Gov. Jay Inslee’s call to raise money for schools by closing tax breaks put the education funding debate back in the laps of lawmakers this week and in the conversation with voters this fall.
Inslee’s plan to generate $200 million in new taxes by eliminating or revising seven exemptions is a slimmed down version of the billion-dollar plus tax package rejected by a Republican-led majority in the Senate a year ago.
There is no mystery which Democrat will succeed Sen. Paull Shin in the state Senate.
Rep. Marko Liias has been the only person seeking the vacancy created when Shin resigned Jan. 7 after being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.
Liias is expected to be formally nominated Saturday by Democratic precinct committee officers in the 21st Legislative District and officially appointed Tuesday by the Snohomish County Council.
A preview of coming attractions and distractions for lawmakers next year can be found in the pile of legislation awaiting them when they return to Olympia in January.
There have been 59 bills filed early — 38 in the House and 21 in the Senate — dealing with specialty license plates and protecting hospital employees from violent criminals, as well as naming a state waterfall and ensuring natural disasters don’t shut down government.
Here’s a sample of new laws House and Senate members are already pushing:
It’s been 33 years since voters chose a Republican governor in Washington.
It’s been even longer since a member of the Grand Old Party got elected from the 38th Legislative District to the state House of Representatives.
You have to go back half a century to find the last one — Jack Metcalf, a Whidbey Island Republican who won a House seat when the district’s boundaries encompassed parts of Snohomish and Island counties.
When Everett Democrat Nick Harper abandoned his state Senate seat earlier this month, you might have thought voters would be the ones to pick his replacement.
You’d have been right 100 years ago. Not today.
Washington’s original state constitution required that special elections be held to fill vacancies in the House or Senate. A change enacted in 1929 shifted the state to an appointment process and put county councils in charge of finding suitable successors from any political party.
Initiative 522 failed to pass for more reasons than just the $22 million opponents shelled out to defeat it.
All those bucks certainly made a difference; it was the most money ever spent against an initiative in state history, so far.
Had those pushing the food labeling initiative done a better job seeding their message throughout the state and tilling the fields of voters, they could have harvested victory.
