Lawmakers’ Progress Slim After 2 Weeks Of Extra Session
Two weeks of special session haven’t done much to close the difference between House and Senate budget proposals.
State lawmakers have yet to tackle the major issues that separate them - tax cuts, pay raises and funding for colleges and public schools - and expect to be here at least two more weeks.
“If we continue at the rate we’re going, we have a realistic chance of getting through Monday the 15th,” said House Majority Leader Dale Foreman, chief budget negotiator of House Republicans. “But, in order to do that, we’re going to have to have a major breakthrough on the tax issue.”
And “getting through” doesn’t mean going home, he added. It just means House and Senate budget negotiators have scheduled meetings through May 15 to talk about various aspects of the budget.
Foreman and Sen. Nita Rinehart, chief negotiator for Senate Democrats, aren’t even talking about the $474 million difference between the amount of tax cuts the House and Senate want to make. That’s been left to House Speaker Clyde Ballard, R-East Wenatchee, and Senate Majority Leader Marc Gaspard, D-Puyallup. They have met periodically but have made no significant movement toward a compromise, Gaspard said.
The House wants to cut taxes by $738 million; the Senate by $264 million.
Until that issue is resolved, budget negotiators don’t know how much money will be available to spend over the 1995-97 biennium.
Another reason some lawmakers aren’t particularly eager to leave town is they want to see what Gov. Mike Lowry does to some of the bills they have passed. The deadline for Lowry to veto bills that were passed during the regular session, which ended April 23, is May 16.
The governor signed the Health Care Reform bill - which some characterize as the Health Care Dismantling Bill - on Monday. On Wednesday, he is scheduled to take action on the Runaway Bill, which lets authorities detain runaways, and on Thursday he may take action on the so-called “Harmful to Minors” legislation, which seeks to prevent underage youth from seeing or hearing obscene materials.
Some lawmakers want to see whether Lowry will veto the portion of the Runaway Bill that deals with school truancy before they decide whether to back down from a budget proposal that penalizes schools if their absenteeism rates are too high.
Lowry called the Legislature into a 30-day special session after it was unable to reach agreement on several key bills - including the budget. The House is insisting that state spending be no more than $17.3 billion over the next two years while the Senate is proposing a $17.9 billion budget.
Each day the Legislature meets, it costs taxpayers $19,000. So far, the tally is $304,000.
Budget negotiators have been meeting for nearly a month, including the last two weeks of the regular legislative session, but thus far have been only nibbling at the edges of their differences.