The big five
Here’s a look at how the key issues for the 2007 legislative session are taking shape:
Education
Gov. Chris Gregoire wants to launch a slate of changes: phasing in all-day kindergarten, expanding prekindergarten learning programs, making room for thousands more students at the state’s colleges and universities, increasing teacher pay and shrinking class sizes.
Where things stand: House committees continue hearings on specifics of Gregoire’s “Washington Learns” proposal. Proposals to delay for three years the requirement that high schoolers pass the math part of the Washington Assessment of Student Learning are moving ahead. Lawmakers are discussing a broader reprieve: delaying the reading and writing parts of the test as well. Last week, Republicans in the House said the state should “fund education first” by approving a separate education budget before budgeting any other state program.
Health care
Lawmakers are considering adding 32,000 children to state-paid health coverage and spending $26 million over the next two years to increase childhood vaccinations.
Where things stand: The House got mixed reviews on a proposal to pool people – including small-business employees, government workers and people on state-subsidized health coverage – into one massive group. The goal: negotiating for lower health insurance rates for those approximately 1 million people. Insurers seemed leery of the plan and urged the state to wait and see how a similar proposal in Massachusetts fares.
The economy
From making health care cheaper to a “holiday” for some workers’ compensation costs, lawmakers and the governor say they want to help the cooling economy, particularly small businesses.
Where things stand: Farmers and ranchers made a pitch last week for the state to exempt the agriculture industry from “buffer zones” established around streams and other bodies of water to protect water quality. Payday lenders remain embattled this year, as critics of the short-term, high-interest loans continue to blast them and a couple of key lawmakers who say the industry is already regulated tightly enough. Critics want a 36 percent annual interest cap on the industry.
Same-sex marriage
Proponents want it, or at least domestic partnerships that would include many of the legal rights of married people. Critics are countering with a call to write the state law banning gay marriage into the state constitution – an unlikely move that would require approval from a legislative supermajority as well as voters statewide.
Where things stand: The domestic partnerships proposal is moving ahead, but no vote has yet been slated in either the House or Senate.
Environment
Gregoire has proposed spending $200 million toward the $9 billion problem of cleaning up the Puget Sound, among other proposals.
Where things stand: The Puget Sound continues to dominate the discussion, but among the other topics up for discussion this week: limited “high-hazard” pesticides in schools, monitoring the drift of sprayed agricultural pesticides, and how the state can boost nature-based tourism.
– Richard Roesler