COMING UP
Lawmakers are under the gun this week to get their pet bills out of the committees to which they were first referred -- or else they'll die.
The session's first bill cutoff is Wednesday, affecting all committees except the House fiscal committees, the Senate Ways and Means, and Senate Highways and Transportation committees.
The latter committees are subject to their own cutoff on March 10.
Those rules are subject, of course, to another unwritten rule: A bill is never, ever truly dead until adjournment.
But the cutoffs do mark a transition in the session away from taking up new matters to a serious winnowing of issues under consideration.
UPDATE
A new proposal is in the works to tame initiatives. Senate Republican Caucus Chairwoman Pat Hale, R-Kennewick, has sponsored Senate Joint Resolution 8214. It would ask voters in November to amend the state Constitution, requiring a 60 percent supermajority vote to pass any initiative or referendum that would have an impact on state budgets of more than roughly $5.5 million.
The idea came to Hale during a discussion with Allen Walch, one of her Tri-Cities constituents, who wondered why a supermajority wasn't needed for initiatives if a 60 percent vote is needed to raise taxes.
"I can think of very few bills that we pass in Olympia that have a more dramatic impact on the state budget than our initiatives," Hale said in a prepared statement.
The bill was sent to the Senate Judiciary Committee where the chairman, Sen. Bob McCaslin, has scheduled a hearing at 8 a.m. Wednesday, the deadline for bills to clear committee.
NOTEWORTHY
Speaking of initiative curbs, Tim Eyman is getting a little irritated by all the talk of putting limits on the people's right to petition government through the initiative process.
Eyman, who has seen voters endorse several of his measures only to have courts toss them out, says he has counted 15 legislative proposals that would infringe on what he likes to call the people's First Amendment right of initiative, and he's calling on supporters to complain to their legislators.
In his latest e-mail to supporters, he questioned why lawmakers would single out the public's right to shape policy while leaving other "lobbying" untouched.
"There are no legislative jihads to ban lobbying by businesses, labor groups, newspapers and other powerful special interests. Only lobbying by regular folks is under assault," he wrote, calling the legislative actions "deceitful."
It's not clear at this point whether any of the legislative proposals will make it into law.
Compiled by Brad Shannon
Hearings
Here are the committee hearings and work sessions today in the Legislature. House committee meetings are in the John L. O'Brien Building. Senate committee hearings are in the John A. Cherberg Building.
House
- Transportation: 8 a.m. work session on transportation budget, HHR-B.
Senate
- None scheduled.
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