OLYMPIA – Republican leaders in the Legislature have been uniformly critical of the same-sex marriage bills as the proposals worked their way through the two chambers on what can only be described as the fast track.


An issue like this generates lots of buzz, both for and against, captures attention inside and outside the state, and – in a phrase that risks becoming overused – “sucks up all the oxygen.”

In floor debates, few opponents of the bill who objected to the change for religious reasons failed to mention that the Legislature should be doing the important work of fixing the budget rather than tinkering with a social construct that went back at least to time immemorial . . .

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Spokane Mayor David Condon unveiled his 100-day action plan on Friday with only 58 days left to complete his list.

Among his promises for within his first 100 days in office:

- Providing training to police and firefighters for working with “vulnerable” populations.

- Form a committee to advise the mayor on small business issues.

- Work with Spokane County to create committee to analyze possible government consolidation opportunities.

- Analyze the city’s 1,600 pieces of real estate and consider selling some of it.

- Assign police officers to attend neighborhood council meetings.

- Improve the city's permit system.

Some items of the initiative are carry-overs from Mayor Mary Verner’s administration, such as improving the permitting system. Some ideas have been around for decades, like government consolidation. Some are new, such as the small business group.

A full list of Condon’s 100-day plan is here.

OLYMPIA — The same-sex marriage legislation will be signed at 11:30 a.m. Monday in a ceremony in the State Reception Room.

Gov. Chris Gregoire usually signs bills in her conference room, which has a long table, lots of chairs, and is the site for most gubernatorial press conferences. It usually plenty big for even the most famous or notorious legislation.

The Reception Room, which is one floor up in the Capitol Building, is significantly bigger. It is also more ornate, with Tiffany chandeliers, historic flags, piano, marble walls and columns in which the tour guides love to point out images in the stone. There's also a wooden dance floor under the carpet. (Not that there's any suggestion of dancing on Monday. Just a bit of random information for those not so familiar with the Capitol.)

They booked the Reception Room because they are expecting an even bigger crowd than the one that filled the conference room for Gregoire's announcement that she would support a same-sex marriage bill this session.

The Secretary of State's office is also prepared for the filing of a referendum by opponents of the legislation on Monday, almost as soon as the bill is signed. Under state law, the referendum petition can't be filed until the bill is signed.

It would be Referendum 73. If opponents can gather just under 121,000 valid signatures of state voters by June 6 — that's half what you need for an initiative — same-sex marriage goes on the November ballot.

OLYMPIA – Groups like the Union Gospel Mission could go back to dispensing donated eyeglasses to the poor this summer if legislation to protect charities with such programs comes into a little sharper focus in the Legislature.
The House and Senate both passed separate bills Thursday that protect charities by giving them immunity from lawsuits when they distribute free eye glasses after the recipient is examined by an optometrist or ophthalmologist.
The Union Gospel Mission had such a program…

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OLYMPIA – Voters will have to decide this fall whether to legalize marijuana for personal use. The Legislature appears unlikely to vote on, or even debate, the marijuana initiative sent to them.
The House and Senate government committees held a joint work session (that's not a pun, that's what they call it ) Thursday to listen to supporters and opponents of Initiative 502, which would make personal use and possession of small amounts of marijuana legal for people over 21. . .

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OLYMPIA — A Vancouver man is challenging the state redistricting plans approved to a special commission and adopted recently by the Legislature.

John Milem, who attended almost every meeting of the Washington Redistricting Commission and prepared his own maps for new legislative and congressional boundaries, filed a petition with the state Supreme Court this morning that contends the plans split too many counties and cities, that some districts are too spread out, and are weighted to favor the metropolitan Puget Sound region.

The five counties of metropolitan Puget Sound have about 60 percent of the state's population, yet they make up the bulk of 7 of the 10 congressional district, Milem's petition says. The other 34 counties have about 40 percent of the state population yet they are the majority in only three districts.

The petition asks the court to redraw the boundaries.

OLYMPIA — By a vote of 55-43, the House passed and sent to Gov. Chris Gregoire Wednesday a bill that would allow same-sex couples to marry in Washington. Gregoire, who called for such legislation late last year, will sign it sometime within the next week.

After nearly two and a half hours of debate, the House passed SB 6239 without amendments, setting Washington up to be the seventh state in the nation to legalize same sex marriage.

In a debate both impassioned and respectful, supporters describing struggles and discrimination they or their children have had as homosexuals or likening the current laws to statutes that kept interracial couples from marrying….

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OLYMPIA — The debate in the House on the same-sex marriage bill begins around 1 p.m. and goes until…

…no one's quite sure. But the House has nothing else on the schedule as far as committee hearings this afternoon, and has scheduled a 6 p.m. session this evening, in case they need time for other things they don't get to in the afternoon because of the debate on SB 6239.

Last week, the Senate debate played to full but respectful galleries. But even with votes on a string of amendments, the whole session only lasted about an hour and 20 minutes. Debate could last longer in the House, even though there may be more vote pass the final bill.

Spin Control will be live blogging — or technically live-tweeting — the debate from the House floor with a special widget here on the web site that will be picking up comments and tweets from others. TVW will be carrying the debate live on cable (check local listings for the channel in your area) and on its website.

OLYMPIA – Faced with a rapidly growing number of requests for public records, the Spokane School District wants to charge the public for the cost of locating and preparing those records.

Mark Anderson, associate superintendent, said District 81 wants to pass on the “reasonable costs” of complying with public records requests, which have tripled over the last three years and now cost the district an estimated $70,000 a year.

A bill that would allow districts all over the state to do that received a brief hearing this week in the Senate budget committee, but in a fashion that has some government watchdogs criticizing the process. Senate Bill 6576 is probably dead; the issue, however, is still alive. . .

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OLYMPIA — The House of Representatives scheduled a debate on the same-sex marriage bill to begin at 1 p.m. Wednesday.

Representatives will be debating SB 6239, the version that passed the Senate last week, rather than a House version of the bill.

The two bills started out identical, but the Senate agreed to some — although not all — amendments last week proposed by critics who said the original bills didn't go far enough to protect the rights of people or organizations with deeply held religious beliefs that marriage is only between one man and one woman. Clergy would not be required to perform same-sex weddings if it goes against their faith and church groups couldn't be sued for refusing to allow such ceremonies in their facilities. For a story on the Senate debate, click here.

If the House passes the Senate bill without any further amendments, it would go to Gov. Chris Gregoire, who has said she would sign it. If the House adopts any amendments, the bill would have to return to the Senate for another vote.

The bill would not become law until early June, and then only if it isn't headed for the November ballot. As it now stands, the bill does not have a referendum clause, but opponents have said they will mount a signature drive to gather the 120,000-plus signatures needed to put it before voters. If their signature drive is successful, the law is put on hold and doesn't take effect unless it receives majority support in the general election.

A Washington, D.C., group that researches money in politics has created lists of what organizations spend what on whom, congressionally speaking.

MapLight also has put its research on a map that allows you go see that information with a few clicks of your mouse or computer pad.

The top 5 contributors for Washington are EMILY's List, Microsoft, Boeing, University of Washington and Weyerhaeuser Company.

Top 5 for Idaho are Amgen, National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, American Crystal Sugar, National Automobile Dealers Association, and JP Morgan Chase.

Click on the map above to find more fun facts.

Spokane Police Guild officials announced in a news release Monday that the union “embraces” a police reform resolution that the Spokane City Council is likely to approve tonight.

“The Guild wants to thank the Council members for recognizing that many of the steps presented in the resolution may affect the working conditions of represented employees and would need to be negotiated with the affected unions,” the news release said. “The City Council can expect the Guild to negotiate in good faith.”

The guild agreed to the city's first rules that created the police ombudsman but successfully challenged an update to the job's powers last year. The resolution in front of City Council tonight calls not only for the reinstatement of the ombudsman's independent oversight powers, but for the police chief to be able to use ombudsman reports when considering discipline.

Interim Police Chief Scott Stephens has said he would support the upgraded ombudsman rules.

“I believe the officers actually developed kind of a favorable opinion of that (the stronger police ombudsman ordinance that was repealed). The guild of course is taking a look at this and just saying, 'We don't have objections to that in principle. Again we just want to make sure that if you're going to do this we want to be at the table.' They felt like things were being done to them without their input and I think that's why they threw the roadblock up there.”

A call to Guild President Erinie Wuthrich was not immediately returned.

Spokane attorney Dick Leland is the new district director for Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers.

The congresswoman's office made the announcement today that Leland, who worked for the Farm Credit System before becoming a lawyer, is her pick to replace the former director of  her Eastern Washington offices, David Condon.

Condon stepped down last May to run for mayor of Spokane. That worked out so well for  him that he is now otherwise occupied.

Saturday Night Live's opening sketch, as usual, was political.

Not the funniest ever, but a few good moments.

If  you weren't up getting another beer  or more chips for the quacamole during half time Sunday, you might've seen this commercial featuring Clint Eastwood, who declared it was “half time in America.”

The ad is, on its face, a push for the cars made in Detroit.

But the imagery, and the closeness to the 1984 Ronald Reagan message of “morning in America”, suggests it has legs in the political arena.

When Barack Obama's campaign saw it, they probably said, “Make my day.”

A political blog in the other Washington, The Daily Caller,  suggests a certain congresswoman from this Washington could have a shot at the No. 2 spot on the GOP presidential ticket this fall.

The blog quotes a Republican strategist, Kellyanne Conway, as saying Cathy McMorris Rodgers would fit the bill as a vice presidential selection that “needs to be a surprise, but not a shocker.”

The blog goes on to recount the parts of McMorris Rodgers bio that would make her a good pick on paper: daughter of fruit farmers, first in her family to attend college, married to a retired naval pilot, only woman to have two kids while in Congress, founder of the Congressional Down Syndrome Caucus after her first child, Cole, was born with that condition, leadership post in the House Republican Caucus, from a Western state…

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A historic building slated for the wrecking ball could get a friend in the Spokane City Council.

Late last year, Washington State University-Spokane announced it would sell a 102-year-old warehouse called the Jensen-Byrd building so a development company could tear down the brick building and erect student housing.

Last month, the city-county Historic Landmarks Commission determined the building is eligible to be placed on historic registries. That will create procedural hurdles for tearing it down, but doesn’t prohibit demolition as long as a new building takes its place.

On Monday, the Spokane City Council will consider a non-binding resolution requesting that WSU reconsider the decision.

Councilman Steve Salvatori, co-sponsor of the resolution, said the structure is sound. 

“It could be an iconic, signature part of the campus,” Salvatori said. “It could be the most iconic, signature landmark on that campus.”

OLYMPIA – House Republicans, who say they are fed up with the slow pace of budgeting process in a session where that was supposed to be the main thing the Legislature tackled, argued Thursday for a new approach.

The state should set aside what it wants to spend on K-12 education first, then figure out what’s left for other state programs. They call it “Fund Education First” and say it’s in line with both the state Constitution’s declaration that education in the state's public schools is the state’s “paramount duty” and a recent state Supreme Court ruling that the Legislature must do more to meet that duty.

“This is not a gimmick. It’s a workable solution,” said Rep. Kevin Parker, R-Spokane, a co-sponsor of a bipartisan bill that would make that change in budgeting.

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OLYMPIA — Gov. Chris Gregoire's proposal to place a $1.50 per barrel fee on oil refined in Washington state appears close to dead. Two key Senate Democrats said as much today in separate settings.

Sen. Mary Margaret Haugen, D-Camano Island, chairwoman of the Senate Transportation Committee which would decide how to spend the money the proposed fee would raise, told a breakfast gathering of the state Good Roads and Transportation Association she believes, like most Republicans, that it's really a tax, not a fee. The difference is more than just semantics. A fee can be passed by the Legislature on a majority vote, which Democrats have in both  houses; a tax needs a two-thirds majority, which they don't have.

The final decision on fee v. tax would rest with Lt. Gov. Brad Owen, who presides over the Senate, but Haugen said she thinks he'd rule it a tax, too.

Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown of Spokane said this afternoon the proposal is “not getting any momentum” in the Senate Democratic Caucus. Translation: don't bother putting a mirror under its nostrils, this idea isn't breathing.

OLYMPIA — House Republicans, who say they've been essentially shut out of the budgeting process in a session when the budget was supposed to be the main thing the Legislature tackled, will be releasing their plans for K-12 programs today.

They call it “Fund Education First”, something that various Republicans of both chambers have suggested over the years in pointing out that basic education in the state's public schools is the “paramount duty” under the state Constitution.

This effort, however, would be more than a slogan because it would put down on paper what education programs they think the state should pay for. It's not a full budget — other spending priorities will be released later — but it would provide voters with a view of how their education priorities would differ from the supplemental budget Gov. Chris Gregoire proposed in November. At this point, that's the only other budget that exists in a form to which comparisons can be made.