Gregoire, Lege leaders praise ‘historic session’
From the president's rostrum in the Senate chamber, Gov. Chris Gregoire points to twin screens showing the leaders of the House and Senate gaveling the session to a close Wednesday evening.
OLYMPIA -- Shortly after the gavel came down on the 2011 Legislative session, Gov. Chris Gregoire and several legislative leaders used some of the following terms to describe it:
"Truly bipartisan. It's a new trend in how we're going to do business," said Gregoire.
"It's hard to say 'What a great session'.. when so many sacrifices were made," said Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown, D-Spokane.
"It was one of those times when the Legislatured did what the Legislature should do -- solve problems," said Senate Minority Leader Mike Hewitt, R-Walla Walla.
"A historic legislative session," said House Majority Leader Pat Sullivan, D-Covington.
They passed budgets in tough economic times without raising taxes. Republicans got some of the reforms they wanted, Democrats saved some of the social safety net programs that were on the chopping block.
There were a few things that didn't get done, like a transportation fee bill that got hung up in the Senate because it didn't have enough votes, Brown said. And some business tax exemptions that got hung up in the House because folks got tired and ran out of time, Sullivan said. While he wouldn't necessarily agree with the term "hostages" -- a term that was used by lobbyists watching the bills and some members, Sullivan did say there wasn't a lot of enthusiasm for them among majority Democrats.
"Having passed a budget that didn't fund some of our priorities, it was difficult to get our members to turn around and pass tax breaks," he said.
Speaking of the budget, the $32.2 billion general operating budget that was hailed as a model of bipartisanship when it passed the Senate Wednesday had to make it through the House the previous day without a single GOP vote. Same budget, very different partisan opinions. How could that be, the group was asked.
You'd have to ask the House Republican leadership, they said. Unfortunately, House GOP leaders were invited to the press conference but didn't attend.
