While this year's legislative session in Olympia is supposedly all about the budget, Republican Attorney General Rob McKenna is rolling out a series of policy bills.

We've already written about his proposal to toughen domestic violence laws (the idea is to up the ante by incarcerating repeat offenders—a proposal that's actually getting mixed reviews from domestic violence groups.)

He's also proposing tougher laws on child pornography by redefining possession of child porn to include people who deliberately view it online; protecting senior citizens from scams; enacting tougher lemon laws on used car sales (better disclosure); and (McKenna's obsession) strengthening public records laws. The Seattle Times wrote about that one—which would create an agency to deal with contested public records requests, so that citizens aren't forced to pay expensive legal fees to get public records.

Most of Republican McKenna's request bills are being sponsored by Democratic legislators—Sen. James Hargrove (D-24) and Rep. Jim Moeller (D-49) are sponsoring the senior citizen bills; Sen. Adam Kline (D-37) and Rep. Al O'Brien (D-1) are sponsoring the child porn bills; Democratic House Majority Leader Rep. Lynn Kessler (D-24) is sponsoring the open records act legislation; Rep. Alex Wood (D-3) is sponsoring the lemon law fix; and while two Republicans—Rep. Kirk Pearson (R-39) and Sen. Dale Brandland (R-42) are the leads on the domestic violence bill, Seattle Democratic Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles (D-36) is a driving force on the bill.

McKenna's most controversial proposal—because its likely to rile up local governments, developers, and  environmentalists —are a series of "eminent domain" bills. McKenna thinks local governments have too much discretion to declare that property is blighted—for reasons like inappropriate use of land or crime—and green light redevelopment.

Along with conservatives like Republican Rep. Jay Rodne (R-5), McKenna has wisely lined up Democrats to sponsor these bills. Eminent Domain is a hot button issue that usually pits conservative property rights groups against greens who want to jump start "smart growth" communities with mixed income, green development projects. Rep. Larry Springer (D-45) and Sen. Rosa Franklin (D-29) are sponsoring eminent domain bills for McKenna and his office is hyping the fact that Sen. Franklin is speaking at a press conference next week to hype the bills.