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Report from Olympia | March 15, 2018
 Spokane Valley sunrise
Dear
Friends and Neighbors,
The 2018 legislative
session is over. The 60-day session ended on time and with the most bills (317)
passed since 2008. Of course, as you know, quantity does not always equal
quality, and that was certainly not the case this year.
If I could sum up this
session in one phrase, it would be “missed opportunity.” If there ever was a
perfect time for state government to give taxpayers a break, this was the year.
With nearly $2.4 billion more in additional revenue than we expected since the
operating budget was adopted this past July, there should have been plenty to cut
property taxes, reduce the business-and-occupation tax for our manufacturers,
and invest in education, mental health and protecting our vulnerable, all while
still maintaining a healthy emergency reserve.
Rather than take this
approach, majority-party budget writers chose to raid the constitutionally protected rainy-day fund, using a budget trick that has been called a “felony
gimmick.” Property taxpayers got only token relief, and not nearly enough has
been saved for a rainy day.
You can read more
about this and other important issues below.
Thank you for all of
your feedback, support and communication during the session. I will continue my
work on your behalf over the interim, and I will continue to send you these
reports from Olympia – although not on a weekly basis.
Please stay in touch
if there is any way my office can be of help to you. Our Spokane Valley district
office is located at 408 N. Mullan Rd., Suite 106, and our number is
509-921-2460. My legislative assistant, Janet, will be here Monday through
Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. We are here to serve!
Sincerely,
Senator
Mike Padden
 Click here to watch my speech on the floor of the Senate chamber.
One of my chief
frustrations this session was the way the new Senate majority seemed determined
to twist and torture – and sometimes completely circumvent – Washington’s constitution
in order to get its way. A key example of this was the Legislature’s response
to Initiative 940, an initiative to the Legislature regarding police use of
deadly force. While the negotiated
policy – House Bill 3003 – is a big improvement over the initiative in terms of
policy, I could not support the majority's use of a convoluted
scheme to deny the public a right to vote on our changes to their initiative. Click
on the link above to hear more about my concerns. You can also read the
following column from Jim Camden on the matter.
By
Jim Camden, in The Columbian | March 14, 2018
 When legislators are sure they have a great
idea, they might look for ways to make it happen, regardless of the rules they
have to bend...
Some people really didn’t want Initiative
940, which defines how to handle law enforcement cases involving deadly force,
to go on the November ballot.
…The
state constitution gives lawmakers three choices: Pass it, and it
becomes law; ignore it, and it goes on the November ballot; come up with a
better idea, and that becomes a competing initiative on the same ballot with
the original.
None of those seemed like a good idea to
legislators, the law enforcement community and the initiative’s main sponsors.
They wrote up a series of changes to the
initiative that all sides could live with. But
they didn’t turn it into a separate initiative. They wrote it as a bill to
change the law that the initiative would become, if they passed it.
They wrote the workaround to take effect one day after the changes would take
effect.
…Sen.
Mike Padden, R-Spokane Valley, made an impassioned defense of the
initiative process, noting the three ways the constitution tells the
Legislature to deal with initiatives the voters send it. If lawmakers want a
fourth method, they need to amend the constitution, he said.
Even if everyone on both sides of the deadly
force issue thinks this is a great idea, amending
an initiative this way sets a bad precedent that could allow future
Legislatures to gut any ballot measure they get, he said. His amendment to turn
the contents of the bill into a competing initiative failed.
Click here to read the full column.
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(with host and former Republican gubernatorial candidate John Carlson)
On the day after the Legislature adjourned, I joined John Carlson on his
popular conservative radio show to discuss the compromise deal by the
Legislature to lower the legal criteria for charging police officers in fatal
shootings.
Listen to it here (starts at 23:43 and ends at 30:43): http://kvi.com/podcast/carlsoncast-march9-7am-hour
$9.4
million improvement project to create safer interchange, spur economic
development
On Tuesday, I joined the Spokane County Commissioners and other state and local officials at the official groundbreaking ceremony for
the new Bigelow Gulch and Forker interchange project, which has been 20 years
in the planning.
The $9.4 million project, which will
include widening a section of Bigelow Gulch Road and creation of an overpass,
is the next phase of the Bigelow-Forker Urban Corridor plan to improve safety
and reduce traffic congestion between Spokane and the Spokane Valley.
Not only will these improvements enhance
public safety, reducing fatal accidents, they will also make it easier for
freight traffic to move through the region, which will have a major impact on jobs
and economic development.
New taxes avoided, but constitutional process takes major
hits from new majority
 Sens. Barbara Bailey, R-Oak Harbor, and Sharon Brown, R-Kennewick, discuss legislation with Sen. Padden.
This session will go
down as one of the most disappointing on record. The new Senate majority seemed
to go out of its way to ignore the state constitution – using a budget gimmick
to work around the voter-approved requirement that extraordinary revenue be
deposited in a rainy-day fund. Its leaders also chose to subvert the initiative
process, using a creative, but dubious, trick to deny thousands of initiative
signers their right to vote on any changes to their initiative. And if that all
wasn’t bad enough, the transparency of government took a major hit in a bill
aimed at forcing home health-care workers – often people taking care of their
own severely disabled family member – to spend limited dollars on paying dues
to a labor union.
In addition to the
process issues, the new majority pushed an aggressive social agenda – passing
an abortion insurance mandate, paid surrogacy and a number of other bills that
take aim at the family and society.
And despite predictions
of receiving $2.4 billion more revenue than budget writers expected to have,
the Legislature failed to give property owners full and real relief from a
one-year tax spike caused by the school funding plan adopted last year. Nor did
the Senate and House majorities provide the comprehensive, statewide B&O
tax relief our state’s non-aerospace manufacturers deserve.
The supplemental
budget also spent too much and saved too little.
There was some news of a more positive nature:
- A bipartisan agreement
on a fix to the Supreme Court’s 2016 Hirst decision, which had limited rural access
to household water and all but halted property development;
- No new energy tax on
gas and home heating;
- Attacks on our Second
Amendment were – for the most part – defeated;
- New investments in
mental health and school safety were approved;
- An attempt to abolish
the death penalty without public input failed; and
- Despite another
attempt in the House, the Legislature did not have the votes for a new income tax on
investments.
Students in our
district have a great opportunity to apply for one of several scholarships
available in our region. Please take a look at the three scholarship programs
below, and pass this information along to any students you may know who would
be interested.
- The Greater Spokane Valley Chamber of Commerce Foundation has a
number of scholarships intended for CTE (Career and Technical Education) students
from Central, East and West Valley school districts as well as Freeman. Current
seniors or past graduates are eligible. CLICK HERE TO LEARN
MORE.
- The annual Focus Award recognizes high-school seniors who
exhibit exemplary post-secondary preparation through commendable efforts in
their Career and Technical Education programs. These students have
distinguished themselves as possessing outstanding personal employability qualities
and outstanding professional, technical and career skills. CLICK HERE TO LEARN
MORE.
- Boeing
is proud to partner with Washington STEM to host a STEM Signing Day that will
recognize, celebrate, and lift up high-school seniors who are interested in
pursuing a degree or career in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering,
Mathematics). Students will sign "letters of intent” to their chosen STEM
field.
Date: Monday,
April 23, 2018
Location: Museum of Flight, 9404 E Marginal Way S, Seattle
Time: 11 a.m.- 1:30 p.m.
Deadline:
Applications should be submitted no later than March 23, 2018.
CLICK
HERE TO LEARN MORE.
 Last
year you may have received our 4th Legislative District Government Guide in
your mail. This year, to save taxpayer money, we have not mailed the 2018
update to the guide, but have made it available online instead.
This 4th Legislative District guide to government
provides information on how to contact federal, state and local government
offices and services. It also has some great information about our legislative
district and some of the institutions and people that make it such a great
place to live, visit or start a business.
To get your online copy of the guide, click
here
or on the image to the right.
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