The Legislature adjourned the 60-day, 2014
legislative session on time, Thursday, March 13. This means for the
first time since 2009 there will be no special session. You will recall,
last year we had three special sessions and lawmakers were in Olympia
until the end of June. Below is a brief overview of successes and
disappointments of the legislative session.
Supplemental operating budget
The
supplemental state operating budget
passed by the Legislature this year had some very positive pieces to
it. However, I opposed the budget this session because it left out some
tax incentives important to our region. If you recall, in November,
legislators were rushed back to Olympia and in a whirlwind special
session we were asked to vote on tax incentive legislation to keep
Boeing jobs in the Puget Sound region. Some legislators from Eastern
Washington reminded all legislators during the debate to remember this
during the upcoming session so we can do more to help the rest of our
state improve job creation and strengthen the economy.
Unfortunately,
there were tax incentive bills for a variety of issues, including
extending the tax incentive legislation to construct data centers, that
would have helped accomplish this, but the proposals were not included
in the final budget. The governor and House Democrats continually talk
about “one Washington” but that doesn’t seem to extend outside the I-5
corridor. The latest unemployment numbers recently came out. King County
has the lowest rate at 5.2 percent while the counties in the 12th
District are:
- Chelan: 8.8 percent
- Douglas: 9.0 percent
- Okanogan: 10.9 percent
- Grant: 11.5 percent
We had a great opportunity to improve the business climate for all of
Washington, not just the one Washington on the Westside of the
mountains.
Prime-sponsored legislation
I had a number of bills receive public hearings and pass thru
committees that brought attention to a variety of issues. We made
significant progress on major issues for our district. These include
defining independent contractors, property taxes and other bills related
to local wineries and small business. We completed work on two of these
important bills this session.
My bill to give county treasurers more flexibility in accepting
property tax payments has been signed by the governor. I introduced
House Bill 2309
because of the number of people I was hearing from about the lack of
flexibility of trying to pay their property taxes during difficult
times. A fellow legislator out of Spokane informed me his county
treasurer, Rob Chase, had similar concerns. We worked on drafting the
legislation and I was able to get it through the legislative process.
This legislation may benefit people who lose their jobs, have health
crises, live on retirement income or work seasonal jobs.
House Bill 2146
passed the Legislature unanimously and awaits the governor’s signature.
It modifies the appeal bond amount for appeals of penalties to the
Department of Labor and Industries (L&I). Unless you deal with this
agency on a regular basis this may not mean a great deal to you, but it
is a great example of the dysfunction we periodically encounter in our
agencies. I became aware that to appeal a $150 penalty with the
department you had to pay a $200 appeal bond. With small penalty levels
and a high appeal cost, people obviously did not appeal. This will give
people more reasonable access to appeal without encouraging frivolous
appeals. This will change the appeal amount to 10 percent of the penalty
amount, or $200, whichever is less, subject to a $100 minimum.
Session successes
House Bill 2789
is known as the “drone bill.” Given the National Security Agency (NSA)
recording phone calls and e-mails, this bill quickly became very
important this session. It places privacy protections around the use of
unmanned surveillance aircraft by state agencies. It protects our
privacy and constitutional rights as citizens. We are one of the first
in the nation to pass such legislation. It still allows law enforcement
to use surveillance aircraft in certain situations, such as search and
rescue missions and emergencies. However, it will not allow agencies to
observe your house or farm from the air without a warrant.
House Bill 2192
will promote economic development by improving the predictability and
efficiency of state agency permit decisions. This legislation is a good
transparency measure making information about permitting assistance and
timelines more readily available to the public.
House Bills 2261 and
2262
require the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) and the
Department of Ecology (DOE) to “show their work” by categorizing on
their websites the sources of scientific information relied upon in
support of significant agency actions. This makes state agencies
accountable for their actions and making their decision-making process
more transparent.
House Bill 2207 provides
that certain school districts which receive federal forest revenue will
no longer have their state funding allocation reduced by the amount of
federal forest revenue received.
Session disappointments
As I mentioned earlier, after the Legislature provided Boeing the tax
incentives they wanted, nothing was done this session for the rest of
the state. We had legislation to:
- re-enact the Rural County Tax Incentive Program (that would have helped up to 31 counties);
- extend the tax incentive for data centers constructed in our state; and
- extend the same tax incentives Boeing received to rotorcraft (i.e.
helicopters) because a company wanted to build helicopters in Southwest
Washington.
I was very surprised the budget didn’t include renewing the server
farm/data center tax incentive, especially with the amount of
construction, economic development and family-wage jobs we saw it
generate.
Other disappointments include:
- The lack of meaningful transportation reforms to ensure gas tax
dollars are maximized and WSDOT is held accountable (Bertha shutdown,
faulty 520 Bridge pontoons – including cost overruns, waste in the ferry
system); and
- Nothing to help people who have been negatively impacted by Obamacare (290,000 cancellation notices).
I-502 implementation
I was recently appointed as the ranking Republican on the
House Government Oversight and Accountability Committee (GOA).
This committee works on legislation related to alcohol, gambling and
now overseeing the implementation of the legalization of marijuana
initiative (I-502).
The citizens of
Washington passed the initiative and the Legislature is trying to
provide regulations and oversight to make it work. It has proven to be a
very difficult task since no other state has done this before. Even
Colorado is operating off a very different model than our voters
approved. The challenge for me is to ensure local money is included in
any implementation plan. Many cities and counties are struggling,
including right here in our 12th District.
Local governments are
concerned about oversight on marijuana grows and businesses in their
localities when no funding has been designated for them in the
initiative. Many have considered bans or moratoriums rather than risk
increased costs dealing with zoning, planning and enforcement.
Unfortunately, we were unable to reach an agreement before the session
adjourned.
Senate Bill 5887 would
have integrated the medical and recreational marijuana systems, and
made several changes related to the possession, growing and purchasing
of medical marijuana as well as provide local governments with some of
the tax money generated from the I-502 implementation.
We worked on this
issue up until the last hour, including a one-on-one meeting with Gov.
Jay Inslee. All the stakeholders agreed to keep working to ensure local
governments a share in this program.
