7.20.17
Suggested lead: Republican lawmakers packed up and
headed home from Olympia Thursday, leaving Washington without a bipartisan
construction budget for the first time in the state’s history. Dan Frizzell has
that story.
Wrap (2:08 total):
SULLIVAN: "We had hoped to pass a Hirst bill, along with a capital budget
that funds tens of thousands of jobs across the state, funds our schools, mental
health facilities, things that are really important to the future of the state.”
[:11]
House Majority Leader Pat Sullivan’s disappointment was evident as he talked
to reporters Thursday afternoon about the path to the final gavel of the 2017
Legislature after a 105-day regular session and a trio of 30-day special
sessions. Most of the last month saw
majority Senate Republicans boycotting negotiations on a capital budget that
would have pumped more than four billion dollars into the state’s economy.
GOP leaders refused to talk about that traditionally bipartisan
construction plan until Sullivan and his fellow Democrats agreed to an unrelated
bill dealing with the so-called Hirst decision.
That state Supreme Court ruling essentially made permitting new water
wells in some parts of the state much more difficult, and Republicans insisted
on a bill that would attempt to authorize what the justices had just outlawed.
Democrats favored a solution that they say would have prevented yet another
expensive court battle, but were rebuffed by the Senate. Sullivan, a Democrat
from Covington, hears the clock ticking.
SULLIVAN: "We had a proposal that would have allowed for a two-year
extension on people getting water certificates and guaranteed those permits for
landowners. That was rejected by the Senate Republicans, and as a result of
that, the Senate Republicans have said they will not pass a capital budget.”
[:17]
Estimates on job losses in private industry caused by the lack of a capital
budget range from 20 thousand to as many as three times that.
Sullivan said he’s also concerned that without the billion dollars of
K-12 construction included in the budget, the Legislature’s efforts to satisfy
the Supreme Court’s McCleary ruling will fall short, less than a month after
that problem had seemed to have been solved with the long-delayed passage of the
state’s operating budget. Now, with
the Legislature adjourned, possibly until next January, Sullivan says he still
hopes to renew talks with Senate Republicans next week, in an effort to find a
solution in time to save many if not all of those jobs, allow rural homeowners
to dig their wells, and sell the bonds that ultimately pay for the capital
budget. In Olympia, I’m Dan Frizzell.