Spin Control: Poll shows support for full-time Legislature, but don’t count on it any time soon

The Northwest Progressive Institute, a liberal group, thinks Washington voters would support having their Legislature in session all year.

That would be a good thing, Andrew Villeneuve, the institute’s executive director, suggested in a recent column promoting the change. Washington is a large and complicated state with many issues and problems that can’t always be solved in 60- or 105-day sessions, he said.

The Washington Policy Center, a conservative group, thinks this is a bad idea. Mark Harmsworth, the group’s director of its Small Business Center, questioned the cost and the basis for the institute’s claim of public support in a guest column on last Wednesday’s editorial page.

While it’s not surprising that the two groups come down on opposite sides – it’s hard to think of an issue on which they agree – the arguments they present aren’t new. They are remarkably similar to the debate in 1979, when voters faced a constitutional amendment to move the regularly scheduled sessions from 60 days every other year to the current system of 105 days in odd years and 60 days in even years.

In the ensuing 45 years, the idea of a full-time Legislature has been floated from time to time, although it usually sinks quickly. This one probably will, too.

The institute is basing its support on a recently conducted poll that asked slightly more than 600 voters if they would support amending the constitution to create year-round sessions instead of the current system, “which means state lawmakers can only consider bills from January until either March or April”.

In response, 59% offered either strong or somewhat agreement, while only 18% were either in strong or somewhat disagreement. Another 22% were unsure.

Harmsworth is correct in saying the survey question is a bit loaded with the word “only.” The Legislature can, and frequently does, get called into special session by the governor when the need arises or when they fail to finish in the time allotted for the regular session.

If the institute wants to have any chance of the bipartisan support this change requires – it needs a constitutional amendment, so super majorities in both chambers before heading to the voters – it would have to enlist lawmakers of both parties who are still unhappy that throughout the pandemic Gov. Jay Inslee never called them into special session to debate his emergency rules for COVID-19.

Some of the problems of time-limited session that Villeneuve cites, like “time-wasting mischief by the minority party” that involve stall tactics and proposing multitudes of amendments on bills certain to pass, wouldn’t necessarily disappear just because the Legislature went to a year-round schedule. Full-time legislatures are not immune to such practices.

While the cost would go up – not necessarily trebling as Harmsworth suggests, but there would be some increases – the center seems to have missed the key problem with a year-round session.

It would remove the one thing that forces the Legislature to complete its No. 1 job – passing a budget. Like most of us, legislators often put things off as long as possible, which is why the state’s main spending plan, the operating budget, is usually approved on the final day of the session.

If there is no final day, the Legislature could become like Congress, never passing a real budget but approving the state version of continuing resolutions. In the previous decade, when multiple special sessions were needed to pass a budget, we saw an inclination to do just that.

Other important legislation also typically passes in the final week of the session, as legislators negotiate and seek compromise under the pressure of “it’s now or never.” Sometimes those negotiations fail and compromises don’t emerge, but that doesn’t mean a larger number of great ideas that fall apart in mid March or late April would magically come together in August, October or December.

Harmsworth points out that even with current time limits, the Legislature still manages to take up issues that might be deemed nonessential, and suggests there are better solutions than a year-round session. His examples, however, leave a bit to be desired.

In pointing out possible time-wasting bills, he seems to scoff at pickleball being named the state sport, which, while not at the top of anyone’s “must pass” list, did receive strong bipartisan support. He suggests that term limits would be better at improving the Legislature than full-time sessions, and seems to bemoan the fact that a 2021 resolution on that change “gained no traction and was never voted on.”

Like a change to a full-time Legislature, term limits would require a constitutional amendment and thus super majorities in each chamber. Perhaps the resolution gained no traction because it had no co-sponsors and received a mixed reception at its committee hearing.

Besides, Washington already has a basic form of term limits. They’re called elections.

When the 1979 constitutional amendment for yearly sessions was sent to the ballot, it had bipartisan support and opposition. Spokane Sen. Sam Guess, a rock-ribbed Republican if ever there was one, joined with liberal Democrats, unions, Common Cause and the League of Women Voters, to write a “yes” argument in the Voter’s Pamphlet. Urging a “no” vote were another group of bipartisan lawmakers and a group that included Spokane’s Orville Barnes of the Washington Taxpayers Association along with the Grange and the Farm Bureau.

Supporters said the change would save money, while opponents said it would cost more. Both sides claimed their position would guard against professional politicians and send a “citizen Legislature” to Olympia.

At the time, the Legislature had been unable for the previous decade to come anywhere close to the required 60 days every two years. Its regular odd-year sessions had required at least one special session, and no even-year managed to pass without at least one more special session. Lawmakers were averaging nearly 100 days in session every year.

Perhaps 105 days one year and 60 the other year seemed like a bargain, because 60% of voters said yes. Since that time, the Legislature has gone through periods where lawmakers needed extra days, weeks – or in the mid 2010s, months – to get things done. But for the past six years, they’ve managed to get out on time, which might make it hard for the institute to convince lawmakers and voters of the need for year-round sessions.