In brief: House raises lawmakers’ stipends by $30 per day

OLYMPIA – House lawmakers have been receiving an extra $30 a day to be in Olympia since the start of the year.

Deputy Chief Clerk Bernard Dean confirmed Thursday that the decision to increase lawmakers’ daily stipend – known as a per diem – from $90 a day to $120 a day was made last month, and that it took effect retroactively to Jan. 1.

Dean said that the increased rate is still lower than the $155 daily rate that state employees can claim when they travel to Thurston County. House per diem rates have been $90 since 2005, except for a two-year period – 2007 through 2008 – that it was set at $100.

The Senate has not made any changes to its per diem policy, though its members are aware of the changes made in the House, said Secretary of the Senate Hunter Goodman. Excluding leadership positions, a lawmaker’s salary is $42,106 a year, plus the per diem for expenses incurred when they’re at the Capitol.

Portland, county to pay family $9.3 million for 2010 crash

PORTLAND – The city of Portland and Clackamas County have agreed to pay $9.3 million to the family of a brain-damaged woman injured in a crash involving a meth-addled driver.

Cayla Wilson was 19 and five months’ pregnant at the time of the April 15, 2010, crash. Her daughter was born three months early. Wilson’s family sued, contending the driver’s Clackamas County probation officer and a Portland police officer who encountered him hours before the crash should not have allowed him to roam free.

The Oregonian reported the settlement came late Wednesday after closing arguments ended in the trial of the family’s lawsuit.

The money will go to care for Wilson, who remains bedridden and cannot talk. It will also be used for her now-3-year-old daughter.

Jack Dean Whiteaker was sentenced in March 2012 to 11 years in prison for driving while under the influence of intoxicants and reckless driving.

Idaho dairies seek to stop activists from spying on farms

BOISE — Idaho’s $2.5 billion dairy industry wants to put people who film their operations surreptitiously in jail for up to a year, a bid to block animal-rights groups from spying on farms in hopes of catching animal cruelty on tape.

Sen. Jim Patrick of Twin Falls Thursday introduced the measure on the heels of videos produced in 2012 by a group at one of Idaho’s largest dairies documenting cows being beaten.

If the measure passes, anybody who enters an agricultural production facility without permission and records operations could face a year behind bars and a $5,000 fine.

Idaho’s milk producers blame animal rights groups for trying to sabotage their operations.

The groups, meanwhile, contend they’re trying to expose operations that mistreat their animals.

Utah is among states with a similar law.