­trolled Sen­ate remain far apart on an oper­at­ing bud­get for 2015–2017, and haven’t yet fin­ished work­ing on a cap­i­tal bud­get or trans­porta­tion pack­age either, neces­si­tat­ing a spe­cial session.

Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee announced yes­ter­day he is sum­mon­ing leg­is­la­tors back to work in a thir­ty-day spe­cial ses­sion to begin Wednes­day, April 29th.

“Before the Leg­is­la­ture con­vened in Jan­u­ary, I said we must fund edu­ca­tion through a sus­tain­able and respon­si­ble bud­get, approve a trans­porta­tion improve­ment pack­age and make progress on fight­ing car­bon pol­lu­tion,” Inslee said. “That work remains undone. A spe­cial ses­sion will allow law­mak­ers to focus on these pri­or­i­ties and I expect the work to be done with­in the thir­ty-day session.”

“It is time for all sides to com­pro­mise, and on Mon­day I hope to hear open­ness to that and acknowl­edge­ment that the House and Sen­ate will have to move toward each oth­er in order to get the people’s work done.”

A procla­ma­tion signed by the gov­er­nor was pub­lished today, mak­ing the spe­cial ses­sion offi­cial. It reads as follows:

WHEREAS, in accor­dance with Arti­cle II, Sec­tion 12 (Amend­ment 68) of the Wash­ing­ton State Con­sti­tu­tion, the Leg­is­la­ture adjourned its 2015 reg­u­lar ses­sion on April 24, 2015, the 103th day of the ses­sion; and

WHEREAS, work remains to be done with respect to the 20l5-2017 bien­ni­al oper­at­ing and cap­i­tal bud­gets and bills nec­es­sary to imple­ment those bud­gets; and

WHEREAS, work remains to be done with respect to the 2015–2017 bien­ni­al trans­porta­tion bud­get and bills nec­es­sary to imple­ment that bud­get; and

WHEREAS, work remains to be done with respect to crit­i­cal pol­i­cy bills that need to be act­ed upon by the Leg­is­la­ture; and

WHEREAS, the Speak­er of the House, House Minor­i­ty Leader, Sen­ate Repub­li­can Leader, and Sen­ate Demo­c­ra­t­ic Leader, work­ing togeth­er with the Gov­er­nor may agree upon addi­tion­al mat­ters that are nec­es­sary for the Leg­is­la­ture to address;

NOW, THEREFORE, I, Jay Inslee, Gov­er­nor of the state of Wash­ing­ton, by virtue of the author­i­ty vest­ed in me by Arti­cle II, Sec­tion 12 (Amend­ment 68) and Arti­cle III, Sec­tion 7 of the Wash­ing­ton State Con­sti­tu­tion, do here­by con­vene the Wash­ing­ton State Leg­is­la­ture in Spe­cial Ses­sion in the Capi­tol at Olympia on Wednes­day, April 29, 2015, at 1200 p.m. for the pur­pose of enact­ing leg­is­la­tion as described above.

Signed and sealed with the offi­cial seal of the state of Wash­ing­ton this 24th day of April, A.D. Two-thou­sand and Fif­teen at Olympia, Washington.

Two years ago, law­mak­ers near­ly ran out the clock try­ing to get a bud­get agree­ment ham­mered out. A state gov­ern­ment shut­down was avert­ed, but with only hours to spare. Whether law­mak­ers can avoid anoth­er eleventh hour sit­u­a­tion this year remains to be seen. The spe­cial ses­sion cer­tain­ly won’t be very pro­duc­tive if Sen­ate Repub­li­cans keep can­cel­ing meet­ings and choos­ing to take Fri­days off.