Lawmakers fill week with hearings

OLYMPIA – Memo to S-R editors: Send more notebooks, batteries and coffee. As lawmakers enter their third week of the session, they’re holding one crammed hearing after another.

Here’s a short, pretty random sampling of a little of what’s being discussed in the statehouse this week:

•Tax breaks for beekeepers;

•more road access for off-road vehicles;

•more rights and responsibilities for same-sex and senior-citizen domestic partners;

•fluorescent yellow license plates for convicted drunken drivers, among other drunken driving bills;

•several measures designed to keep cars from hitting bicycles and pedestrians;

•an update on the state’s economy;

•more cougar hunting with dogs;

•rules about handcuffing or macing school students;

•more protection for people who buy used cars;

•banning smoking in cars containing kids;

•trying to ban political candidates from lying about their opponent;

•trying to keep local political candidates off TV during campaign season;

•curbing workplace bullying;

•suing when someone, through negligence, kills your adult child;

•a “truth in music advertising” bill, banning small water bottles if they’re made with petroleum (which most are);

•and taking away the cars of johns seeking out prostitutes.

A small perk

Republican lawmakers in Olympia may have little say in what happens – they’re outnumbered nearly two to one by Democrats – but at least they have a sense of humor about it. When a reporter asked what it’s like to sit in their caucus room and see all the empty chairs, Senate Minority Leader Mike Hewitt, R-Walla Walla, joked that they got rid of the extra chairs and just pushed the remaining ones farther apart.

“It’s like you’re flying business class now,” added House Minority Leader Richard DeBolt, R-Chehalis.

Paid family leave

One of the most interesting discussions in Olympia this year may be how to pay for a benefit program lawmakers launched last year.

A paid family leave program patterned loosely on California’s, it would give a $250-a-week stipend to parents who take up to five weeks off from work to bond with a newborn or newly adopted child. The payments would start in October 2009.

A 13-member task force last year spent months trying to figure out how to run the program, what it would cost and how to pay for it.

Among the options they looked at:

•a sales tax on carbonated drinks,

•or one on candy and gum,

•or a liquor surcharge,

•or a tax on hours worked or wages paid

•or simply pulling the money out of the state general fund.

In the end, the task force recommended tapping the general fund for the first four years of the program.

“A lot of people want the services, but when it comes to pay for it, that’s the more difficult question,” said Rep. Mary Lou Dickerson, D-Seattle, neatly summing up a timeless dilemma of governing.

Despite Republicans’ oft-voiced concerns about the wisdom of launching the program without launching a way to pay for it, Dickerson said the program will happen.

“It’s not the first time we’ve done this,” she said of the approach.

Still, it could be a lot of money. Depending on how many parents claim the benefit, early estimates say the total cost could be $82 million to $110 million every two years.

There is one other option, as Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown, D-Spokane, pointed out to reporters recently: lawmakers could put off a decision until next year, when they write the next major state budget. But she echoed Dickerson’s statement that paid family leave will happen.

“We plan to implement it, one way or another,” Brown said.

A WASL idea…

Reader John Kluge, a Medical Lake attorney, has an idea for lawmakers arguing over what – if anything – to do about this year’s new requirement that high school seniors pass the Washington Assessment of Student Learning or an alternative.

“It’s all political,” he says. “People aren’t really looking for solutions.”

So here’s his: a “basic diploma” that students would get “just for showing up” and a higher-level one for those who can show they’ve learned well. Kluge compares it to graduating cum laude from a college.

He’d also make a key change: Allow graduates to get additional training later to upgrade their diploma.

“In high school, you’re going to get a lot of people who just don’t want to put in the time and effort,” he said. “Just let them come to the conclusion on their own that their (basic) diploma is not good enough to achieve what they want to achieve.”

Stumping for Sump’s spot

Expect a lively election this year in the 7th Legislative district, a huge swath of land that covers much of rural northeastern Washington.

Incumbent state Rep. Bob Sump, the Republican from Republic, says he won’t run again when his term ends this year.

First of several Republican contenders out of the gate was Edwall architect and rancher Sue Lani Madsen. Then came Harrington’s Peter Davenport, a city councilman, retired biologist and nationally known UFO researcher. (See my Web site for links to a couple of profiles of this side of Davenport’s work, as well as a link to his campaign opponents’ Web sites.)

The latest addition to what’s becoming a crowded GOP primary ballot: former state Fish and Wildlife Commission chairman Kelly White. White, appointed by then-Gov. Gary Locke to the commission in 1998, is a farmer and consultant in timber and real-estate management.