With GOP control of the Senate, I suspect much of the important work of the legislature will be pushed back another 2 years. There probably won’t be a transportation budget, again. There probably won’t be significant revenue increases (or tax restructuring in a way that will make taxes more fair), again.
On the plus side, maybe McCleary will actually force some action on education funding??? And they do have to pass a budget that in theory has to balance, so maybe that will force the issue on revenue. I’m not optimistic, but who knows?
Still, legislators will be responsible to their constituents, so we might as well say what we want.
– When I was lobbying with NARAL last session, one of the things they wanted was to try to make sure that any supplemental budget didn’t have family planning cuts. Now that the state is working on a 2-year budget, it’s probably something that has to be watched out for.
– As I said above, I don’t hold much hope that our tax structure will improved much, but we can hope.
– Barring that, Inslee’s carbon tax proposal (video loads automatically) is better than a sharp stick in the face, at least for transit funding.
– The social issue that will probably go nowhere that I’d like to see the most is the Reproductive Parity Act
– Maybe the background checks initiative passing will put a little bit more spine into legislators for other popular, common sense gun control measures.
If you’ve got something else you’d like to see, add it in the comments.
I’d also like to say that as the session gets going, I’ll probably be pushing y’all to write your legislators on various issues. I really hope you will consider taking the time to write your legislators, or key legislators, on issues. It really makes a difference. If you want to get started, you can contact your legislator here.
I’m also looking at my calendar at work, and may go down to Olympia at some point to do some actual reporting, or maybe just a bit more lobbying. Or nothing at all.
First, a correction. There will be a transportation budget. There has to be a budget. What there might not be is a transportation revenue package. The Senate Republicans will try to pass a revenue package to get the monkey off their back that they haven’t acted while the House has. The question will be whether they include a bunch of anti environment and anti labor “reforms” to get more GOP votes or drop that crap and try to get an actual bipartisan package. It is too early to tell which way they will go.
Second, as to McCleary: The court decision has two components: the total amount of spending on K-12 education and where the money comes from. The “levy swap” idea being touted now by daily newspapers and both Rs and Ds addresses only one of those components- i.e, where the money comes from. Calling local levies “state money” increases what the state pays for schools, but does nothing to address total spending on education. To do that without gutting social services and higher ed will absolutely require new revenue. The court won’t be fooled by a levy swap solution alone, it would be great for the press and blogosphere to keep an eye on that too.