Now playing: The legislative session that never ended

They keep coming back: Politicians' moments of eptitude overshadowed by lack of action

David Ammons, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Originally published July 1

OLYMPIA -- It had all the makings of a good B-movie of the horror genre.

Call it "Nightmare on Budd Inlet."

Or perhaps a sci-fi remake -- "2001: The Spacy Odyssey."

Or just call it the Washington State Legislature.

The just-concluded session very nearly broke a record for length and quite possibly set new standards for unproductiveness, impasse and punting. They almost shut down state government, for Pete's sake.

And they're about ready to make the sequel. They'll be "baaaaaaaack" in town in two weeks to wrangle over the largest transportation action plan in state history.

Tall order even if they weren't coming off three nightmarish sessions. They're tired, cranky, still facing virtual ties in both houses -- and scared spitless about raising taxes. Leaders fear lawmakers will spend days in a stare-down, set a new record for length of session ... and perhaps still not come up with anything.

It's been that kind of year.

It seems fitting that even the Capitol itself is injured, the mighty dome girded, Band-Aid style, with scaffolding as crews do earthquake repairs. A 6.8 magnitude quake rattled the Legislature, literally and figuratively, this winter and even ousted them from their fancy chambers for a long time.

The political fault lines have been all too apparent. The culprits mentioned most often by the finger-pointers: That danged 49-49 tie in the House. Absolute veto power for the co-speakers of the House. A hot-and-cold Gov. Gary Locke. Tough, tough issues. Tight financial times. Expensive new voter-approved spending mandates. Quake, drought and energy crunch. Boeing flitting off.

At times, lawmakers said they felt so beleaguered, that they wondered what would plague them next. Locusts?

The report card

Herewith, a look at some of the players and issues of the ill-fated 2001 session. This is not a report card to show Mom and Dad.

- The Legislature: They did most of the bare essentials -- primarily with 11th-hour agreements on the operating, construction and transportation budgets. But they flirted with a Gingrich-style government shutdown, not out of design but due to the near-gridlock in the House.

On a few occasions, bipartisanship became more than a slogan and lawmakers did themselves proud -- landmark water legislation and a major energy bill, for instance.

But those flashes of eptitude always seemed overshadowed by what they didn't do, and by how long they took not to do it.

Examples? Although they had a full year's notice that the state's blanket primary had come unraveled, they were never able to agree on a suitable replacement. They defaulted to an unelected federal judge.

A school accountability law, providing sticks and carrots to deal with failing schools, was proclaimed as the top education reform bill of the year. Only one thing: The bill didn't pass.

And transportation, the consensus pick for the state's most pressing challenge of the new century, still goes unsolved.

"You didn't earn your pay," one editorial page fumed. "You didn't do the job the voters of this state sent you to do. In the real working world, such slackers would get the sack."

- House Republicans: This merry band of 49, led by fiery Co-Speaker Clyde Ballard, were conservatives' beachhead in a Capitol mostly run by Democrats these days. Their power was in saying "no" -- and they did it a lot, vetoing everything that didn't pass their litmus test.

The R's were quickly tagged as obstructionists, and indeed, their holdout on the budget and transportation held up action for weeks. They did, however, show that they learned from the trashing Newt and the boys took for shutting down the federal government in 1995. They lent enough votes for D's to pass their budget.

- Senate: If the House sometimes resembled a schoolyard brawl or a playpen feud by "tie babies," as one cartoonist suggested, senators were the grown-ups. Although the Democratic majority wasn't always in charge, the Senate managed to crank out a steady stream of mostly centrist legislation -- only to see much of it die in the black hole of the House.

On occasion, maverick conservative Democrat Tim Sheldon formed a temporary coalition majority by joining the Republicans. The power plays, though, were more flash than substance, with little of the coalition agenda surviving the House. Still, it was another odd twist, giving the Senate a membership of 24-24-1.

- Bipartisanship: The House tie -- the third in little more than 20 years -- was supposed to usher in a momentary, if unnatural, time of bipartisanship, shared power and camaraderie. Didn't happen. The co-speakers and co-chairmen killed each other's bills or stopped them before they even got on the agendas. Tempers flared.

Little Ironies Dept.: The two parties in the Senate worked well together, even though they didn't have to.

- Gary Locke: At times, Locke was more engaged than ever, flailing legislators to act on transportation and raising the specter of a government shutdown. But he waited until May to propose a transportation financing plan, lagged in presenting other legislation, and was seldom around the legislative halls. Some key legislators said he never personally lobbied them for his pet bills.

Still, by comparison, he looks good this year. The budget included some big victories for him, particularly for education, his signature issue.

- Clyde Ballard: The wily co-speaker, denounced as "Captain Gridlock" by the frustrated Democrats and praised by his defenders as the last line of defense for the taxpayer, had his strongest session yet. More often than his Democratic cohort, Frank Chopp of Seattle, Ballard got his way by using the "Rule of One," which gives both co-speakers dictatorial power to determine the fate of any bill, point of order or motion to recess for lunch.

Ballard, for instance, single-handedly blocked the so-called Cajun primary from coming to a vote.

- Regulators: Lawmakers like to whack at too-big-for-their-britches state regulators. But they weren't able to agree on how to rein in shoreline regulations or to slow down the implementation of ergonomics rules.

- Strikers: The main state employee union went on strike for the first time in its 58-year history, but it was sometimes hard to tell. Some of the early picketing got on the evening news, but the federation and the governor had a deal -- Locke wouldn't go to court to get an injunction if the walkouts didn't affect services.

Hard to make a point if no one notices.

State workers did manage to wring out some face-saving concessions in the final budget and after 10 weeks of sort-of-striking was able to "declare victory and go home."

- Primary: Lawmakers didn't want to change the popular 66-year-old system that allows wide-open crossover voting -- and they didn't. The two houses passed competing plans, but couldn't agree on which to send to the governor.

But it doesn't end there, of course. The Supreme Court has made it quite clear that states can't force the political parties to let nonmembers take part in selecting their nominees. So now the secretary of state and the parties will duke it out in U.S. District Court without legislation to provide guidance.

- Transportation: Another "incomplete" for the report card. Lawmakers finally cobbled together a bare-bones transportation budget, using existing revenue, that does little more than maintain the current system. But despite a huge push from Locke, the editorial pages of the state, and an unusual coalition of business and labor, the Legislature went home after three sessions with no plan in hand to significantly address some of the nation's worst traffic congestion.

Session No. 4, to deal solely with transportation, begins July 16. Many lawmakers remain dubious that anything will happen.

Stay tuned.

David Ammons is the state political writer for the Associated Press and has covered the statehouse since 1971. He may be reached at P.O. Box 607, Olympia, WA 98507, or at dammons@ap.org on the Internet.

The Olympian Copyright 2001

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