“It is now open season on the wallets of Washingtonians.”

— Bob Williams, president of the Evergreen Freedom Foundation, an Olympia-based think tank, after Gov. Christine Gregoire signed a bill removing the requirement established in Initiative 601 for a two-thirds vote in the House and Senate to raise taxes.

“It’s time that we stop the façade that there was a limit on spending in the state.”

— Gov. Christine Gregoire, stressing that state government had regularly found ways around the restrictions embodied in the 1993 initiative.

“We’re guilty; they’re guilty.”

— Washington state Rep. John Ahern, R-Spokane, saying legislators from both political parties have had a hand in eroding the fiscal limits that were intended in Initiative 601.

“For $100, they’ll turn their mothers in.”

— North Carolina high school principal Stephen Huffstetler, assessing the success of a program that pays students up to $100 for tips on student misconduct ranging from thefts to gun possession.

“You’ve got to be very careful when you start handing felonies out to children. Their whole lives are at stake.”

— Attorney Ronnie Rae, criticizing the idea of filing charges against a 15-year-old who allegedly threatened mass violence if his friend Jacob Carr, Rae’s client in an attempted murder case, should receive a stiff prison sentence.

“We don’t believe in pitting kids against roads,”

— Speaker of the House Frank Chopp, D-Seattle, declining an offer from minority Republicans in the Washington Legislature that they would help pass $8 billion in transportation taxes if Democrats would drop their plans for $500 million in general fund taxes to help pay for the state’s operating budget.

“This is the same kind of writing Adolf Hitler did.”

— Forensic psychiatrist Park Dietz, describing the 11-page manifesto released by Eric Rudolph after pleading guilty in federal court to a two-year string of bombings including that at the Olympics in Atlanta.

“I certainly wouldn’t argue that there’s never been a homosexual discriminated against in Washington state.”

— Washington state Sen. Brad Benson, R-Spokane, arguing against a bill to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in matters of housing, employment or financial dealings.