Artist's conception of light rail on the I-90 Bridge -- assuming a lawsuit being appealed to the State Supreme Court by the Eastside Transportation Association doesn't derail the project.

Opponents of a plan to allow Sound Transit use of the center two lanes on the Interstate 90 Bridge in order to extend light rail from Seattle to Bellevue are planning to take their case back to the state’s highest court.

Representatives from the Eastside Transportation Association, including former State Sen. Jim Horn and Bellevue developer Kemper Freeman, announced on Tuesday they will appeal a Kittitas County Superior Court ruling that in March dismissed the group’s lawsuit, which named Gov. Gregoire, Department of Transportation Secretary Paula Hammond and Sound Transit as defendants.

The case dates back to 2009 and was originally heard by the Supreme Court in September 2010, but the justices ruled in April 2011 the plaintiffs could not prevent the Washington State Department of Transportation from transferring the lanes before the fact.

Kemper Freeman

Sound Transit plans to connect Seattle’s Central Link with Bellevue and the Eastside’s future East Link by building light rail line along Interstate 90 where the carpool lanes currently are.

Sound Transit hopes to start construction of East Link in 2015 or 2016 and launch passenger service in 2023.

In its effort to thwart the project, the ETA argued that, “any transfer of the lanes” from an original plan for the I-90 bridge, one that did not include light rail at the time as it predated Sound Transit 2, “would essentially be an unlawful diversion of motor vehicle fund money” and that the state is prohibited “from entering into ‘any agreement’ with Sound Transit for use of the two center lanes of I-90 for high-capacity light rail.”

The Supreme Court rejected the first argument but left open the possibility of a future lawsuit.

ETA responded by filing a similar action last fall, only to see it thrown out by Kittitas County Judge Michael Cooper, who declared that the East Link light rail project, approved by voters in 2008, conforms to plans and agreements that have been in place since before the bridge was built.

ETA’s appeal has not yet been officially filed with the State Supreme Court, which could still decide to hear it.

Senate Minority Leader Lisa Brown hasn't said what she plans to do next, but insists she won't be running for office in the immediate future.

Washington State Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown (D-Spokane), following a spring that saw her party lose a bruising floor fight during which minority Republicans joined with a handful of Democratic defectors to defeat her preferred budget, has decided not to seek re-election this fall.

Brown, 55, announced on Thursday that after 20 years in the Legislature, she intends to retain  her part-time teaching position at Gonzaga University in Spokane, but otherwise is going to “wait and see what comes along.”

For the immediate future, she said, her plans do not include running for another political office.

“It wasn’t something I was planning to do, it was just one of those epiphanies,” she told The Associated Press. “It just felt like the right time, while I can still be open to other challenges.”

Brown has served as Senate majority leader for eight years, and before that she was minority leader for two years. Prior to that, she served in the House.

Democrats currently hold a 27-22 advantage in the Senate, but this year, three disgruntled Democrats voted with Republicans on a key budget decision late in the regular legislative session, infuriating Brown and her fellow Democratic leaders.

Brown, who won her seat four years ago with 75 percent of the vote, was slated to face off against Spokane councilwoman Nancy McLaughlin in this fall’s election. Her announcement leaves Democrats scrambling to find a replacement with the filing period set to open on May 14.

Brown’s official statement is reprinted below:

I have decided not to seek re-election to the 3rd district Senate seat this fall. Returning home two weeks ago, I began taking stock of my twenty years in the Legislature, reflecting on what I have been able to achieve with the help of colleagues and supporters. I decided that, though it is still immensely gratifying to serve Spokane and the state of Washington in this capacity, I am ready for new challenges.

During my tenure in the Legislature we have created in Spokane a health sciences education and research campus, which will be a centerpiece of our regional economy and will educate thousands of pharmacists, nurses, dentists, doctors, and other health professionals. The building that will house the University of Washington medical school and the Washington State University pharmacy received its final funding in this year’s capital budget.
I have also championed the clean-up and protection of the Spokane river, Spokane’s aerospace cluster, our film and video industry, and spearheaded the funding of the Fox Theater, the MAC, the refurbished YMCA/YWCA facilities, and numerous non-profits in Spokane, such as Crosswalk, the Northwest Autism Center and Sally’s House.

At the state level, I am most proud of my work to create mental health parity legislation, and my work on the state budget to enhance childcare and healthcare for working families. I am equally proud of my efforts to protect the state’s partnership with numerous non-profits who serve vulnerable people across the spectrum: abused and neglected children, the elderly, homeless people, and people with disabilities, and of our fourteen year fight to pass a simple majority plan for school levies.

Given the challenges of the recession and the reductions in the alternate budget proposed by the Senate Republicans, I am particularly pleased with this year’s final budget, which protected not only vital human service programs, but also made no further reductions to K-12 education or higher education.

I have been involved in the promotion of women’s rights and civil rights throughout my life and legislative career. This year’s path-breaking marriage equality and human-trafficking laws are two examples of the kind of legislation that originally motivated me to run for office. Serving as Ways and Means chair and then as the leader of my caucus for ten years has given me a tremendous opportunity to be deeply involved in all the major public policy issues facing our state and to work with talented elected officials and advocates.

I would like to thank Gov. Chris Gregoire and Speaker Frank Chopp for their leadership and for the productive relationship we have enjoyed for eight years. In particular, I appreciate the governor’s unwavering commitment to the economic future of Spokane and I want to thank the speaker for his dedication to the most vulnerable people in our state.

I will miss the incredibly dedicated staff of the state Senate and many of my colleagues in both chambers and on both sides of the aisle. In particular, I appreciated working with Sen. Jim Hargrove on mental health and human service funding, Sen. Ed Murray on marriage equality and the budget, Sens. Tracey Eide and Rosemary McAuliffe on simple majority, Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles on gender equity, Sen. Derek Kilmer on economic development initiatives, Sen. Joe Zarelli on the Rainy Day fund constitutional amendment, Rep. Ruth Kagi on childcare and early learning, and my seatmates Timm Ormsby and Andy Billig on numerous Spokane initiatives.

Senate Democrats are well-positioned to continue to lead the state. I look forward to watching the careers of our seasoned members as well as our emerging leaders.

The people of Spokane have given me the tremendous honor of representing and serving them for 20 years.

My son, Lucas, and many dear friends have accompanied me and supported me on this journey. I am immensely grateful to all of them.

The fundamental problem with the DOE's climate change report, according to at least one member of the House Environment Committee, is that it assumes global warming is an established fact when the science is still unsettled.

The Washington State Department of Ecology’s newly released climate change strategy, according to at least one outspoken critic, amounts to little more than a thinly veiled attempt to hinder development at a time when the state needs to be doing everything possible to promote private-sector business and jobs.

“This is yet another obstacle in the way of economic development,” said Rep. David Taylor (R-Moxee), who serves on the House Environmental Committee. “The last thing we need right now is legislation that addresses something that isn’t a problem in the first place by using junk science and has the effect of depressing our economy.”

DOE released its Integrated Climate Change Response Strategy in April, noting that “Washington is experiencing changing climate conditions that bring significant risks to human health, our forests, agriculture, freshwater supplies, coastlines and other resources that are vital to our economy, environment and quality of life.”

Rep. David Taylor

Taylor said he believes the report is the product of people suspicious of all development and an attempt to circumvent the state’s current moratorium on administrative rules changes.

Arguing that, ““Giving small businesses and local governments more time to devote their full attention to creating jobs and helping communities will help support the economy,” Gov. Christine Gregoire last October extended Washington’s one-year ban on non-critical rule making.

As a result of the previous year’s moratorium, cabinet agencies put 436 rules – about half of what was proposed – on hold.

The moratorium directs state agencies to continue to suspend new rule development and adoption — but not at the expense of public health, safety and welfare.

Taylor believes DOE is using that loophole to codify climate change doctrine into such state laws as the Shoreline Management Act and the Growth Management Act.

“It’s just another example of state agencies front-loading the process to get around the rule-writing moratorium,” he said. “According to DOE, they’re not updating the rules; they’re updating the background information. But if you change the underlying assumptions, you have to change the outcome, too.”

Taylor, who Tweeted two weeks ago that the DOE report was a “pile of garbage,” said lawmakers had agreed during the past session on the need to streamline the State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA) checklist to make obtaining a development permit less confusing.

“There’s a lot of needless duplication in the process,” he said. “The idea was, if something is dealt with in permitting, why address it again in SEPA?”

The new DOE report, however, violates the spirit of the bipartisan agreement, Taylor said.

“I would think if DOE staff can find the time to come and testify on all sorts of environmental bills, they also have the time to find out whether their opinions are consistent with legislative intent,” he said. “And this isn’t.”

Stockholders of Washington corporations that decide to pursue a social agenda more aggressively than profits will no longer be able to sue the company directors under a new law passed by the Legislature this spring.

Business people who also dabble in social activism were granted legal cover during the just-concluded Washington state legislative session in the form of a bill that would protect “social-purpose corporations” from lawsuits filed by investors more concerned with making money than advancing a personal agenda.

And vice versa.

Passed by both houses of the Democrat-controlled state Legislature and signed into law by Democratic Gov. Christine Gregoire, the new law allows companies as of June to charter themselves as social-purpose corporations (SPCs) with the stated objective of pursuing social goals in addition to profits.

And having done so, SPC corporate officers cannot be sued by stockholders more interested in seeing a financial return on their investment than they are, for example, in saving the whales.

Conversely, an SPC’s stockholders now have a tool with which to challenge their company’s directors if they appear more concerned with making money than in the social goals investors were told they embraced.

“There is a growing community of socially responsible, sustainable businesses that want to be able to safely pursue the profit motive, like they historically have done, but also want to be able to pursue specified environmental or social purposes,” John Reed, a lobbyist with the Washington State Bar Association, told members of the Senate Judiciary Committee in January. “They want to be able to do that in a way that is flexible but in a manner that’s transparent to shareholders.”

Under the law, new companies have the option of organizing as an SPC, and an existing company can re-charter as an SPC with the approval of two-thirds of its shareholders.

Exactly what social purpose (or purposes) the company then decides to pursue are more or less its own affair, but the law broadly suggests goals that are “intended to promote positive short-term or long-term effects of, or minimize adverse short-term or long-term effects of, the corporation’s activities upon any or all of (1) the corporation’s employees, suppliers or customers; (2) the local, state, national or world community; or (3) the environment.”

“One of the hallmarks of these corporations,” Reed explained, “is that it’s the shareholders who decide what the social purpose is to be when they set it up.”

Several states, including New Jersey, Vermont, Maryland, Virginia, California and Hawaii, have statutes  allowing for the creation of “benefit corporations.”

Washington’s law is similar, but more flexible.

“A benefit corporation is one of the models that would fit under our law,” Reed said, “but others would, too.”

As written, Washington’s social-purpose corporations would be required to notify prospective investors that their goals would not be limited to earning a profit. Also, a copy of its annual report must be posted on the company’s website to show how it fulfilled its social aims.

“It’s important that the company actually live up to its billing,” said Sen. Adam Kline (D-Seattle). “We don’t want a company claiming to be a social service corporation for marketing purposes when it’s really driven by profits.”

At least one prominent critic of the new corporate model, however, questions the motives of those promoting it.

“My nature is to be leery of things I don’t understand,” said Sen. Mike Carrell (R-Lakewood), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee who voted against the bill. “And in this case I don’t understand why anyone would need or want something like this.”

Carrell said business managers were already free to divert corporate assets into social issues with the approval of their stockholders.

“This does nothing but blend and blur the distinction between for-profit and nonprofit businesses,” he said. “Something just smells bad about it.”

Carrell speculated that since nonprofit corporations are not allowed to contribute money to political candidates, this could simply be a way to generate campaign dollars and launder them through for-profit corporations.

“I don’t know exactly what’s going on,” he said, “but the one thing I’m sure of is that they’re not doing it for the reasons they say they are.”

Drafters of the new law, a committee of lawyers within the Washington State Bar Association, reportedly spent nearly two years to working to create a structure that would serve the needs of various enterprises including, the owner-managed micro-enterprise; the venture-funded start-up; the late-stage,  privately held company; the wholly owned subsidiary of a public company; and, the publicly traded enterprise.

“We do need a new business model in Washington state that addresses the needs of investors who are trying to create businesses that do more than just maximize profits,” said Stephanie Ryan, development director for B Lab, a Seattle-based nonprofit that recruits and promotes benefit corporations . “(The law) does not require corporations to pursue social or environmental concerns.  It simply gives businesses permission to consider these ideas if they choose to.”

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 are not only unlikely to reach agreement on a supplemental budget in time to a avert another special session, but the two sides are even farther apart now than before Democrats in the House of Representatives released their latest proposal on Wednesday morning.

Members of a bipartisan coalition from the Senate held a press conference of their own shortly after the Democratic event and insisted they will not back down from their demand that any budget deal must be accompanied by significant reforms in the way state government does business.

Thus far, they said, Democrats in both houses have refused to budge on most of the reform bills.
“It just boggles my mind that we always go to this ‘Washington-lite’ model, where we try to do the minimal amount of change possible,” said Sen. Rodney Tom (D-Medina), one of three members of the self-styled “Roadkill Caucus” that broke ranks with Democrats and voted to pass a Republican-backed budget on the floor of the Senate a week before the end of the regular session in mid-March.

“We can’t just run out and approve title-only bills and claim we’ve reformed government knowing full well we haven’t,” he said.

“In the long term, we think you have to put in place reforms that change our expenditure trajectory to align with our actual revenue,” added fellow maverick  Jim Kastama (D-Puyallup). “Five years from now, we’re facing a $2 to $3 billion shortfall every single year. Bottom line, (we want) a balanced budget with a decent, reasonable reserve.
“We want a balanced budget as of Jan. 1 of next year, along with some structural reforms,” he said. “We don’t think that’s asking too much.”

The minority party’s lead budget writer, Sen. Joe Zarelli (R-Ridgefield), said the Republicans have already made substantial compromises on the budget passed by the Senate last month, including dropping plans to skip a $230 million pension payment to retired state employees.

“I can tell you we’ve moved significantly on some of these reform measures,” he said. “But we’re not going to fold our tent and go home. We’ve tried in earnest to find a common ground and we’ve done more than our share in all these areas.”

“I’m not hearing anyone at home tell me to do less,” Tom added. “The only ones saying do less are the special interests here in Olympia. And the last time I looked, they’re not the ones who put me in office.”

Zarelli said that with Democrats continuing to drag their feet on the question of reforms, what discussions have taken place in the first 24 days of the current 30-day extended legislative session haven’t dealt with the substance of the budget at all.

“At this point,” he said, “after two weeks of being stuck in the weeds making baby steps on these reform bills and never really talking about the budget, and then you look at what they sent out, which takes us farther apart than it brings us together, I don’t see it as a good-faith effort.
“The longer we stay here,” Zarelli said, “the less sustainable the budgets they put out become.”

The Democrat-dominated House Ways and Means Committee held public hearings on a long list of budget-related bills on Wednesday afternoon, and Chairman Rep. Ross Hunter (D-Medina) said at the time he expects a floor vote on most of them Thursday.

Sen. Doug Ericksen (R-Ferndale), however, said Speaker of the House Frank Chopp continues to keep GOP-backed reform bills from coming a vote in the House — perhaps knowing they have enough suport to pass.

Once those reforms are addressed, leaders of the bipartisan Senate coalition say a budget deal could come together quickly. But until that happens, they vow there will be no deal at all — even if it means convening yet another special session after this one ends next Tuesday.

“If we were worried about the clock,” Zarelli said, “I guess we should have just folded our tent in the waning days of the regular session. But that’s not what it’s about.”

“We’re like a broken record,” added Sen. Linda Evans Parlette. “We need long-term structural reforms and we need to spend only as much revenue as we have coming in. It’s as simple as that.”