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Report from Olympia | December 26, 2017
Dear
Friends and Neighbors,
I hope that you and your family enjoyed
a very peaceful and joyous Christmas celebration, and are ready to welcome in the
new year.
As 2018 rapidly approaches, so
too does the start of the new legislative session in Olympia. Like every
session, this year will bring some challenges and opportunities, as well as a
good helping of change.
We have completed the move to our
new district office at 408 N. Mullan Road, Suite 106. Remember: We will be closing the district
office after this Friday, December 29, to move back to Olympia for the start of
the new session on January 8. Our phone number during the session will be
360-786-7606.
Logistical changes aren’t the
only ones happening in Olympia. Democrats now have complete control of the
lawmaking process for the first time since 2012, due to the November election
of a Democrat to an open Senate seat from King County. This means we will have
to work harder than ever before to protect taxpayers, defend our Constitutional
rights, stand up for families and guarantee that the concerns of Eastern
Washington will be heard.
Recently, Governor Inslee released his proposed supplemental
budget for 2018. While there is much in that proposal that I strongly disagree
with, there are signs that Democrats are beginning to realize that they will
actually have to govern this next year. That’s a change from 2017, when they
could make wild promises to Seattle that they knew our majority would block.
One of the positive signs is that the governor’s proposal is even in line with
the 4-year balanced budget requirement our bipartisan coalition pushed through
in 2012.
We also got yet another promising
court decision last week, when a judge in Thurston County rejected the governor’s
job-killing energy-regulation rule. That’s a Christmas present our employers,
workers and families can really appreciate! You can read more about that and
more in this update.
Happy New Year!
Senator
Mike Padden
Jim Camden | Spokesman-Review
 Spokane Community College. (Kathy Plonka / The Spokesman-Review)
With a new information technology system for Washington’s
community colleges an estimated $45 million over budget, five years behind
schedule and still not working properly, some legislators wonder if they should
put a cap on how much more the colleges should be allowed to spend on the
troubled project.
The new system was installed at Spokane and Tacoma community
colleges as a pilot project in 2015 and immediately created problems for
students, staff, administrators and accountants. The State Board of Community
and Technical Colleges postponed plans to install it in the state’s remaining
community colleges until all the problems were fixed. That process is not yet
complete.
The original price tag for ctcLink was $100 million, of which
nearly $88 million has been spent so far. To get the system installed in all 34
community colleges, the new cost estimate is $145 million, with completion
estimated for 2022. The bottom line for the troubled project is $45 million over
budget and two years behind schedule.
Click here to read the full story!
Last month the Association of
Washington Business, the state’s largest and oldest business association,
presented six companies with top awards at the group’s second-annual Evening of
Excellence.
The award recipients, selected
from 18 finalists, were recognized for exemplifying the innovation, community
spirit and environmental stewardship that make Washington a great place to live
and work.
Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories in Pullman, which designs
and builds digital products that protect power systems around the world, took
home the Employer of the Year award for its commitment to its employee-owners
and the community. In March, SEL purchased the 28,000-square-foot former ITT
Technical Institute building in the Spokane Valley to accommodate expansion.
The company is expanding its Pullman facility, creating an additional 850 jobs
and also is adding employees in the 4th Legislative District. SEL is a
first-adopter of on-site, no-copay employee health clinics in 2012 to serve its
employees and their families. The company is 100 percent employee-owned.
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 Thanks to the generosity of Ed and Beatriz Schweitzer, the new Trinity Catholic School is being built without expense to the school, parish or diocese.
Ed and Beatriz Schweitzer (pictured above) are also instrumental donors to the Diocese of Spokane’s effort to build its first new Catholic school building in nearly 50 years – the new Trinity Catholic School. I look forward to recognizing the Schweitzers and SEL in the Legislature this upcoming session.
Democrats put forward plan to please Seattle
special interests, at cost of rural landowners
This month we finally saw some
public movement in the House of Representatives toward a solution to the
Supreme Court’s ruling in the Hirst
case, which has halted development in rural Washington and prevented property
owners from putting a well on their land and developing it in any meaningful
way.
During the regular and special 2017 sessions, the Senate passed
a bipartisan solution multiple times but House Democrats failed to hold any vote on
any plan – including their own insufficient and harmful proposals. Many believe
that Democrats have stalled on action because of political pressure from
special-interest groups.
On December 12 the House
Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee held a work session on Hirst.
It was a long meeting – in fact, the committee met for an extra hour to
accommodate public comment on a proposal from the governor’s office.
While an actual House bill is
still a work in progress, the draft proposal discussed has several major flaws.
First, the proposal would only allow families to withdraw up to 350 gallons a
day, as opposed to the current daily cap of 5,000 gallons. Secondly, the plan
also would impose a $1,500 fee on new wells and set the stage for the metering of
wells, something most rural Washingtonians strongly oppose. Finally, the plan
also includes a $200 million kill switch – if the Legislature does not provide
Ecology with $200 million over 10 years, the plan would be null and void!
I’m glad Democrats finally seem to recognize that fixing the
situation created by Hirst is a
priority, but they still have a very long way to go to truly understand and
help folks outside of the Seattle urban bubble.
The 2018 legislative session will
not have us working on a new budget from scratch, but instead making
adjustments to the budget adopted in June. This is done through what is known
as a “supplemental” budget. Each December the governor puts forward a proposed
supplemental budget. It’s usually a wish-list fantasy that gives lawmakers an
idea of the governor’s priorities, but often doesn’t actually meet budget or
legislative realities.
In what may be a sign of hope, Governor
Inslee’s proposal for 2018 actually attempts to adhere to the four-year
balanced budget requirement adopted by our Republican-led coalition back in
2012. That is new for him. He has always said that the law does not apply to
his proposals. But not this time. That’s the good news.
The bad news is that the rest of
his proposal is the same old tax-and-spend liberalism that put Washington on budget
rollercoasters for years prior to Republicans taking control of the Senate.
For instance, his plan calls for
an energy tax that would mean higher fuel prices, and he also wants to skip the
required contribution to the rainy-day fund. That would require a 60 percent
vote, and Republicans are not about to allow the governor to make such a
fiscally irresponsible move. Without it, the governor’s budget would be $476
million short over a four-year period.
The most recent revenue forecast indicates
the state will bring in $1 billion more due to growth in the economy. There is
no reason to hike energy taxes or raid the rainy-day fund – in fact, now is the
time for tax relief.
In 2015 it was Democrats, not
just Republicans, who blocked Governor Inslee’s carbon (“cap-and-trade”) bill
from moving forward in the House. To circumvent this legislative failure, he
instructed the Department of Ecology to issue a rule aimed at accomplishing the
same thing. The administrative rule, which unfairly targeted certain employers,
was challenged in the courts.
Fortunately, a judge in Thurston
County with jurisdiction over the case recently declared that the rule was
illegal and unenforceable.
Ecology has repeatedly
overstepped its authority, working around the Legislature to block rural
economic development projects. It is encouraging to see the courts push back on
this practice, although I don’t believe this will be the last overstep we will
see.
Again, we will be closing the district office after this Friday, December 29, to move back to Olympia for the start of the new session on January 8. Our phone number during the session will be 360-786-7606.
If you have a question or concern about state government, please do not hesitate to contact our office. We are here to serve you!
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