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March 21, 2010 in City
November election is backdrop as special session drags on
OLYMPIA – While Democrats with huge majorities in both houses fight among themselves over the budget, Republicans have plenty of free time to express confidence the November election will change the math.
Democrats seem intent on helping them out. They’re going to raise taxes, which ranks high on the list of things that get a politician removed from office. They may be right that they have almost no choice in the matter, but the way that they’ve gone about it – holding a quixotic hearing on an income tax, requiring repeated votes on bills tailor-made to wind up in GOP commercials, suspending rules – does little to mitigate the expected damage.
Then there’s the $18,300 per day special session – at least that was the cost before a rush to refuse legislative per diems – that was supposed to be done in seven days.
How’s that working, as Dr. Phil would say. Not so good, with work expected through Tuesday, which would be day nine.
Meeting with reporters last week, Republicans bemoaned the fractured rules and procedures that have marked recent weeks. “I promise we will not operate like this,” Senate Minority Leader Mike Hewitt of Walla Walla said.
The sentiment was not new. Most Republicans have warned of voters’ wrath at some point in the debate over taxes and spending. In the closing days of the regular session, Hewitt passed out pieces of state Senate notepaper with one word, underlined twice: November.
Asked if he could promise Republicans will repeal all taxes the Democrats might enact, should voters propel them into the majority, Hewitt hedged: “Probably not. We’d have to look at the budget and see where we’re at.”
But they clearly will run against the taxes that get raised. They’ll also denounce the maneuvers used during the session, such as hearings held with little or no public notice, or Friday’s meeting of the Senate Ways and Means Committee – the panel that decides what to tax and how to spend it, which is the raison d’être of the special session – in one of the few places outside the view of TVW’s cameras. Jason Mercier of the conservative Washington Policy Center keeps track of “ghost” bills filed or scheduled for hearing with no real substance, or heard in committees before they are even introduced, which is not the way the rules say things work around here.
In many years, the eyes of most voters might glaze over at such talk and the political cognoscenti might shrug it off with “rules were made to be broken.” With the Tea Party and various allies gunning for incumbents in general and Democrats in particular, this may not be one of those years.
A poll by KING-TV last week asked 600 people to rate the job the Legislature and governor are doing. For the Lege, 69 percent disapproved, for Chris Gregoire, it was 65 percent. Those numbers track with similar surveys around the country and the low numbers for Congress, so it can’t all be blamed on a bad budget and the need for overtime in Olympia. Any incumbent who takes comfort in that, though, can rationalize almost anything.
The nearly eight months between now and the November election is an eternity in politics. Maybe the economy will improve significantly, and with it the mood of the electorate, allowing Democrats to bask in some of the reflected glow.
Maybe the Republicans’ seemingly justifiable confidence in the spring will prove to be hubris in the fall.
But Democrats would be wise to heed the words of Bette Davis in “All About Eve”: Fasten your seat belts, it’s going to be a series of bumpy nights.
Spin Control, a weekly column by veteran political reporter Jim Camden, also appears as a blog with daily items and reader comments.
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PhiltheBibliophil on March 21 at 8:14 a.m.
Consumer spending is down, unemployment is far worse than the figures suggest. Therefore, there are less taxes in the coffer! When I have less money in my bank account I have to cut back on my spending. But not good ‘ol Washington State, we’ll just keep raising taxes through some new method. And if times ever do get Good again, those “we the people” folks will have forgot all about it and we’ll just keep spending the money. If something, like Washington state or federal government is unsustainable then reduce it, don’t increase it! Me thinks the party’s finally over, now we get to pick up the mess or just live in the filth!
deacon46 on March 21 at 10:43 a.m.
This angst about cutting state employment is totally unfair to the rest of the working world who lost their jobs or are about too. Everyone, yes everyone, needs to share the pain. I would feel much more comfortable about new taxes if I felt the politicians were really cutting costs. And as far as November is concerned I believe Rs should be looking over their shoulders too. It is Time to get new thinking and that is not just replacing the Ds with same type Rs.
Wetsider on March 21 at 7:23 p.m.
Camden’s article is one of the better accounts of the Olympia “atmospherics” this session — and special session. Not only are committee hearings and, for that matter, floor action dealing with bills/proposals no one has seen, the recent practice of limiting testimony on complex (and sometimes unseen) bills in committees to two minutes has given way to a decision in at least one instance to not hear the business community at all. Chairman of House Finance Ross Hunter explained that since business lobbyists are there every day, they could talk to him “one on one” and therefore would not be allowed to present information in a timely fashion to (a) the others on his committee, apparently, (b) the TVW audience, (c) those others testifying who might disagree with them but could then better engage in true dialogue, (d) staff who must prepare a bill report for the public record, and — not least of all — reporters. Reporter Camden rightly references the Senate hearing on an income tax bill, showing both chambers have been — oh, what should we say? — cavalier in their treatment of the citizens they presume to serve.
oldarmy on March 23 at 7:09 a.m.
Replacing D’s with R’s is not the right thing to do in November. ABANDON PARTY LINES!! VOTE COMMON SENSE IN NOVEMBER! If you always do what you’ve always done, you will always get what you always got! All those seeking election in November are “APPLYING FOR A JOB” to work for The American People! It is time to do background checks, ..what and where are his past business relationships, what votes has he cast in the past and what is his loyalty to the constitution and his constituents. The American people DO NOT want “leaders” ..WE WANT LOYAL EMPLOYEES< LOYAL TO THE PEOPLE AND THE CONSTITUTION!
misjustice on April 02 at 7:57 p.m.
Great points, oldarmy…