Tight Budget Sets Up Showdown Gop Rebuffs Democratic Efforts To Add $250 Million To Proposal

Wed., March 26, 1997

Associated Press

As the Senate prepares to vote on a tight-fisted state budget today, House Republicans plan to release an even more conservative proposal. That could set up a showdown with Democratic Gov. Gary Locke.

The Senate Ways and Means Committee, controlled by Republicans, rebuffed efforts by minority Democrats Tuesday night to add more than $250 million to the GOP’s $19.09 billion proposal released this week.

The panel, voting along party lines, pushed the budget through the committee, its first hurdle, and set up a floor vote for today.

A thick stack of Democratic amendments - and the Republicans’ stern “no way” response - offered a prelude to the debate in coming days.

Potentially the most controversial amendment, offered by Sen. Jeanne Kohl, D-Seattle, requested $120,000 to finance a University of Washington Medical School study of whether marijuana offers relief from chronic or life-threatening illnesses such as cancer or AIDS. Her plan lost on an unrecorded voice vote.

Sen. Pam Roach, R-Auburn, supported the higher pay raise for state workers, but the motion failed on a 10-10 tie.

Other Democratic overtures involved millions of dollars for education, salary increases for part-time community college faculty, environmental programs, welfare programs, mental health care and the tate-subsidized Basic Health Program.

Time after time, Chairman Jim West, R-Spokane, used the phrase, “We had to make difficult choices” to shoot down the requests. On nearly every amendment, the 11 Republicans on the panel held together against the nine Democrats.

West allowed only $6 million worth of changes, mostly corrections to the earlier draft, such as fixing a $2.8 million shortfall in the state nursing home budget.

Passage of the final draft of the budget cleared the committee without debate, with members saving their speeches for Wednesday’s floor vote.

Democrats note that the proposal is nearly $150 million below the level proposed by Locke, and vowed to try to persuade their GOP colleagues to make some restorations.

But House Appropriations Chairman Tom Huff, R-Gig Harbor, said the version he releases today will be even lower than the Senate’s.

Earlier in the day, a bipartisan panel of senators, led by Transportation Chairman Eugene Prince, R-Thornton, released a proposed transportation budget of $3.9 billion. The plan assumes legislative approval of a two-step, 7-cent increase in the state’s 23-cents-a-gallon gasoline tax.

The Senate also is expected to approve a state construction budget of nearly $1.9 billion today.

After the Senate acts on the proposals, it will be the House’s turn. Huff said the lower chamber plans a final vote next Monday.

Negotiators then will be appointed to work out the differences between the two houses and to try to incorporate suggestions by the governor.

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