This Washington
Best of Olympia, Week #6
1. Contrarian Take of the Week
Everyone, including me , has been saying that the big supplemental budget compromise hits education harder than it hits social services. That's because a high-profile retroactive $25 million cut to K-4 class size funding and a $25 million cut to tuition aid in higher ed went through while two high-profile social service programs that had been targeted for elimination—the Disability Lifeline and the Basic Health Plan—were saved.
However, if you look at the actual numbers (and also recognize that ed funding starts out as a bigger piece of the overall budget to begin with—51.1 percent vs. 32.4 percent for health and human services) the numbers themselves show a harsher cut to services.
It's about $170 million in human services cuts to $90 million in education cuts.
2. Legislator of the Week
As the deadline approached to pass policy bills out of committee, Rep. Tina Orwall (D-33, Des Moines) gets an A+ for passing a substantive bill to protect homeowners from bank foreclosures. (Orwall got an assist from judiciary committee ranking Republican Rep. Jay Rodne R-5, North Bend, who used his Republican cred to work the banks.)
3. Smackdown of the Week
I wanted to give GOP house budget frontman Rep. Gary Alexander (R-20, Olympia) a tie with Orwall as legislator of the week for standing by his principles and not signing this week's supplemental budget deal. But my doctrinaire lefty colleague Erica C. Barnett wouldn't let me, pointing out what he was for: cutting stipends to people with disabilities.
However, he does get an award for slamming his GOP senate counterpart, Sen. Joe Zarelli (R-18, Ridgefield), who did sign the budget. Asked about Sen. Zarelli's decision to sign on, Alexander told PubliCola yesterday: “Joe figures if he’s a player now, he’ll get to be a player the next time [in the 2011-2013 budget talks].”
Ouch.
4. This week marked the deadline for policy bills in the state house to make it out of committee. And with that milestone, Rep. Joe Fitzgibbon (D-34, Burien, W. Seattle) is on track for rookie of the year honors. Both his vulnerable users' bill, which gets tough on drivers who kill or seriously injure bikers or pedestrians, and his bill to upgrade transportation planning standards, made the cut. (Ha. His bill to ban plastic bags didn't get too far, though.)
On top of that, he punctuated the week by being a serious presence in committee.
Not only did he play hardball with TransAlta execs at this week's hearing on his colleague Rep. Marko Liias' (D-21, Edmonds) bill to phase out the company's coal plant (earning him "bitchiest question" honors in my wrap up on that hearing), but he also voted against a developer giveaway in Snohomish county that would have, in his words, "set the wrong precedent" for the Growth Management Act.
Notable footnote on Fitzgibbon: In addition to living up to his campaign pledge to be an environmental all star, his commitment to the Gloria Steinem agenda is serious. The guy has made a point of signing on to every feminist bill in the mix this year: 1) the bill to protect victims of sex crimes from facing defendants in court; 2) the pregnancy center bill ; and 3) his Seattle freshman colleague Rep. David Frock's bill to put the legal burden on domestic violence abusers instead of victims, for example.)
And shoutout to freshman Frockt (D-46, N. Seattle) too for making the cut off on that DV bill, as, in fact, all the aforementioned bills did.
Everyone, including me , has been saying that the big supplemental budget compromise hits education harder than it hits social services. That's because a high-profile retroactive $25 million cut to K-4 class size funding and a $25 million cut to tuition aid in higher ed went through while two high-profile social service programs that had been targeted for elimination—the Disability Lifeline and the Basic Health Plan—were saved.
However, if you look at the actual numbers (and also recognize that ed funding starts out as a bigger piece of the overall budget to begin with—51.1 percent vs. 32.4 percent for health and human services) the numbers themselves show a harsher cut to services.
It's about $170 million in human services cuts to $90 million in education cuts.
2. Legislator of the Week
As the deadline approached to pass policy bills out of committee, Rep. Tina Orwall (D-33, Des Moines) gets an A+ for passing a substantive bill to protect homeowners from bank foreclosures. (Orwall got an assist from judiciary committee ranking Republican Rep. Jay Rodne R-5, North Bend, who used his Republican cred to work the banks.)
3. Smackdown of the Week
I wanted to give GOP house budget frontman Rep. Gary Alexander (R-20, Olympia) a tie with Orwall as legislator of the week for standing by his principles and not signing this week's supplemental budget deal. But my doctrinaire lefty colleague Erica C. Barnett wouldn't let me, pointing out what he was for: cutting stipends to people with disabilities.
However, he does get an award for slamming his GOP senate counterpart, Sen. Joe Zarelli (R-18, Ridgefield), who did sign the budget. Asked about Sen. Zarelli's decision to sign on, Alexander told PubliCola yesterday: “Joe figures if he’s a player now, he’ll get to be a player the next time [in the 2011-2013 budget talks].”
Ouch.
4. This week marked the deadline for policy bills in the state house to make it out of committee. And with that milestone, Rep. Joe Fitzgibbon (D-34, Burien, W. Seattle) is on track for rookie of the year honors. Both his vulnerable users' bill, which gets tough on drivers who kill or seriously injure bikers or pedestrians, and his bill to upgrade transportation planning standards, made the cut. (Ha. His bill to ban plastic bags didn't get too far, though.)
On top of that, he punctuated the week by being a serious presence in committee.
Not only did he play hardball with TransAlta execs at this week's hearing on his colleague Rep. Marko Liias' (D-21, Edmonds) bill to phase out the company's coal plant (earning him "bitchiest question" honors in my wrap up on that hearing), but he also voted against a developer giveaway in Snohomish county that would have, in his words, "set the wrong precedent" for the Growth Management Act.
Notable footnote on Fitzgibbon: In addition to living up to his campaign pledge to be an environmental all star, his commitment to the Gloria Steinem agenda is serious. The guy has made a point of signing on to every feminist bill in the mix this year: 1) the bill to protect victims of sex crimes from facing defendants in court; 2) the pregnancy center bill ; and 3) his Seattle freshman colleague Rep. David Frock's bill to put the legal burden on domestic violence abusers instead of victims, for example.)
And shoutout to freshman Frockt (D-46, N. Seattle) too for making the cut off on that DV bill, as, in fact, all the aforementioned bills did.
