1. The legislature gets down to it today: At 1:30, the Joint Task Force on Education Funding will brief the house finance committee on finding the revenue necessary to fully fund basic K-12 education as mandated by the state Supreme Court's McCleary decision.

The Supreme Court still hasn't ruled on the constitutionality of the voter-approved statute requiring a two-thirds vote of the legislature to raise taxes, though, which certainly limits the discussion—and the legislators' options.

2. Speaking of school funding: your vote on renewing the Seattle Schools' operating and capital levies are due in the mail by the end of the day tomorrow, February 12.

PubliCola endorses yes on both measures. 

3. Seattle mayoral candidate Bruce Harrell was a no-show at Saturday's Seattle Neighborhood Coalition mayoral candidates forum.

The SNC is having all the candidates come in one at a time over the next few months. They started on Saturday with planned presentations from Mayor Mike McGinn, neighborhood activist Kate Martin, and council member Harrell. The disappointed crowd was told at the last minute that Harrell would not be there due to a family emergency.

4. A little more from that raucous anti-Seattle, anti-tunnel, state senate transportation committee meeting last week: Isn't it weird that everyone was blaming Seattle for the miscalculations and no one was blaming WSDOT?

Seriously, given how far off the numbers on tolling revenues are—it's gone from $400 million to $165 million—shouldn't legislators be a little nervous about relying on WSDOT's numbers when it comes to the waterfront tunnel megaproject?

5. Speaking of some weird stuff we forgot to mention last week...

Isn't it weird that ... The conservative Washington Policy Center objects to extending Medicaid benefits to those making up to 138 percent of the federal poverty level on the grounds that, according to a statement the group released last week, it will "crowd out low-wage workers" from receiving private insurance as small employers drop coverage?

The WPC, of course, wants to lower the state minimum wage, a policy that would do far more to harm low-wage workers than extending Medicaid benefits to people earning just over $30,000 for a family of four.