Capitol reverses the vote - Money-pinched Legislature rejects voter-passed measures


BRAD SHANNON
THE OLYMPIAN

5/27/03

What's changing? Lawmakers have voted to change several voter-approved initiatives this year: - I-713, trapping ban: Lawmakers voted to repeal the trapping ban, but Gov. Gary Locke vetoed the measure. - I-790, creating firefighter pension board: Locke signed changes into law, fixing flaws in its drafting that could have forced higher pension payments by state and local governments. - I-773, raising tobacco taxes: Locke signed Senate Bill 6057 into law, redirecting revenue from the taxes to pay for existing slots in the Basic Health Plan rather than expanding the program. - I-728, reducing class size: The Senate approved Senate Bill 6058's changes, but the House hasn't acted. The bill shrinks the class-size reduction money mandated by Initiative 728. In the second year of the upcoming two-year budget cycle, schools would get increases of $254 per student, down from the $450 mandated by the initiative, but more than the $212 they receive now. Locke supports the Senate changes. - I-732, giving cost-of-living raises to K-12 employees: The Senate approved Senate Bill 6059, but the House hasn't acted. The bill suspends the yearly cost-of-living raises for teachers mandated by voters less than three years ago. Locke supports the Senate changes.

Olympia, WA - The Legislature made quick work of three citizen-backed initiatives this year, rewriting all three of them. Two more vote-approved measures are on the chopping block when lawmakers return to the Capitol later this week or next to pass their budget.
To budget writers like Rep. Helen Sommers, the Seattle Democrat trying to plug a $2.6 billion budget gap, voting to overturn the initiatives is purely practical. It's necessary to curtail spending in a time of slowing revenues.

"We cannot pay for them," Sommers said Friday.

So legislators have revised a tobacco-tax measure -- better known as Initiative 773 -- to use the revenue to pay for existing slots in a health- insurance subsidy program rather than expanding the program.

They also amended a firefighters' pension measure, I-790, to fix flaws in its drafting that could have forced higher pension payments by state and local governments.

Lawmakers also repealed I-713's trapping ban, thought Gov. Gary Locke stepped in last week and vetoed it.

Two school-funding measures are all that remain on Republican and Democratic lawmakers' hit list: I-728's class-size reductions and I-732's cost-of-living pay increases for teachers.

Coming on the heels of Tim Eyman's four successful anti-tax initiatives in the past four years, some are wondering what the repercussions will be. Are lawmakers begging for trouble? Or are initiatives that raise spending losing support from both lawmakers and the public?

"I think some of those things remain to be seen -- how the public reacts to it," said Dean Logan, state elections director for the Secretary of State's Office.

Logan believes the initiative process hasn't yet lost its vigor. "There certainly hasn't been a decrease in the number of initiatives filed and making it to the ballot."

Logan said the Legislature's willingness to tackle initiatives is more a function of a weak economy, which has slowed the state's revenue stream and forced lawmakers to examine whether they can fulfill all the voters' wishes.

By contrast, lawmakers fell all over themselves three years ago to adopt $30 car tabs. The action was necessary to save Eyman-sponsored Initiative 695, after a court overturned its repeal of value-based car taxes.

Todd Donovan, a Western Washington University political science professor, said the Legislature's new attitude about changing initiatives is not so unusual.

"Right now, in this budget crisis, they are becoming more assertive," Donovan said. "When you've got a deficit that's more than 10 percent of a budget, everything's on the table maybe."

Lawmakers in most western states are willing to throw out initiatives -- especially where initiatives lack a self-sustaining organization behind them, Donovan said.

An example is Washington's I-601, which created spending caps in 1993. Once sponsor Linda Smith moved out of politics, lawmakers made a series of amendments to it without facing voter wrath, according to Donovan.

The school measures offer a different scenario. The Washington Education Association, which backed I-732, is looking on with dismay at the prospects that the Legislature will repeal or suspend either of the education measures -- but especially the pay plan.

Other than threatening to withhold support from disloyal lawmakers in 2004, the union hasn't struck much fear. To bolster its standing with the Legislature, the union might consider coming back with a measure to replace the cost-of-living pay plan, WEA president Charles Hasse said Friday.

"If it were on the ballot and passed in the same form, I think the Legislature would be less likely to ignore it," Hasse said, adding that a different approach that identified new taxes also could be considered.

"At the same time we would probably have a stronger relationship with the Legislature on a ballot if we also helped them with a resource issue."

Despite lawmakers' moves to tinker with initiatives, they have not written off Eyman, who boasts an army of supporters who have passed four tax-control measures in four years. And Eyman has threatened all year to overturn any tax increases.

"The Legislature obviously still worries" about Eyman, Donovan said.

He said that after lawmakers' transportation-tax package was shot down at the polls last year, they came back with a smaller gasoline tax increase.

"As much as we might think the initiative process is weaker, they still seem to be worried about what Eyman would do," Donovan said.