The legislative session starts on the 14th. It’s a short session so that the legislators can campaign for re-election. No major budget decisions. Nothing that hasn’t already gained some traction. So you can limit your expectations. But I won’t; here is what I’d like to see from our legislators:
* A cap and trade system for global warming gases. With our state’s biggest city (and several of our smaller ones) meeting Kyoto already, we ought to be able to make a cap and trade system with some real teeth. It’s my understanding that states can get into the European system if we meet their standards. This should be our goal. We can lead the country and get set up with a new commodity. Good for the environment and good for the local economy if we can make it happen.
* Income tax. Yeah, I know, a state supreme court decision in the 30’s says we can’t have one. We can have up to a 1% income tax, so here’s my proposal: A 1/2% flat tax for incomes between $30,000 and $60,000 and 1% for incomes over $60,000. We take whatever income we get from that tax and reduce the regressive state sales tax by that much.
* The article Lee linked to the other day had a suggestion for a law that will be tough to get through even this legislature, but is worth a shot:
When mothers abandon their unwanted newborns—which happens with alarming frequency—they must decide whether to leave an infant in a Dumpster, where the child is likely to die, or in a public place, where the child’s likelihood of survival is higher but so are the chances that the mother will be seen by witnesses, arrested, and prosecuted. The pandemic of abandoned newborns in the 1990s spawned a popular movement to declare emergency rooms and other medical facilities “safe havens” where mothers could abandon newborns without risking arrest. In 2002, the Washington State Legislature passed such a law.
A law that encourages people to call 911 when someone is overdosing would be grounded in the same impulse: It’s better to save lives than to prosecute every crime. But saving the lives of newborn babies is an easy sell and saving the lives of drug users is not.
But a life is a life to Senator Kline, who introduced legislation that would provide amnesty to people who call 911 to report an overdose. The bill, first introduced in 2005 and reintroduced in 2007 (remaining active in the 2008 session), states, “A person shall not be charged, subject to civil forfeiture, or otherwise prosecuted for a [drug offense] if… the person reported the drug overdose to law enforcement or summoned medical assistance at the time it was witnessed….”
Even the far from perfect law by Senator Kline would be a step in the right direction.
* Marriage Equity. Actually passing it does two things: First it gives gay couples the same recognition as the rest of us. As I told my evangelical cousin at Christmas, “what, do you want them living in sin?” But it also does something nice politically. It gets the issue off the table. Gay people aren’t going to drop the issue until they get full marriage equity, and the evangelical community isn’t going to drop the issue until gay people are all stoned to death, but having the end point puts the issue out of the minds of the rest of voters. So yeah, in the short term there may be some political fall out, but in the longer term it lets us not engage the crazies on the state level.
Anyway, there are a few from me, but I’d love to know what you want.
I want the one about casting Electoral College votes according to the nationwide popular vote. It wouldn’t take effect until states holding a majority of EC votes were signed up.
That way, you remove the undemocratic effect of the Electoral College without needing to amend the Constitution.
Carl ..
great post!
Let me offer four of my own:
1. NOK … I prefer a next of kin law to a marriage equity act. The marriage issue has gotten too messy and confuses te social issue of acceptance of gay couples with easier legal issues. Morever, there are a lot of folks who live together with full commitment BUT do not have or wnat t have intercourse. Finally, marriage laws discriminate against polygamists, mistresses, priests and nuns.
SO:
I propose that each adult in th4e state be entitled to designate a next of kin. The NOK would have full and defined rights, similar to thse we now assign by marriage. People in plural marriages or nuns,could still designate one person as NOK.
2. Basic Education Act
We are and have been in violation of this part of the state constitution. I would like tol see legislation that forces the state to obey the esisting law. One way to do this, ironically, may be through litigation. To make that easier, I propose that we creat a legal system that allows parents to dispute the quality of education offered their children. To keep this from bankrupting our courts, I would make the State Ed. offcie the first level of appeal. This would put an elcted officer on a position of a lot more clout!
3. Community Communications Act
I do not see why the st6ate can not take a role inr regulating pubic communications. I have discussed this with the HA attorney (RR, Equ) and with a highly qualified Wall Street attorney. Both tell me that the Federal claim to this realm is disputable, Therefore I propose:
Any media outlet using public means, that is public meeting places, cable systems, sidewalks, to distribute media must demonstrate local management and content or at least 1/3 of its prime time content. Media here is defined as a for profit, mass publication using print, cable, satellite, or the public spaces to provide information to the public. Exemptions would be possible for entities with fewer than 50 employees.
4 Public Elections Financing
This law would provide a public fund to purchase time on the media for use by cmapaigns. Campaigns choosing to use this fund would not be allowed to buy additional time.
Unfortunately for cap-and-trade, and all the other global warming initiative, it is likely that China alone will more than offset the gains elsewhere. China is unlikely to subordinate their economic ambitions to greenhouse gas emission reduction. China also has major energy needs, and by far their most abundant domestic energy source is coal; China plans to build over 2,000 coal-burning generating plants over the next decade. What should we do about China? Can we do anything?
Asking the legislature to pass an income tax and gay marriage in an election year? My, you ARE ambitious, Carl! My heart’s in the same place as yours, but my pragmatic mind says this isn’t the ideal timing.
Trading an income tax for a lower sales tax is fair, logical, and something we should do. But it will shift tax burdens from a politically powerless group (the poor and low income workers) to a politically powerful group (the richest 20% of households) which will be hard to do. And legislative action probably will have to be preceded by a prolonged campaign to educate the public.
There’s no question about the fairness of tax reform, though — the percentage of income paid in state and local taxes by the most affluent households is less than 1/4th of that paid by the least affluent households.
Sadly, but predictably, the Republican Party and its candidates are moving in the opposite direction: They want to replace the federal income tax with a national sales tax (or some variation thereof, such as a VAT). And they never miss an opportunity to try to eliminate (or at least further reduce) taxes on the wealthy class’s main sources of income: Inheritances, capital gains, and dividends.
And Republicans assert the poor are waging class warfare against them?!!
Republicans have raised bullshit to an art form, which they practice with boundless (and shameless) gall.
O’ god I haven’t even thought about it. Does Washington Basic Heath still have an income cap? If it does we could remove the cap and let anyone join. This could help those folks stuck in $12 an hour jobs go back to school and move up a notch income wise.
I have been on many overdoses, from accidental to purposeful. Heroin to Oxy Contin to Nyquil. Never once I have ever seen or heard of a person being held criminally liable for overdosing. Never once have I seen another participant (They actually usually scatter after reporting it) be arrested or charged. Police are automatically dispatched, due to the fact that in some cases the patient can become violent. If a patient, who has overdosed, becomes violent and attacks a firefighter or cop, then yes charges are usually filed. The other reason, for the cops being dispatched, is in the case of someone that needs to be civilly committed. If somebody overdoses (I had a woman drink 2 cups of bleach once because she wanted her son to pay more attention to her. She was conscious and coherent and didn’t want to be transported) but is Conscious, Alert and Orientated to Person Place Time and event, then by law they can refuse treatment/transport unless the police put a civil commitment on them. I have also had patients who a year later have come up and thank us for saving their life and for making them get help. Like I said though, I have never heard of, or seen someone get arrested for paraphernalia or possession as a result of an overdose.
Thanks to Rossi, the legislature will need to take up legislation aimed at clarifying campaign and election laws in order to close the loophole he exploited with fraudward WA.
This would also be a good year to pass a workers comp tax reduction which would rebate excess premiums directly back to the tax payers rather than have these tax dollars diverted for the political whim of the BIAW.
I’d like to see legislation that places a bounty on wingnuts.
We call it an estate tax. LOL
Pelletizer (TM)@3 THanks for making my point. You need to get incorrectneveright’s email address and send this post directly to him. Once a day may crack that nut. Well… maybe not.
When I mentioned the same thing over the Kyoto Protocol and why it’s a failure he went nuts.
When I mentioned to him Chinese pollution was measured in Oregon and WA State he made another dumb comment.
Well, the stupid gene is strong in that one!
Understanding that nothing is going to happen, but…
1) Raise the FTE allotment for grades K-3 so we can actually lower class size in the grades where it makes the most difference.
2) The work that Dan Grimm is doing with the Basic Ed Finance commission has real potential, and their best conclusions probably won’t be available until after the session is over, but making changes to the school accounting system that would help the public understand where the money is really going would be a useful thing for everyone.
3) Let’s ban the death penalty outright.
Well RR: Is China doing anything, or isn’t it??
This is not for those for whom actual reading above the level of the junior high school bathroom is at issue, no matter how cool one thinks character assassination is.
OK how about this HA’rs:
Rather than having the gov get her traffic stops for DUIs why not require auto makers to have a Blood alcohol interlock device on all cars? Since Wagoner (GM’s CEO) asserts that they will be able to drive themselves soon this will keep us all from having the embarrassment of being stopped two miles from home, raise the revenue of cab drivers, let the police do more patrolling and free up the courts and jails of people who can than just sleep it off in the parking lot of their favorite bar. Maybe the insurance industry will get behind it…
@12 So what’s YOUR point? That we should join the party and pollute away to our heart’s content?
@13(3) I think the death penalty should be used sparingly; but I also think it should be kept on the shelf, because there are criminals so heartless and crimes so heinous that nothing else is adequate.
Lawrence Singleton comes to mind. He’s the monster who raped a 15-year-old hitchhiker, then chopped off her arms with an axe, and left her for dead in a ditch. After being paroled, he murdered a prostitute.
@14 They are and they aren’t. They’ll take advantage of clean technology when convenient, and do some showcase projects, but they’re not about to let environmental concerns slow their economic juggernaut. They built the Three Gorges dam, they’ll build the coal plants, and they’ll build highways and drive cars.
@15 When cars drive themselves, what do you need an interlock for? Who cares if all the passengers are drunk, as long as the computer isn’t drunk?
Right now, the most effective deterrent to repeat DUIs is a strategically place tree or pole.
OK…so I lay off this thread to see the ideas for what the legislature should address. Are there any that represent the concerns of most people in Washington? Hmmm??? Like TRANSPORTATION??? And OPEN GOVERNMENT???
Nope.
Watch for a good amount of effort to be expended on a replacement for 520. No great secret since Gov. Gregoire has already stated publicly it’s a high priority. Then watch for efforts coming out of the Democratic caucus to reform regional transportation planning and operation by either substantially beefing up an already-existing agency or creating a new super-agency.
Look for efforts to close the stupid loophole(s) SCOW created in the public disclosure laws.
If even a hair’s-width of effort is expended to ban the death penalty, there’ll be a citizen’s initiative against that so fast it will make your head swim, and the recent atrocitie’s in Carnation will be replayed over and over and over again.
Any legislator in even a marginally competitive district who right now supports repealing capital punishment has will end up signing his or her own political death warrant. The people of this state have been down that path before, and their voice is loud and clear!
So-called “tax reform” that includes an income tax is DOA. We’ve been down that path before, too, and Washington voters have zero interest.
Anything that adds cost to anything will be looked at with skepticism. So all you green weenies better not opt for any expensive environmental fixes. The people aren’t in the mood for spending.
Gay marriage will only come via the ballot box, which means it won’t come at all!
As a campaign strategy, Gov. Gregoire and the Dems in the legislature will govern cautiously and conservatively in order to make their campaign brochures look good.
Too bad, HA Happy Hooligans, when politicos of either stripe govern with an eye toward the voters, your agenda gets the shaft!
The Piper
Roger Rabbit says: @12 So what’s YOUR point? That we should join the party and pollute away to our heart’s content?
01/07/2008 at 2:32 pm
R U stupid? Ohh… dumb question. You are. No you moron. You are too dense to figure it out. China is the worlds biggest polluter, yet nevercorrectnotright wanted to give them a pass.
Still too stupid to think it through!
@22 Transportation? Republicans are ag’in it. Open government? Republicans are ag’in it. A fair tax system? Republicans are ag’in it. The only thing Republicans are FOR is killing people, without much concern for whether they’re guilty or innocent.
I think the reason Republicans are so adamantly opposed to abortion is because it would deprive them of the opportunity to kill those people later.
“until all the gay people are stoned to death”??
That’s such a kneejerk ignorant comment. The only actual calls for stoning anyone that I’ve heard came from a leftist actor, who called for republican Congressman Henry Hyde to be stoned to death. And the actor was sounding pretty darned serious about desiring this particular action!
Roger, the reason many republicans are against abortion is because a baby is torn to bits and killed in the process.
Amazingly, you can “choose” to kill your own child in the womb but you can’t choose an incandescent lightbulb in a few years. That’s the picture of a country with some pretty sorry priorities.
..and btw, while you’re having to use CFL lightbulbs, you’re contributing to a mercury pollution problem when disposing of them. But I guess that doesn’t matter to these frauds who claim to be “for” the environment.
btw #18 Roger, I believe that young victim now lives in Tacoma.