This Washington
Transit Funding Bill Queued Up for Negotiations
A bill we've been following all session that gives King County the ability to charge a "congestion fee" (a $20 vehicle license tax) to help stave off drastic Metro cuts (200,000 hours in cuts), has come down to a possible conference donnybrook between the house and senate. After the senate rejected a house amendment on Friday, and appointed a trio of senators to negotiate with the house, the bill's senate sponsor tells PubliCola he expects the house to appoint their own negotiating team tomorrow.
The divide? The house amended the senate bill by taking out a provision (passed on the senate floor) requiring a two-thirds vote of the King County Council (as opposed to a simple majority) to approve the fee. State Rep. Reuven Carlyle (D-36, Queen Anne) led the fight to take out the two-thirds provision. Carlyle saw the requirement as a concession to the Tim Eyman two-thirds standard for raising taxes, which he thinks sets the wrong precedent (applying the standard, which the state legislature must follow under Eyman's Initiative 1053, to local governments as well).
This amendment has been a poison pill for the house all along. Rep. Mike Armstrong (R-12, Wenatchee), the ranking Republican on the house transportation committee, tried and failed to put the two-thirds requirement in the original house bill, but the transportation committee shot him down.
[pullquote]Politics is the art of the possible," Sen. White says. "So rather than have the bill die, I have been trying feverishly to keep it alive, and find compromises to provide funding for Metro."[/pullquote]
The senate has chosen three members of the transportation committee, Sens. Mary Margaret Haugen (D-10, Camano), chair of the committee, Curtis King (R-14, Yakima), the ranking Republican, and Scott White (D-46, N. Seattle), the sponsor, as its negotiators. The house, which hasn't officially agreed to conference yet, has not named their crew; Rep. Carlyle, though, confirms that he is not in the running.
Rep. Marko Liias (D-32, Edmonds), who sponsored the house version before the senate version took over, has been mentioned as someone who would be on the potential house conference team. We have a call in to Liias.
We did hear from Sen. White. Asked his position on the house's purist no two-thirds stance, White said: "As you may know, the bill that I introduced was much more robust than where we're at now." In addition to including Snohomish and Pierce Counties along with King, White's version "allowed a fee of up to $30, and it was able to be enacted by a simple majority. But politics is the art of the possible," he explained, "so rather than have the bill die, I have been trying feverishly to keep it alive, and find compromises to provide funding for Metro." The bill would raise $67 million.
Rep. Carlyle will not be in on the conference, but tells PubliCola he's ready to compromise. "We need to get to 'yes'," he says, "to find a solution to fund transit and stick to basic principles of democracy," referring to Eyman's (potentially prohibitive) two-thirds requirement.
The divide? The house amended the senate bill by taking out a provision (passed on the senate floor) requiring a two-thirds vote of the King County Council (as opposed to a simple majority) to approve the fee. State Rep. Reuven Carlyle (D-36, Queen Anne) led the fight to take out the two-thirds provision. Carlyle saw the requirement as a concession to the Tim Eyman two-thirds standard for raising taxes, which he thinks sets the wrong precedent (applying the standard, which the state legislature must follow under Eyman's Initiative 1053, to local governments as well).
This amendment has been a poison pill for the house all along. Rep. Mike Armstrong (R-12, Wenatchee), the ranking Republican on the house transportation committee, tried and failed to put the two-thirds requirement in the original house bill, but the transportation committee shot him down.
[pullquote]Politics is the art of the possible," Sen. White says. "So rather than have the bill die, I have been trying feverishly to keep it alive, and find compromises to provide funding for Metro."[/pullquote]
The senate has chosen three members of the transportation committee, Sens. Mary Margaret Haugen (D-10, Camano), chair of the committee, Curtis King (R-14, Yakima), the ranking Republican, and Scott White (D-46, N. Seattle), the sponsor, as its negotiators. The house, which hasn't officially agreed to conference yet, has not named their crew; Rep. Carlyle, though, confirms that he is not in the running.
Rep. Marko Liias (D-32, Edmonds), who sponsored the house version before the senate version took over, has been mentioned as someone who would be on the potential house conference team. We have a call in to Liias.
We did hear from Sen. White. Asked his position on the house's purist no two-thirds stance, White said: "As you may know, the bill that I introduced was much more robust than where we're at now." In addition to including Snohomish and Pierce Counties along with King, White's version "allowed a fee of up to $30, and it was able to be enacted by a simple majority. But politics is the art of the possible," he explained, "so rather than have the bill die, I have been trying feverishly to keep it alive, and find compromises to provide funding for Metro." The bill would raise $67 million.
Rep. Carlyle will not be in on the conference, but tells PubliCola he's ready to compromise. "We need to get to 'yes'," he says, "to find a solution to fund transit and stick to basic principles of democracy," referring to Eyman's (potentially prohibitive) two-thirds requirement.
