Lawmakers Have Time To Fill Some Take Classes, Field Trips While Budget Debate Continues

Some take classes. Some go on field trips. Some skip town altogether.

As the Legislature enters the fourth week of its special session, many state lawmakers are finding themselves with plenty of time on their hands.

Most are not directly involved with the budget negotiations that are holding up adjournment. The House and Senate are only in session for a few minutes a day. And there are only so many letters and phone calls to return.

That leaves many trying to fill their days in more creative ways, while taxpayers foot a $20,000 bill each day the special session drags on.

On Monday, most House members spent two hours in a class on sexual harassment. On Thursday and Friday, many sat through a course on ethics.

Members of the House Natural Resources Committee took a fivehour field trip Monday of a forest southwest of Olympia to examine new forest management techniques. Last week, some House members toured the prison on McNeil Island.

Lawmakers say they’d like to be doing something more constructive, but there is little most of them can do to wrap things up quicker.

“It’s very frustrating because you’re not doing anything legislative,” said Rep. Dennis Dellwo, D-Spokane.

“There are a lot of field trips, a lot of classes,” said Rep. Lisa Brown, D-Spokane. “I’m not opposed to those things - but that’s not what we were sent here for.”

Sometimes it’s not even worth it to stay in Olympia.

Dellwo spent much of last week in Spokane. He said he spent the time getting back in touch with concerns in his district.

The Olympia office of Sen. Bob McCaslin, R-Spokane, was closed and locked Monday, with a note on the door leaving a phone number for voice mail.

McCaslin said he was “in and out” that day. He was not in the office at all Friday, having traveled back to Spokane for the weekend.

Brown was also in Spokane on Friday, saying she needed to catch up on work there and prepare for the Junior Lilac Parade.

Even lawmakers directly involved in budget negotiations have been accused of not being serious about finishing up on time.

Senate Democrats blame the delay on House Republicans.

“The thing I don’t see in this special session that I have seen in all the others is an anxiety to get done,” said Sen. Brad Owen, D-Shelton. “They’re like ‘Oh, we can’t be here Saturday and Sunday.”’

“It’s untrue,” counters House Speaker Clyde Ballard, R-East Wenatchee. “No one is working harder than the House Republican caucus to get this over with.”

House majority leader Rep. Dale Foreman, R-Wenatchee, said he’s ready to pick up the pace. He said negotiators will meet Saturday - the first weekend meeting of the special session so far.

“Now that the Apple Blossom Festival is over, I’m ready to work seven days a week,” Foreman said.

The annual Wenatchee festival, which features parades and a carnival, had brought Foreman home for the past two weekends because his daughter, Mari, is Apple Blossom queen.

Foreman said the budget process takes time, and more meetings aren’t necessarily the answer.

“You can always have more meetings,” he said. “Would you speed up the process by having more meetings? Absolutely not.”

Finishing by the end of the regular session has been a perennial problem - no matter which party is in power. Every other year, lawmakers have to write a state budget, and those sessions typically go beyond the 105-day limit by two or three weeks.

In 1993, Democrats took 11 extra days, despite holding majorities in the House and Senate and with Democrat Mike Lowry in the Governor’s mansion.

In Iowa, lawmakers lose their daily allowances at the end of a regular session, which seems to encourage lawmakers to finish on time.

“I certainly have heard members say, ‘Hey, our money is running out, I can’t afford to stay here much longer,”’ said Jason Gross, assistant chief clerk of the Iowa House of Representatives.

“That sounds like a great idea,” said Shawn Newman, head of a citizens watchdog group in Olympia. “Cut off the per diem and tell them to get back to business.”

The idea also appeals to Kate McCaslin, a longtime Republican party consultant in Spokane.

“I think they have this idea in their heads that the deadline isn’t a deadline,” McCaslin said.

Former Democratic Spokane Valley representative George Orr has seen his share of special sessions and said he knows what really goes on.

“They’re twiddling their thumbs … Every day they sit there, they’re wasting money … they’re just as guilty as those bureaucrats they criticize.”

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