Final Talks Under Way On Session’s Key Issues

About the time the Capital Campus flower beds are blooming, the Legislature goes underground. This year is no exception.

With three weeks remaining in the 1997 session, work on important bills from the budget and welfare overhaul to juvenile justice, land-use planning and a new stadium for the Seattle Seahawks, are being decided in scores of private meetings and telephone conversations.

The public hearings are largely finished, and the real work is just starting. Most of it is being done by the Republicans who control the Legislature for the first time in 15 years.

On the surface, most of the activity appears neat and orderly. But sometimes things fall apart and the public gets a glimpse.

A case in point is the train wreck last Thursday over the much-negotiated proposal to clamp down harder on juvenile criminals.

Senate Law and Justice Committee Chairwoman Pam Roach, R-Auburn, balked at a compromise quietly worked out among legislative leaders and Gov. Gary Locke, mostly because she had not been part of the talks. To cries of anger from fellow committee members, Roach tabled the measure.

She left, in tears, a closed-door meeting of the Senate GOP caucus Friday after a majority of her Republican colleagues made it clear they want to pull the bill from her committee for a vote of the full Senate.

Theatrics aside, the Legislature is set to complete its work by the April 27 adjournment of the 105-day session, said House Speaker Clyde Ballard, R-East Wenatchee.

Among the issues:

Budget

House and Senate negotiators are working behind the scenes to resolve differences on a two-year state budget. The House has adopted an $18.99 billion version, about $103 million below the Senate and about $244 million below Democratic Gov. Gary Locke’s request level.

Lawmakers also are considering construction, transportation and supplemental 1995-97 spending plans.

Welfare

Majority Republicans say they are close to agreement on a sweeping overhaul measure that the governor can sign. The main sticking points have been benefits for newly arriving legal immigrants, food stamps for all legal immigrants and more money for subsidized child care and other support programs.

Youth criminals

The two houses and the governor are close to forging a final compromise on legislation to crack down on juvenile offenders. The main obstacle has been a House provision that would automatically treat violent 16- and 17-year-old criminals as adults, both for trial and imprisonment. Locke opposes such a blanket provision. Last week, all parties were near a compromise in which only those older teens who committed more serious violent crimes, such as armed robbery, would be subject to the provision.

Seahawks stadium

A House hearing is scheduled for Thursday on a Senate-passed plan for financing a $425 million stadium project for the Seahawks. A close House vote is forecast.

Health care

The House budget contains substantial new costs for the 132,500 people who would get health care coverage through the state subsidized Basic Health Plan. The Senate already has passed similar legislation, and the two versions must be reconciled. Locke proposes far more modest changes in the program, but seeks a much larger enrollment.

Business taxes

Locke this week is expected to sign a measure the Legislature sent him last week to roll back a 1993 business tax increase on services, such as work done by lawyers and architects. The reduction would take effect in July 1998. Locke vetoed a plan that rolled back taxes effective this July, saying the state can’t afford the extra $100 million revenue loss. But he has said he would sign the new measure.

Charter schools

The House has approved bipartisan legislation that would authorize non-profit groups to create publicly funded, but independent and largely deregulated, schools. The Senate is expected to go along. Locke and state school chief Terry Bergeson worked on the bill, scaling back some of the provisions to make it more of a pilot project.

Gay marriage

The Senate may vote on a House-passed proposal to place on the ballot a ban on same-sex marriage. Prospects for action are fair.

Growth management

Republican leaders of both houses will try to revive talks with Locke over ways to make at least some changes to the state’s 7-year-old land-use planning law. The law is drawing major resistance from developers and from many local governments in rural Washington, who consider it too stringent.

Gas tax

Senate backers are hoping to line up enough votes this week to begin action on a two-step, 7-cents-a-gallon increase in the 23-cent tax. The plan, currently awaiting a vote in the Senate Transportation Committee, would permit passage of a $3.9 billion state transportation budget. Prospects for legislative passage are considered fair at best.