We know a lot of you are still hanging on our Eve Harrington Awards. And we'll get to those one of these days.

But for now, we're presenting our 2010 legislative session acCOLAdes. We'll be rolling them out over the next week, giving props to the legislators and lobbyists who made their mark this session.

First up, the acCOLAde for 2010's Best Lobbyist.

The Washington Bankers Association is the clear winner. If there was any year legislators could have evened the economic playing field by reining in loopholes for big banks and protecting consumers, 2010 (with populist outrage against banks at a fever pitch) was the year to do it.



Nope.

Early in the session, as a sign of things to come, a bill to protect recently unemployed homeowners from foreclosure got squashed by the bank lobby. Next, bank lobbyists killed a bill to fund green retrofits of homes. (Banks didn't like bill because—despite the fact that it would have increased property values, a good thing for banks—it would have allowed property owners to prioritize retroift payments over mortgage payments.)

Those early, and arguably minor wins, were merely harbingers for WBA's most impressive win of all—stopping the legislature from repealing a $50 million tax exemption for interest earned—over $100 million—on mortgage loans.

Given that the legislature was in a prolonged fix to find revenue and stave off a $2.8 billion budget shortfall—they settled on sin taxes that hit consumers like soda taxes, beer taxes, candy taxes, and cigarette taxes—the failure to also collect from big out-of-state banks is a testament to the power of the banking lobby.  (The loophole was originally designed for, get this, Washington Mutual.)

The banks did take one hit. The legislature disallowed banks from counting mortgage fees as part of the non-taxable cash in the big mortgage interest tax shelter. Although, the banks are now getting help from Tim Eyman, who is working to repeal that one.

We've got three runner-ups:

2. The oil industry was able to kill a proposal to raise the hazardous substance act, which hasn't been raised in over 20 years.

3. The Washington Education Association was able to weaken teacher evaluation provisions in the education reform bill.

4. There is one do-gooder on the list: Laurie Lippold of the Children's Home Society. All the social service advocates were fighting for funds in this year's tight budget, and got some of what they were asking for, like restoring partial funding for senior home care or General Assistance for the Unemployable. Lippold's heavy lift—securing all $30 million in childcare dollars for the working poor.