Legislators Make Key Deals Privately Negotiators Spent Open Sessions Almost Entirely On Mundane Matters

Despite progress toward a more open state Legislature this session, most of the major deal-making needed to pass the final $17.6 billion budget took place - as usual - behind closed doors.

Lawmakers took a step toward more openness by agreeing to open conference committee meetings to the public.

Those committees meet to negotiate compromises between the House and Senate versions of bills. Six members, including three from each house, are appointed to work out an agreement that must be voted up or down by the entire Legislature.

In the past, the committee meetings have been held in secret. But this session, House Speaker Clyde Ballard, R-East Wenatchee, forced a reluctant Senate to go along with him in opening them to the public.

But reality fell short of Ballard’s promise of truly open negotiations and decision-making.

Negotiators met in open session for weeks, but devoted those sessions almost entirely to mundane issues. They reviewed the state budget, section by section, instead of holding substantial negotiations.

When it came time to cut deals on big-ticket items of public interest - such as pay raises for state employees and a $500 million tax cut package - lawmakers headed for the back rooms.

“Clearly, the really substantial negotiations and decision-making happened in private, in secret,” said House minority leader Rep. Brian Ebersole, D-Tacoma.

Nonetheless, Ballard said lawmakers took historic steps toward openness.

“You knew what was being talked about, what was in the negotiating package,” Ballard said.

The Senate’s chief budget negotiator, Sen. Nita Rinehart, D-Seattle, said it became impossible to work through the major stumbling blocks without private meetings.

But meetings held “behind closed doors” aren’t as bad as some make them out to be, she said. “It’s a little more accurate to call it ‘informal communication’ than ‘behind closed doors.”’

Lobbyists are partly to blame, said Sen. Jim West, R-Spokane, a member of the budget conference committee.

“The only people that were in that room were lobbyists or special interests,” West said.

“Every time we brought something up that affected them, they’d jump up out of the room, go gather reinforcements and try to convince everybody that we were doing the wrong thing.”

To avoid that pressure, most of the major deals were cut between a handful of lawmakers in private meetings.

“It sounds like you’re running off to hide stuff and not let people know what is going on,” West said. “That’s not it at all - you’re trying to have frank and open discussions.”

That reasoning doesn’t impress Shawn Newman, an Olympia attorney and leader of two government watchdog groups.

“I think that’s a red herring. I think that’s a bogus excuse,” Newman said.

Still, Newman said he was pleased with the steps taken this year.

“This is an evolving process,” Newman said. “People have to get the cobwebs out of their heads and realize they have to do this all in public.”

The following fields overflowed: BYLINE = Jim Brunner Staff Writer Staff Writer Lynda V. Mapes contributed to this report.