106 Newhouse Building ● P.O. Box 40404 ● Olympia WA 98504-0404

Report from Olympia |  July 6, 2015

Dear Friends and Neighbors,

I’d like to report that I am back in Spokane Valley, and all of the work in the Legislature has finally come to a close. Unfortunately, the third special special session will not end as quickly as we had hoped.

Last Tuesday night, we worked around the clock to pass an operating budget and other bills necessary to implement that budget. Around 11:30 p.m. that evening, Gov. Inslee signed the state's new 2015-17 budget – averting a government shutdown.

The operating budget fully funds basic education, including teacher cost-of-living raises and investments in early learning and class-size reductions in grades K-3.

The budget also reduces tuition at state colleges and universities for the first time. More than 200,000 students will benefit, making Washington the only state in the nation to actually reduce tuition rates. And we did all of this with NO NEW GENERAL TAXES!

As we worked through the night to finish the bills necessary to implement the budget, the deal suddenly blew up. While Senate Republicans and House Democrats upheld their parts of the deal, the Senate Democrats did not. They refused to vote for a measure to suspend the law created by Initiative 1351 – the unfunded class-size measure that everyone in Olympia has acknowledged is unrealistic and unaffordable.

Suspending the I-1351 law this soon requires a supermajority vote. The Senate opposition’s failure to support suspending the measure meant the bill failed – creating a $2 billion hole in the budget.

I welcome your input on this or any issue relating to state government. Please feel free to contact me anytime via email or by calling our district office at (509) 921-2460.

Thank you, as always, for allowing me to represent you in the state Senate.

Best regards,

Senator Mike Padden

P.S.  If you’d like more information on what exactly happened during the late-night session on the budget, the (Tacoma) News Tribune published a well-done editorial that explains what exactly happened and why.

You can read the editorial by clicking here.

Annual Wood Bat Classic an on-the-field and off-the-field success

While the Legislature has been a bigger part of my summer than usual, July still means the arrival of the American Legion Wood Bat Classic. This local tournament began nearly 40 years ago and has become one of the largest of its kind in the nation. For the third year in a row, we’ve seen more than 50 AA teams, with an additional 30 or so AAA teams. This year’s tournament took place Thursday, July 2 through Sunday, July 5 across numerous sites in both Spokane and Kootenai counties, culminating in exciting action on Sunday at A.K. Jackson Field at Shadle Park High School in Spokane. The Bellingham Legion Post 7 team won in convincing fashion, taking all seven games it played. As the tournament has grown so has the economic benefit, with players, coaches, families and fans accounting for 1,800 to 2,000 stays at area hotels and plenty of other business. I served as tournament director for the previous10 years and as senior tournament director for this year. While being in a leadership role with the tournament takes a lot of time, it is time well spent. This Fourth of July tradition continues to be a home run for everyone involved and for our community as a whole.

House refuses to vote on Felony-DUI bill

House Democrats demand earlier release and supervision for property-crime offenders before addressing repeat DUI offenders.

As we continue to be inundated with a number of news stories reminding us of the tragic toll taken on families and communities by repeat DUI offenders. Three times this year the Senate has unanimously passed our common-sense bill to make a fourth DUI a felony; the House has failed to give the bill an up-or-down vote each of those times.

As negotiations on the new state budget wrapped up last week, it became clear to me that the leadership in the House would not agree to hold a vote on the felony-DUI bill unless we agreed to pass a bill that would allow property-crimes offenders out of jail sooner in exchange for supervision. They also wanted us to allow these repeat offenders to shorten their supervision for “positive-time” good behavior.

It’s hard for me to believe that some people would not do what is right for the victims of repeat-DUI offenders. Lives are at stake.

With the Legislature’s third special session being extended, it is my hope that the House will pass this important legislation.

Legislature backs our bill on pretrial drug and alcohol monitoring

Last week the House of Representatives voted 92-6 to pass our bill to improve public safety by making it more practical for courts to order pretrial drug and alcohol monitoring.

Senate Bill 6134 would clarify that a $150 limitation on costs for pretrial supervision does not apply to costs for pretrial electronic alcohol and drug monitoring. This is critical in protecting the public and victims from DUI and domestic-violence defendants.

The bill is in response to the June 11 decision in Washington v. Hardtke. In that case, the Supreme Court found that the costs for an electronic alcohol-monitoring bracelet fit under the statutory meaning of “pretrial supervision.”

This created an important public-safety issue, in which judges in counties without the funds to pay for monitoring costs lost the practical ability to order monitoring critical for public safety.

I am pleased that lawmakers were able to come together so quickly – less than three weeks after the ruling – to solve this problem.

SB 6134 was signed by the governor today.

Legislation to stop revenge porn goes to governor

Justice for victims of “revenge porn” is on its way after two bills to address criminal and civil punishments received unanimous votes in both chambers.

House Bill 1272, sponsored by Rep. Vincent Buys (R-Lynden), creates the crime of disclosing intimate images as a gross misdemeanor on the first offense and a class C felony thereafter. The other legislation, House Bill 2160, sponsored by Rep. Sharon Wylie (D-Vancouver), will provide for civil liability against any person who intentionally and without consent distributes an intimate image of another person.

Rep. Tina Orwall (D-Des Moines) and I worked together with the sponsors on the language in both bills.

My primary concern is that young people learn it is not safe to take or share these types of images. Distributing them, especially in a way that is intended to intimidate or harass someone, should never be acceptable. And when the image is of someone who is underage, it is essentially distributing child pornography.

These bills are aimed at reducing this type of ‘revenge porn’ and holding those who commit these malicious acts accountable.

Bipartisan capital budget a win for the Fourth District

Late Tuesday evening the Legislature passed a bipartisan capital budget for 2015-17 that would build more than 500 new K-12 classrooms and make the largest-ever investment in state parks and trails. The $3.9 billion plan would fund construction and maintenance of schools, skills centers and other local projects. Our 4th District team was able to secure funding in the capital-budget plan for construction projects throughout our district, including $990,000 for the third and final phase of the Spokane Valley Tech addition. Fourth District taxpayers send a lot of their money to Olympia. This budget brings money back home to help fund important projects in our community, as well as create and preserve jobs. Projects such as the Spokane Valley Tech addition will help train our next generation of workers for unfilled STEM-related jobs here in the Spokane Valley and rest of Washington. We were also pleased to see that the budget includes $1.8 million for the next phase of the Appleway Trail development. The trail, when completed, will connect the areas to the east with the Spokane Transit Authority Center at University and Appleway, with a paved trail – linking business and residential areas. The capital-budget also contains additional funding for other projects in the 4th District, including: Minor Works Preservation ($730,000); Roof repairs in the Spokane Community College system ($85,000); Mount Spokane Lodge ($904,000); Mount Spokane Nordic Area improvement and horse camp development ($182,000) Mount Spokane road improvements ($2,400,000); and Natural-resources investments ($4,000,000). The capital budget – Engrossed House Bill 1115 – passed 44-1 in the Senate and 96-2 in the House. Part of the work still left for lawmakers is final passage of the bond measure necessary to finance the capital budget, but I am hopeful that will be completed soon.   * * *