Washington State Legislature adjourns 2016 session Sine Die; special session needed

Not long ago, the Wash­ing­ton State Leg­is­la­ture adjourned its 2016 reg­u­lar ses­sion Sine Die, fol­low­ing the adop­tion of HCR 4417 by the House and Senate.

Though the reg­u­lar ses­sion is now offi­cial­ly over, law­mak­ers can­not head home just yet, as their work is unfin­ished (sur­prise, sur­prise). Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee plans to call a spe­cial ses­sion of the Leg­is­la­ture so that sup­ple­men­tal bud­gets can be com­plet­ed, but he says he wants an agree­ment drawn up tonight — and he’s pre­pared to start veto­ing bills if leg­isla­tive lead­er­ship can’t get some­thing worked out.

Inslee will take action on a num­ber of bills tonight at 10 PM, his office announced. There will be no pub­lic bill sign­ing cer­e­mo­ny. Around 10:30 PM, the gov­er­nor will hold a media avail­abil­i­ty and will dis­close details regard­ing the spe­cial ses­sion that he plans to call. Spe­cial ses­sions can last for up to thir­ty days, but it’s unlike­ly mem­bers of the House and Sen­ate will want to burn up the clock in an elec­tion year.

“It’s leg­is­la­tors’ job to pass a bud­get, yet Repub­li­cans in Olympia seem to think they work in Wash­ing­ton D.C., not Wash­ing­ton State,” said Wash­ing­ton State Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty Chair Jax­on Ravens. “They have been more focused on hyper-polit­i­cal attacks on the Gov­er­nor rather than doing their job.”

“Per­haps if they did­n’t waste their time on polit­i­cal stunts like fir­ing Lynn Peter­son or spend­ing pre­cious floor time for a bill to dis­crim­i­nate against the trans­gen­der com­mu­ni­ty, we could’ve got­ten a bud­get done on time.”

The bang­ing of the gavels was pre­ced­ed by sev­er­al retire­ment announcements.

Long­time Sen­a­tors Mike Hewitt and Jim Har­grove announced today that they will not be seek­ing reelec­tion lat­er this year, which means some reshuf­fling is about to hap­pen. (Hewitt rep­re­sents a dis­trict that usu­al­ly elects Repub­li­cans to the Leg­is­la­ture; Har­grove rep­re­sents a dis­trict that usu­al­ly elects Democrats.)

Also not seek­ing reelec­tion are Sen­a­tors Karen Fras­er (D), Bruce Dammeier (R), and Don Ben­ton (R). Fras­er and Dammeier have opt­ed to seek high­er office rather than run for new terms in the Sen­ate. Fras­er is one of four Demo­c­ra­t­ic leg­is­la­tors run­ning to replace Lieu­tenant Gov­er­nor Brad Owen (also retir­ing), while Dammeier wants to become the next Pierce Coun­ty Exec­u­tive, suc­ceed­ing Demo­c­rat Pat McCarthy.

The Wash­ing­ton State Con­sti­tu­tion stip­u­lates that in even-num­bered years, reg­u­lar ses­sions shall not be of a dura­tion longer than six­ty days, which is why leg­isla­tive lead­ers need Inslee to buy them more time by call­ing a spe­cial session.

Though leg­is­la­tors were able to agree on rais­es for the State Patrol and oth­er minor improve­ments to pub­lic ser­vices, they did not take any mean­ing­ful steps to address Wash­ing­ton’s chron­ic school fund­ing cri­sis. Instead, the Leg­is­la­ture passed a sym­bol­ic bill which com­mit­ted the next Leg­is­la­ture to work on the problem.

If we had to grade the Leg­is­la­ture on this year’s ses­sion, we’d have to stamp an F at the top of the report card. Our pub­lic schools bad­ly need more fund­ing, and the Leg­is­la­ture has refused to take any mean­ing­ful steps towards mak­ing that hap­pen, despite being sanc­tioned by the Supreme Court.