Olympia session is set to open

Democrats likely to focus on '07 disasters, hold back spending

By CHRIS McGANN AND BRIAN SLODYSKO
P-I REPORTERS

OLYMPIA -- Legislative leaders tried to keep expectations to a minimum this week as they prepared to convene Monday for the 2008 session.

After three years of record spending, Democrats, who control the House, the Senate and the Governor's Office, are now preparing for an economic slowdown. They plan to tinker a little with the supplemental budget but leave town with more than $1 billion unspent.

A good portion of their energy will go toward responding to big events from 2007: fallout from the housing crisis, floods in Southwest Washington and the voters' rejection of the Puget Sound area's massive roads and transit proposal.

Gov. Chris Gregoire, who is up for re-election this year, said fiscal restraint would be her priority. But at the same time she said that replacing the Evergreen Point Bridge cannot wait and proposed that motorists pay about half of the $4 billion cost of replacing it with tolls beginning next year.

Sen. Majority Leader Lisa Brown, D-Spokane, said her caucus has prepared a package of housing and home security bills and plans to begin working on them in the first weeks of the session.

"There have been a lot of successes in our state, the economy has been strong, unemployment rates have been low, but people are starting to feel an sense of uncertainty," Brown said.

"They are feeling a sense of political uncertainty, they don't know what will happen in the coming year. They are feeling a sense of economic uncertainty as they hear bad news and when they look at their own bottom line, things can be deteriorating."

House Speaker Frank Chopp, D-Seattle, agreed that the state needed to address housing security.

"There is nothing that comes closer to the American family than their home," he said. "We've got to help people ... to get that leg up in order to get into a home, and to help them through the difficult times."

House Republican Leader Richard DeBolt of Chehalis reached across the aisle in an appeal for state assistance for flood victims from his district and was mostly well received.

"It was truly devastating," DeBolt said. "We need to do something to help these folks."

Democrats vowed to help victims in the aftermath of December flooding that left 1,300 Lewis County residents without homes and submerged Interstate 5 under as much as 10 feet of water for the better part of a week.

"Our goal is to help people with those very basic checkbook issues that they are struggling with or are concerned about ... immediately," Brown said.

"Immediately helping families in Washington with moving from homelessness to secure housing, and I believe we should turn some of our attention to the people who are suffering from the flood."

But while House and Senate leaders agreed on the necessity of additional aid for flood victims, they disagreed over how to prevent future flooding in the area.

Chopp noted that a post-flood picture of a clearcut hillside depicted multiple landslides all of which contributed to the deluge.

"Clearcuts cause slides, and that's what we had in our area," said DeBolt.

DeBolt used the occasion to swipe at state rules requiring buffer zones along waterways to protect salmon habitats, adding that salmon protections also contributed to flooding.

"We're not allowed to clean our rivers. We're not allowed to dredge," he said. "Who comes first? The salmon or the humans?"

The Senate Natural Resources Committee held a special hearing on logging-caused flooding Thursday morning. Lawmakers will seek to find out why the Department of Natural Resources and forest practices rules allowed a 55-degree mountainside above Stillman Creek to be entirely clearcut.

House Democrats pledged Thursday to pass seven sex-crime bills suggested by Gregoire's task force, and promised to work with minority Republicans on ramping up sex-crime laws even further.

Jumping on a politically touchy issue that could resurface during the fall elections, Democratic leaders said they will continue to build on a foundation of strong sex-crime policies, including involuntary civil commitments and tough criminal sentences.

Leaders were also in disagreement over replacing four 80-year-old state ferries, pulled from service after pitting was discovered on their hulls.

According to Rep. Doug Erickson, R-Ferndale, money was set aside to replace the ferries in 2003, but no action was taken by the Legislature.

"We as legislators have to take a look at what happened with the leadership from the legislative and executive branches to figure out why those four ferries were not built."

Erickson was critical of plans put forth by Gregoire to replace the ferries with four smaller boats, saying the current plans would provide boats "designed for much different waters."

But Senate Transportation Committee Chairwoman Mary Margaret Haugen, D-Camano Island, said Port Townsend residents, who are affected most by the loss of service, couldn't wait and were "simply not willing to wait to come up with the perfect boat."

Sen. Cheryl Pflug, R-Maple Valley, said the Democrats' talk about fiscal restraint is empty because they are just coming off a three-year spending spree.

"The horse is out of the barn," she said. "Remember the outcry over federal spending? It's happening here.

"We have a 33 percent increase (in state spending) in four years -- that's $5.7 million a day more. ... We are on track to squander the largest surplus in state history and end up with a $600 million deficit."

Gregoire responded to the criticism about the budget saying that the state was operating like smart business: investing in good years and being frugal in lean years.

Washington State Labor Council President Rick Bender said he's well aware of the Legislature's reluctance to make new big investments in this election year session.

"Many of us are trying to hold down on our request because we know it's a short session," he said.

Likewise he said he understands why Democrats want to hold the line on new spending.

"We understand. We don't want to put ourselves in the situation of eating up the budget surplus and going into the next biennial budget and having to fight for raising taxes or making cuts," he said.

"That would not be forward thinking."