WA Lege Day 31: Fixing an “Oops”

OLYMPIA — Senate Democrats will be looking for a way to fix Tuesday’s faux pas of passing a bill they didn’t intend to pass.

The changes to Initiative 960 that they approved Tuesday afternoon in a 26-23 were limited to suspending the two-thirds majority through July 1, 2011. A few hours later they  had an “Oh, spit” moment. What they meant to do, Senate Democrats said , was to suspend ALL the provisions of I-960 through 2011, which includes things link the requirement to put any tax increase up for an advisory vote in November and reporting requirements that estimate the costs of any bill with a financial impact.

Seems like they were talking about several things in caucus Tuesday and the thing they wanted got confused with one of the things they talked about but decided against. (Don’t we all hate it when that happens.) They are voting on bills of lesser import this morning while they figure it out. Can’t wait to hear what Senate Republicans will have to say about all this — could be some sort of reference to the gang that couldn’t legislate straight or something along those lines.

In other business, it is State Potato Day at the Capitol.

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