Washington State Legislature adjourns Sine Die, again (for real this time!)

Hav­ing reached agree­ment on the specifics of an oper­at­ing bud­get, trans­porta­tion pack­age, and plan for delay­ing imple­men­ta­tion of last year’s ini­tia­tive to low­er class size, the Wash­ing­ton State Leg­is­la­ture today adjourned its third spe­cial ses­sion sine die, with exhaust­ed law­mak­ers and leg­isla­tive staff breath­ing a sigh of relief.

The Leg­is­la­ture began its 2015 ses­sion a few weeks after the win­ter sol­stice, in ear­ly Jan­u­ary. It is wrap­ping up for the year — the­o­ret­i­cal­ly, any­way — a few weeks after the sum­mer sol­stice, with July a third of the way over.

It took a whole extra sea­son just for the Leg­is­la­ture to do what it usu­al­ly does… tra­verse the low­est road towards a bud­get that bal­ances on paper.

Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee released a state­ment express­ing sat­is­fac­tion with law­mak­ers’ work, but lament­ing that it took so long to reach a deal.

“This is a darn good bud­get for Wash­ing­ton that is sus­tain­able, respon­si­ble and fair,” Inslee said in a state­ment sent to NPI. “Our econ­o­my is rebound­ing and so is our abil­i­ty to invest in the peo­ple and pro­grams that have made Wash­ing­ton the most inno­v­a­tive, for­ward-look­ing state in the nation.”

We have to ask: If Wash­ing­ton is so inno­v­a­tive and for­ward-look­ing, why are we still cling­ing to the most regres­sive tax sys­tem in the nation?

For as long as NPI has exist­ed, this has been a bear of a prob­lem, and the Leg­is­la­ture has done next to noth­ing about it. Anoth­er long (no, make that super-long) ses­sion has come and gone, and we’re still with­out any com­pre­hen­sive, mean­ing­ful tax reform. When is this going to be a priority?

Divid­ed gov­ern­ment makes get­ting things done hard­er, no doubt, but Democ­rats had super­ma­jori­ties in both cham­bers of the Leg­is­la­ture a few years ago and did­n’t get it done then. In fact, they had an excel­lent oppor­tu­ni­ty to pur­sue tax reform when the Supreme Court struck down Tim Eyman’s I‑747.

But, at the behest of Chris Gre­goire, they inex­cus­ably chose to sim­ply rein­state I‑747 instead of replac­ing it with real pro­gres­sive tax reform. As a result, I‑747 con­tin­ues to slow­ly choke the life out of our coun­ties and cities.

And there’s no relief in sight.

Mean­while, we have a state bud­get that books a lot of rev­enue from tax­es on mar­i­jua­na that aren’t like­ly to mate­ri­al­ize, and the threat of Tim Eyman’s hostage-tak­ing I‑1366 on the bal­lot lat­er this year.

Gov­er­nor Inslee and House Democ­rats deserve cred­it for propos­ing a cap­i­tal gains tax this ses­sion. But they took that pro­pos­al off the table too ear­ly in the final round nego­ti­a­tions with Sen­ate Repub­li­cans. Even the noto­ri­ous­ly anti-tax Seat­tle Times edi­to­r­i­al board showed its Jekyll per­son­al­i­ty for a change and embraced the idea. Still, it was­n’t part of the deal struck over the oper­at­ing bud­get. And it should have been. At least then, the Leg­is­la­ture would have demon­strat­ed it is capa­ble of tak­ing a step towards mak­ing our tax sys­tem more progressive.

Inslee acknowl­edged the Leg­is­la­ture did­n’t get as much done as it should have.

“There are many issues that leg­is­la­tors still need to tack­le, and over the com­ing months, there will be many con­ver­sa­tions about our next steps,” he said. “Issues such as min­i­mum wage and cli­mate change are heavy lifts for a divid­ed leg­is­la­ture, yet they are vital to ensur­ing our long-term eco­nom­ic health and qual­i­ty of life. We came close on sev­er­al of these, and I want to see us fin­ish the job.”

Next year’s reg­u­lar ses­sion will be of the short­er, six­ty-day vari­ety, and will take place in a pres­i­den­tial elec­tion year. We will be encour­ag­ing the pro­gres­sive com­mu­ni­ty to start mak­ing prepa­ra­tions to put its pri­or­i­ties — an increase in the min­i­mum wage, a plan to put a price on pol­lu­tion, and cre­ation of a cap­i­tal gains tax — on the bal­lot. We should do this to put pres­sure on Sen­ate Repub­li­cans to fold, and to ensure that vot­ers have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to move Wash­ing­ton for­ward in 2016 if they don’t.