Former U.S. Rep. Jay Inslee has filed his paperwork to run for governor of Washington state. Attorney General Rob McKenna, his likely Republican opponent, still has not.

Attorney General Rob McKenna, the presumptive Republican front-runner in the race for Washington state governor, was still not officially in the race as of noon Wednesday on the first week to file for state offices.

He is expected to do so any day now, however.

Former U.S. Rep, Jay Inslee, his likely Democratic opponent, filed his paperwork on Tuesday morning. He resigned his District 1 seat in Congress earlier this spring, forcing the state to pay $770,000 for a run-off election so the district will have representation for the one month in between the November general election and the date in January when the new office-holder will be seated.

Because this year’s redistricting process signficantly altered the boundaries of District 1, the state will simultaneously run a second election to pick Inslee’s permanent successor.

On the Democratic side, Snohomish County councilman Brian Sullivan announced this week he would seek the one-month position, but he has yet to enter the race officially. Bainbridge Island attorney J. Byron Holcomb and Kenmore resident Brian Berry have filed paperwork for the office, but as yet there is no Republican opposition.

“The Washington State Republican Party will not actively spend any time or resources to find a candidate for that race,” said state GOP Chair Kirby Wilbur. “We are focused on the elections that count – those that will bring proper representation to the people of Washington state.

“If Ex-Congressman Inslee and the Democrat Party were so concerned about proper Congressional representation for the First District, they would have called for the special election to be held in April, not in November,” Wilbur said. “Instead, they have left constituents of that district high and dry, purely to serve their own political interests.

In other statewide offices:

* Former House Majority Leader Bill Finkbeiner has officially filed as a Republican to unseat incumbent Democrat Brad Owen as lieutenant governor.

* A pair of King County Council members — Bob Ferguson, on the Democratic side and Republican Reagan Dunn — have filed to replace McKenna as Washington’s attorney general.

* Incumbent Schools Superintendent Randy Dorn is opposed so far by Bellingham teacher and school administrator James Bauckman.

* In the 28th District, University Place Council member Eric Choiniere filed to run for the Position 2 House seat currently occupied by Democrat  Troy Kelley. His opposition so far is attorney Steve O’Ban, a Republican. Choiniere had anounced plans earlier in the year to challenge incumbent Sen. Mike Carrell, also a Republican, but changed his plans when Kelley announced he would run for state auditor.

* Democratic Rep. Andy Billig will attempt to fill the District 3 Senate seat vacated last week when Majority Leader Lisa Brown announced she would not seek re-election. Spokane Councilwoman Nancy McLaughlin is this only Republican opponent to have filed thus far for the seat.

* Cheney School District Superintendent Larry Keller and Spokane attorney Jeff Holy, both Republlicans, have filed for the District 6 House seat being vacated by incumbent GOP Rep. Mike Baumgartner, who is challenging U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell.

* Lynnwood physician Art Coday, who dropped out of the U.S. Senate race in 2010 to run unsuccessfully for state representative instead, has filed again for Cantwell’s seat.

A resident of tiny Chattaroy, in Washington’s northeastern corner, is waging a one-man offensive against a school district he believes has employed unethical and possibly illegal methods to pass a hotly contested levy measure.

Most recently, Leonard Terzenbach has evidence officials of the Riverside School District registered special needs students and instructed them to vote in favor of the levy.

“It’s sad what they’re resorting to,” Terzenbach said. “This is a small community and they’re pitting neighbor against neighbor.”

The district, in fact, ran two levies on the February ballot. When both were defeated easily, the district offered a scaled-back alternative on the ballot in April, asking for $3.42 per $1,000 of assessed property value each year for three years, designed to replace an expiring tax.

Elections officials began a hand recount in the Riverside School District last week.

“They already lost once,” Terzenbach said, “and my beef is, 60 days later they can come back and do it again.  And I don’t think they should be able to do that.”

When the votes were tallied on election day, the third measure was found to be deadlocked at exactly 2,135 apiece.  A procedural re-count finished late last week, however, showed the levy passing by a mere 11 votes.

Terzenbach, who had campaigned actively against the levy, dipped into his own pocket to fund a hand recount, which commenced late last week.

At 25 cents a vote, the recount is costing Terzenbach $1,038.25, but he believes the effort will uncover enough fraud to overturn the outcome.

Leonard Terzenbach

He’s already documented at least one example of the school district using questionable tactics to generate support.

The mother of an 18-year-old special needs student at Riverside High School contacted Terzenbach last week and told him her son’s teacher had asked her class whether any of the students were old enough to vote for the levy. When he said he was, they sent him to the principal’s office to obtain an application form, helped him fill it out and issued him a voter registration card.

“They not only told him how to fill out his ballot, but they also told him to bring it back to them and they’d turn it in for him,” said Rayna Orgill, the young man’s mother.

Orgill said her son has an IQ of 55, roughly equivalent to that of an 8-year-old. When the ballot arrived in the mail, she said, he told her what he’d been instructed to do.

“I told him if he could read the ballot and explain to me what he was voting for, he could do it,” she said. “Naturally he couldn’t, and he agreed he had no business voting for anything. There’s a reason they don’t let 8-year-olds vote.”

Orgill said she could have filled the ballot out herself, voting against the levy as she did on her own, but, “I couldn’t see why I was entitled to two votes, so I just threw his ballot away.”

She said she called the school’s vice principal to complain, but he just took her report and said he’d look into the matter.

“My son turned 18 in December,” Orgill said. “If they thought it was such a good idea for him to vote, why didn’t they register him then instead of waiting for an election where it was so close it came down to 11 votes?”

Orgill said she doesn’t know how many other special needs students are over 18, nor does she know whether any of them were registered and encouraged to vote for the levy. But she assumes her son wasn’t the only one.

“I have a problem with teachers using their students as pawns to get what they want,” she said. “My daughter is a freshman at the same high school and she said the principal there got on the intercom and told the students to tell their parents if they didn’t vote for the levy there’d be no band or football team or anything like that.

“You’ve got 7- and 8-year-olds coming home crying because their teachers have scared them to death about something they can’t understand,” Orgill said. “That’s just not right.”

Hundreds of taxpayers showed up on the Capitol steps on Saturday for what became a pep rally for liberty. Jeff Rhodes/The Freedom Foundation

“We’re in nothing less than a battle for the future of our nation,” Shelton business owner Pat Tarzwell told a raucous crowd gathered on the steps of the Capitol Building in Olympia on Saturday. “And we have some serious catching up to do. Progressives have a 100-year headstart growing the size of government.”

With federal income taxes due the following day, Tarzwell said it was a perfect occasion to talk about slashing spending at both the national and state levels.

“Our own governor says we’ve cut $10 billion from the budget in recent years,” he said. “Don’t believe her. She didn’t cut a nickel. Spending goes up every stinking year.”

“Four years ago were promised hope and change,” added blogger Keli Carender, who fellow Tea Party members have dubbed the “Liberty Belle.” “But at this point, hope is about all we have left — hope that change is coming.

“As bad as some of us thought an Obama presidency would be, he’s been far worse than we could have imagined,” she said. “We’re facing a very serious situation, but fortunately, there’s still time to heal the nation.”

The Olympia event featured 10 inspirational speakers — plus music — over two hours. And the prevailing theme was how government has eroded personal freedoms while stifling the economy.

“I can’t figure out why people keep voting for candidates with ‘experience,’ ” said Olympia resident and conservative activist Sharon Hanek, who refers to herself as the “Research Mom.”
“Do we want to keep voting for candidates with experience taking away our rights?” she asked. “Or should we start electing people who believe they were called by God to restore those rights?”

“The most troublesome aspect of America today isn’t the division between the right and the left,” said event host Mike Siegel, a longtime conservative talk radio host. “The most troublesome thing is the division between the left and the Constitution.

“It’s time for a change in America,” he said. “It’s time to stand up and be counted.”

Democratic Sen. Derek Kilmer, left, and Republican Linda Evans Parlette believe the capital budget bill will fund projects the state needed to build anyway and do so at a reduced rate of interest.

In the final, frenzied moments of a special legislative session that extended seven hours past its deadline of midnight Tuesday, exhausted Washington state lawmakers who’d spent the past eight months trying to close a $1.6 million gap between projected expenditures and revenues, easily passed a capital budget that included $1.1 billion in new construction spending.

“That’s typical of capital budgets,” explained Jason Mercier of the Washington Policy Center. “They don’t get as much scrutiny as the operating budget because they tend to be the ‘Christmas tree’ budget that everyone wants to hang something on.”

The capital budget passed 44-1 in the Senate and 85-13 in the House of Representatives.

“I had a lot of reservations about the bill,” conceded Rep. Jan Angel (R-26th District). “But at the end of the day, I had to look at what it included for my district — projects they’d have to find a way to pay for themselves if the state didn’t.”

Angel said she ultimately voted against the operating budget, which she described as “unsustainable,” but in favor the capital budget because, “As much as I didn’t want to see the state spend that money, I just didn’t see how I could go back and tell my constituents they had to pay for something the state had offered to pay for.”

According to its Democratic sponsors, Snohomish Rep. Hans Dunshee and Gig Harbor Sen. Derek Kilmer, the capital spending bill will kick start Washington’s stalled construction industry by “creating” up to 22,000 new jobs.

Meanwhile, they argue, the projects funded under the bill — which include stormwater upgrades, boat ramps and school construction — need to be done at some point regardless, and doing so gives the state an opportunity to borrow at historically low interest rates.

The proposal originally called for selling $1.3 billion in revenue bonds to finance the package. But Republicans preferred using general obligation bonds, which are guaranteed by state taxes rather than revenues from the projects involved.

They also pared the cost down to $1.1 billion.

“The conversation about making investment in infrastructure — especially when it’s cheaper to buy, and you’ve got a lot of folks in the construction industry unemployed — it’s one area of consideration around job creation,” Kilmer said in an interview in the Peninsula Gateway.

“It’s a way to make investments in things the state is going to invest in anyway,” Kilmer said, “while folks are out of work.”

Kilmer, whose full-time job is is vice president of the Pierce County Economic Development Board, said while the construction jobs themselves may only be temporary, the infrastructure they build will be an economic engine for their respective communities.

That’s a difficult case to make, however, for every project. In Olympia, to cite one example, $1.5 of the capital budget bill is earmarked for making upgrades to the Camp Quixote homeless encampment.

Even more problematic, because of the state’s requirement that public construction projects must pay contractors the prevailing — usually union-negotiated — wage, even $1.1 billion won’t build as much or hire as many workers as it would without the regulation.

“Research in Washington and across the United States shows that prevailing wage determinations rarely mirror actual market wages,” noted Bryan Leonard, a budget analyst with The Freedom Foundation.

“For example,” he  wrote, “Washington pays some workers nearly twice the actual market wage. This big increase in the capital budget seems oddly-timed at best — and foolhardy at worst.”

Altogether, the 2012 supplemental capital budget funds slightly more than $1 billion in projects, including $320 million for higher education-related projects, $254 million for economic development and public infrastructure, $57 million for skills centers and more than $200 million for stormwater, hatcheries, parks, forest health and other natural-resource projects.

“We wanted to invest in projects that will improve the curve of our state’s economic recovery,” said Sen. Linda Evans Parlette (R-Wenatchee). “(We decided to) purchase them now, while prices and interest rates are low, and invest in projects that will help ease the pressure on future operating budgets.

“We accomplished our goal,” she said, “and I look forward to getting the projects in this budget under way.”

Below is a partial listing of the projects funded under the capital budget.

• Adna Athletic and Fitness Facility — $80,000
• American Lake Veterans’ Golf Course — $250,000
• Anacortes Depot — $380,000
• Bothell North Creek Forest Land Acquisition — $200,000
• Boys and Girls Federal Way — $50,000
• Bucoda Odd Fellows Community Center — $150,000
• Central WA State Fair Association — $35,000
• City of Kirkland Athletic Fields — $150,000
• Colville Tribal Museum — $250,000
• Daybreak Youth Services Pre-Construction Activities — $100,000
• Dekalb Pier Project — $700,000
• Gig Harbor Maritime Pier — $390,000
• Grays Harbor Historical Seaport Lady Washington Rehabilitation — $169,000
• Legion Park Visitors Center and Trailhead Project — $110,000
• Match FEMA funds for Sprague Response Center — $300,000
• North Mason Senior Center — $1,360,000
• Port of Bremerton — $1,100,000
• Puyallup Transit-Oriented Development — $1,500,000
• Redmond Central Connector — $850,000
• Roslyn Renaissance — $300,000
• Seattle Children’s Hospital Emergency Department — $1,000,000
• Skagit Valley Hospital $750,000
• South Tacoma Community Center Playground — $380,000
• Spokane Food Bank Distribution Center Capacity and Renovation — $1,250,000
• Spokane Valley Partners Boiler Replacement — $100,000
• Sultan Boys and Girls Club — $500,000
• Tacoma Hilltop Health Center — $1,500,000
• The Arc of Tri-Cities Facility — $350,000
• Traumatic Brain Injury Center — $900,000
• Vancouver Waterfront Park Pre-Construction Activities — $500,000
• Veteran’s Memorial — $210,000
• West Hill Skyway Redevelopment — $750,000
• YWCA Yakima — $203,000
• Low Income Housing Institute/Housing for Homeless Young Adults — $1,800,000
• Roslyn Northwest Improvement Building — $1,035,000
• Port Gamble Bay (Open up 90 acres of geoduck tracks) — $2,000,000
• Port Gamble Bay (Source control, habitat preservation, and cleanup sustainability) — $7,000,000
• Cashmere Mill Site — $1,500,000
• Lakewood 2012 Drywell Replacement Project — $330,000
• Ferndale Southwest Storm Water Management Facility — $871,000
• Tacoma Cheney Stadium Stormwater LID Retrofit — $1,000,000
• Bellingham Central Business District Raingarden Retrofits — $450,000
• Walla Walla 13th Avenue Stormwater LID Project — $290,000
• Spokane County Regional Decant Facility — $684,000
• Milton 5th Avenue Storm Water Treatment Facility — $112,000
• Pierce County Clarks/Rody Creek Stormwater Retrofits — $829,000
• Mount Vernon Downtown Plaza — $351,000
• Vancouver Water Quality Retrofits for Existing Drywells — $562,000
• Camas Vactor Waste Facility Retrofit — $150,000
• Tumwater Valley Regional Stormwater Facility — $469,000
• West Richland Bombing Range Outfall Elimination Project — $479,000
• Kitsap County Parks: Replace and Installation of Pervious Parking Lots — $735,000
• Woodinville Lake Leota Stormwater Quality Retrofit Project — $866,000
• Richland Leslie Groves Park Regional Infiltration Facility — $199,000
• Spokane County Country Homes Boulevard Restoration Project — $1,000,000
• Redmond NE 84th Street Stormwater Retrofit — $1,000,000
• Pierce County Groundwater Pollutant Reduction Project — $578,000
• Kitsap County Illahee Stormwater/LID Retrofit Project — $625,000
• Bellingham Stormwater Retrofit/Bloedel Donovan Park — $384,000
• Puyallup Porus Alley Initiative Program — $665,000
• Lacey Vactor Waste Decant Facility — $342,000
• Fife 70th Avenue East Phase 2 — $786,000
• Kent James Street Stormwater Outfall Retrofit $75,000
• Renton Sunset Terrace Regional Stormwater Facility — $983,000
• Sumner Site A.2 Outfall Treatment Retrofit $1,000,000
• Asotin Second Street Stormwater Project — $172,000
• University Place Bridgeport Way Low-Impact Development Project — $758,000
• Sumner Site J Outfall Treatment Retrofit — $538,000
• Richland Canyon Terrace Stormwater Treatment Project — $211,000
• Olympia SPSCC Stormwater Retrofit for Water Quality — $312,000
• Renton Harrington Avenue NE Green Connection — $913,000
• Longview Municipal Pervious Concrete — $86,000
• Kirkland Northeast King County Co-op Recycling Decant Center — $2,250,000
• Burlington Gages Slough Stormwater LID Improvements — $204,000
• Clark County Columbia River High School Stormwater Retrofit — $267,000
• Bainbridge Island Lynwood Center Outfall Improvement Project — $188,000
• Puyallup Clarks Creek Targeted Outfall Retrofit Project — $551,000
• Pierce County Tacoma Narrows Airport Pavement Removal — $326,000
• Pierce County Spanaway Lake Park Stormwater Retrofit — $690,000
• Administrative Costs — $792,000
• Burien Miller Creek Stormwater Management Facility — $1,000,000
• Tacoma Asotin Court LID Retrofit — $710,000
• Seattle Public Utilities Midvale Stormwater Facility — $1,000,000
• Mukilteo Smuggler’s Gulch Drainage Basin LID and Stormwater Retrofit — $1,000,000
• Kirkland Park Lane Pedestrian Corridor — $739,000
• Port Angeles 4th Street Stormwater Project $1,000,000
• Snohomish County Department of Parks & Recreation Kayak Park Stormwater Treatment — $1,000,000
• Renton Rainier Avenue Stormwater Retrofit — $644,000
• Vancouver Peterson Channel Industrial LID Improvements — $287,000
• Wenatchee Snowmelt Facility — $975,000
• Port Orchard Cedar Heights Junior High Sidewalks — $135,000
• Centralia Downtown Rain Garden Revitalization Project — $487,000
• Snohomish County Paine Field Drainage Subbasin SC-5 — $967,000
• Seattle Public Utilities West Seattle Decant Facility — $289,000
• Skagit County LID Demonstration Project — $291,000
• Snohomish LID Improvements Project — $104,000
• Douglas County 23rd Street (Baker to SR 28) — $165,000
• Renton NE 10th St and Anacortes Ave NE Detention Pond Retrofit — $206,000
• Redmond Public Works Kelsey Creek Erosion Reduction Facility — $1,000,000
• Whatcom County Upper Silver Beach Creek Restoration — $988,000
• Port of Vancouver Terminal 4 Stormwater Pond Retrofit — $1,000,000

The Washington State Legislature at last agreed on a compromise supplemental budget at 6 a.m. on Wednesday morning.

Bleary-eyed Washington state lawmakers finally reached agreement on a long-delayed supplemental budget at 6:17 a.m. — more than six hours into a second special legislative session.

“It doesn’t cut education, it’s balanced and it’s a quarter to 5,” Rep. Ross Hunter (D-Medina) said of the budget before it passed in that house by a 64-34 margin.

The Senate followed suit by a 44-2 vote 90 minutes later, purposely waiting until the House had narrowly approved a reform measure dealing with extending healthcare benefits to non-teachers working in the state’s K-12 school system.

“This budget has been a struggle,” said Sen. Ed Murray (D-Seattle). “But that’s because Washington families are struggling. We think this budget protects them as best we can.”

Up to that point, the lawmakers had been unable to reach agreement on closing a $1.6 billion revenue gap through a two-and-a-half-week special session in December, the regular 60-day legislative session that convened in January, a 30-day special session that ended at midnight Tuesday and a few hours more.

Gov. Christine Gregoire, assured a budget deal was at hand, called for a second session to begin immediately when the midnight deadline came and went without an accord.

“I don’t think there’s a thing in that budget that will be a surprise to a soul at this point,” she said in announcing the one-day extra session. “They just need to get it done. Get it done and go home.”

Although Democrats hold a majority in both houses of the Legislature and Gregoire, too, is a Democrat, Republicans in the Senate were able to assert control in the final week of the regular session and pass a budget more to their liking by recruiting three moderate Democrats to support their more fiscally conservative version.

The bipartisan coalition in the Senate thereafter steadfastly refused to pass — or even negotiate — a budget until both houses approved a comprehensive list of economic reforms.

As the clocked on Tuesday ticked down to midnight — and beyond — those reforms were addressed one by one.

The reform bills encompassed a wide range of subjects, from requiring future Legislatures to pass budgets that line up with four-year revenue projections rather than the current two years to making it more difficult for state employees to take early retirement.

“I support this budget because, for a change, it reflects some of our ideas and values, too,” said Rep. Gary Alexander (R-Olympia).

Senate Republicans weren't able to eliminate the early retirement option entirely for state employees, but they made it more difficult to do.

New Washington state government employees will still have the option of retiring early, but they’ll pay more for the privilege and benefit less under a compromise struck between Senate Democrats and a coalition of Republicans and moderate Democrats.

The deal eliminates one of the major hurdles standing in the way of passing a supplemental budget — a chore lawmakers have struggled with through one special session in December, the regular 90-day legislative session and just about all of the current special session.

The pension reform provision had long been a sticking point for coalition members who insisted it be passed before the Legislature took up the subject of a supplemental budget. But with lawmakers scrambling to adjourn the current 30-day special session by its deadline at midnight tonight, a compromise was worked out.

Under the revised bill, state workers who retire before the age of 62 are already penalized with lower pension benefits.

Under the new bill, those penalties will increase to as high as a 50 percent reduction for workers retiring at the age of 55.
The changes only apply to workers hired starting in May 2013.

The plan isprojected to save the state an estimated $1.3 billion over 25 years.

Washington state lawmakers have reportedly agreed on a capital budget bill that would spend $1.1 million on a long list of projects around the state even as the Legislature struggles to pay for its current spending plans.

Washington State lawmakers, despite having not yet reached agreement on a supplemental budget needed to fill an anticipated $1.6 billion gap between spending plans and expected revenues, have reportedly agreed in principle on a capital budget that would spend $1.1 billion on a statewide wish list of projects.

The plan, pushed by Sen. Derek Kilmer (D-Gig Harbor) and Rep. Hans Dunshee (D-Snohomish), would not be passed until after the operating budget, however, and no operating budget deal has yet been struck.

Sen. Linda Evans Parlette, a Wenatchee Republican, said it makes sense to spend more on projects now, while the economy is struggling and costs are low.

Among the highlights in the latest versions of Senate Bill 5127 (the new bonds bill) and Senate Bill 6074 (the traditional capital budget bill):

• $476 million in funds distributed by the Department of Commerce that go for public works projects covering the gamut: drinking water, storm water and sewer projects; energy efficiency grants; community and economic revitalization projects; and housing projects for people with disabilities, mental illnesses or who are homeless.
• $10 million from the Office of Financial Management for Chehalis River Basin flood relief work.
• $50 million in human services projects that include new or restated appropriations of $3 million for renovating cottages at Rainier School in Buckley, $45.6 million for a Walla Walla nursing facility, and $8.5 million in drinking water projects.
• $233.3 million for natural resources projects that also run the gamut: storm water control and flood mitigation; just over $9 million for state parks shelters, concessions, cabins, yurts and other work; fish hatchery improvements; Puget Sound habitat improvements; and removal of forest pest and fire hazards.
• $321.4 million for higher education including. Big outlays include $208 million for community colleges such as the $39.1 million earmarked for the health careers center at Tacoma Community College; plus $38.9 million for WSU’s Riverpoint biomedical and health sciences project and high-technology equipment; a new allocation for phase 3 of the University of Washington Bothell Campus.
• $27 million for other education projects including $21.6 million for skills centers – with $4.8 million for the Pierce County Skills Center, and $5.9 million for state heritage grants.
• $7 million – Tacoma/Puyallup River bridge replacement
• $5 million – Port of Tacoma/South lead rail
• $5 million – University of Washington – Tacoma, soil remediation and development for future project (total of two appropriations)
• $3.6 million – UW-Tacoma and WSU-Pierce for a clean water initiative
• $998,000 for TransAlta industrial park infrastructure near Centralia
• $4 million for Satsop wastewater improvements
• $487,000 – Centralia downtown rain garden revitalization project
• $1 million – Lake Sammamish State Park concession and facilities and $1 million for culverts projects in state parks
• $2 million – Replace water mains with asbestos in Gig Harbor
• $7.9 million – Olympia/LOTT Clean Water Alliance for a sedimentation-basin project
• $1.4 million – Capitol/Enterprise Services is given funds to continue exterior repairs on the stonework of the Capitol dome, including cleaning. –$3 million – Puget SoundCorps’ aquatic enhancements
• $1.5 million – Quixote Village homeless encampment in Olympia
• $4.5 million – Natural Resources Building roof replacement and exterior foam material repairs (total of two appropriations) in Olympia
• $750,000 – County courthouse repairs, including $150,000 earmarked for the Mason County Courthouse in Shelton
• $778,000 – To expand facilities for Safeplace in Olympia, which provides shelter to battered women and related services
• $75,000 – Town of Wilkeson for historic heritage project

Washington state lawmakers concluded what Gov. Christine Gregoire termed a “rollercoaster day” on Monday with no budget deal and dwindling hopes of reaching one before the current special session is scheduled to conclude at midnight tonight.

“I’m not giving up,” Gregoire said at a hastily arranged late-night press conference. “Even if you were to say, ‘Just one more day,’ everything goes back to square one. Every bill not headed to my desk goes back the original house and we start all over again. That is not healthy.”

Republican and Democratic leaders met with Gregoire for 11 hours in a marathon negotiating session on Monday, during which the governor says she introduced a whole new budget proposal at around 12:30 p.m.

Washington state lawmakers worked late into the night on Monday to reach a budget agreement, but the two sides are still far apart with one day remaining in the current special session.

“I put before them an entire package,” she said. “We’re working through every single aspect of it. If we come to an agreement in the morning, it will be on the entire package, from reform to revenue, from capital to operating — all of it.”

Gregoire said she could not disclose any details of the proposal, but she believes negotiations were productive.

As had been true since the end of the regular legislative session in March, the sticking point is a package of governmental reforms without which Senate Republicans and three moderate Democrats — amounting to a one-vote majority in the body — will not even agree to consider a budget.

Those reforms include changes to health insurance benefits for K-12 employees, ending the early retirment option for new state workers and a four-year balanced budget requirement.

The lawmakers will be back at work this morning, Gregoire said, and she remains hopeful and deal can still be hammered out. But there is a significant amount of work to be done in the final hours  since there must be an agreement on several remaining reform items as well as the budget — all of which must be passed concurrently by both the House and the Senate,

““Nobody will convince me to talk about a special session until I have to,” Gregoire said, “and that’s at 12:01 tomorrow night.”

Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown, left, offered to cast a vote for Minority Leader Mike Hewitt, right, who underwent cancer surgery this week. Republicans declined, however, and were able to adjourn the Senate until Monday.

The Washington State Senate on Saturday afternoon adjourned for the weekend after approving two of the budget reform measures a coalition of Republicans and moderate Democrats are insisting on as a condition of passing a state budget but deadlocking on a third.

With the current special session scheduled to end on Tuesday, today’s action virtually assures no budget agreement will be worked out by both houses in time to avert a second special session.

“It’s not fair,” Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown (D-Spokane) said of a motion to defer until Monday consideration of a bill that would drop the early retirement option for new state employees.

“We’ve been told we must do certain things before we can vote on a budget,” she said. “Now we’re being told we can’t vote on those things.”

Brown speculated Republicans might not have the necessary votes to approve their reform package, but Sen. Joe Zarelli (R-Ridgefield) said the blame rests with Democrats who refused to negotiate until the very last minute.

“We’re not dragging our feet,” he said. “What’s happening here is the result of time and space.”

Zarelli said his caucus made a conscious decision not to employ the same tactics they did in the final week of the regular session in March, when Republicans persuaded three moderate Democrats to break ranks and approve a Republican-backed measure that required systemic reforms rather than fund transfers and accounting gimmicks to balance the budget.

Employing a seldom-used procedural maneuver known as the Ninth Order, the bipartisan coalition was able to bring its budget directly to the floor without first having it passed in committee.

Enraged Democrats, the Republicans say, responded by refusing to engage in serious negotiations on the reform measures until the past few days.

“We’ve worked in extreme good faith,” Zarelli said, “but we don’t have the option of bringing legislation to the floor when we want to without using the same method we did before, and there was a clear decision on our part we didn’t want to go down that road again.”

Zarelli said his members resented being forced to stay over Easter weekend. He also noted that Medina Sen. Rodney Tom, one of three Democrats siding with Republicans in the budget impasse, was absent from the floor today, as was Senate Minority Leader Mike Hewitt (R-Walla Walla), who underwent cancer surgery earlier in the week.

Brown, meanwhile, believes Republicans want to prolong the standoff and force a second special special session so they can accuse Democrats, who maintain majorities in both houses and hold the governor’s office, of a lack of leadership.

“I’ve read the websites that say Lisa Brown was able to get a gay marriage bill passed but she can’t pass a budget,” Brown said. “My response is — get over it. It’s time to move on.”

The two measures approved on Saturday would:

• require the office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction to establish inter-agency agreements with the state Health Care Authority, the office of the Insurance Commissioner, and the Office of Financial Management to provide a system allowing for voluntary enrollment in a new statewide K-12 employees’ health benefits pool; and,
• require the Legislature to pass a four-year balanced budget instead of simply one biennium.

Democrat-sponsored amendments that would dilute the bills were defeated in both cases.

The Senate is scheduled to resume floor debate at 10:30 Monday morning.

Rep. Charles Ross says he hoping the Democratic budget passed yesterday by the House of Representatives will magically morph into something more resembling the Republican version passed last month by the Senate.

Washington state’s House of Representatives on Thursday approved a Democrat-sponsored budget proposal its detractors call unsustainable and even its prime sponsor concedes has little chance of success in the more evenly split Senate.

The measure, officially Engrossed Substitute House Bill 2127, was approved on the 24th day of the current special session by a 54-43 margin with no Republicans in support and Democrats Deborah Eddy (Kirkland) and Mark Miloscia (Federal Way) voting against.

Rep. Bill Hinkle (R- Cle Elum), who is retiring after this session, did not vote.

Supporters hailed the fact that the proposal made no cuts to education and abandoned the idea of delaying by one day a $330 million payment to local school districts that would push the expenditure off into next year’s budget.

“This is a budget that’s responsible,” said Majority Leader Pat Sullivan (D-Covington). “It’s a budget that’s sustainable. It’s a budget that I know I can go back to my PTAs and say we made education our highest priority. This a budget that lets me go home and tell my constituents we saved our safety net to the greatest degree possible in very, very serious economic times.”

House Ways and Means Committee Chair Ross Hunter (D-Medina), who largely authored the bill, admitted a day earlier it stood little chance of approval in the Senate, where Republicans joined forces with three moderate Democrats in the waning days of the regular legislative to pass a substantially different budget.

The bipartisan Senate coalition has thus far held firm, forcing lawmakers into the current special session and threatening to make another necessary if a compromise can’t be worked out by next Tuesday.

“The budget before us is the work we need to do, particularly in supplemental budget years,” Hunter said. “It’s important that we complete our procedural work in order to have a budget that we can continue to negotiate with the Senate on. This one is our current offer.”

“I would agree this budget does some things to improve the last budget you passed (during the regular session),” said Rep. Gary Alexander (R-Olympia). “Mainly we have an alternative to the very irresponsible shift in education funding for the next biennium.

“But this budget is not sustainable,” he said. “It’s not sustainable in its current form without the reform measures we’ve been negotiating in good faith on. I believe it doesn’t benefit but actually detracts from the negotiation process we’ve been trying to get together and resolve.”

“At the end of the day, I just don’t think this is the budget the citizens of Washington will be asked to live under,” agreed Rep. Charles Ross (R-Naches). “Deep inside this budget, there are some very scary details that we are still gravely concerned about.”

Mostly, he said, the budget still relies on short-term fixes and one-time money rather than making a major overhaul in state government operations.
“The citizens of Washington have been looking to us for a couple of things,” Ross said, “including major reforms to the way we do government. How are we going to control  costs as we move forward? How we manage our employees and our programs? Are we doing everything we can to squeeze every amount of service out of every dollar that we take from taxpayers?

“I’m hoping,” Ross said, “that this budget will somehow change magically and become something closer to what the Senate has put out and their calls for major structural reforms.”

The Senate is scheduled to meet this morning, but as of yesterday leaders of both parties agreed there had been little progress recently and no hope of a budget deal on the near horizon.