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Friday, April 11, 2003
Forget the clock
There are just more than two weeks left in a legislative session that was expected to rage on into multiple special sessions. But now there's talk of a worse prospect: Legislators may cut and run.
Nothing official yet, just murmurs from leadership quarters that the problems are too large and the majorities in each chamber so narrow that no amount of time will be enough. There's a much better chance of legislators agreeing to go home by balancing the budget with more program cuts than any tax increases.
The legislative caucuses are still far apart on a new transportation-funding package and members of both parties are wary about any tax increase -- even to pay for highways. Rep. Jim Clements, R-Selah, went so far as to suggest that we should "let the transportation system wait" another year rather than risk a gas-tax increase.
While the Legislature fights over pennies a gallon, the price at the pump has dropped in some places by a quarter a gallon.
As of this writing, several crucial pieces of policy legislation have run aground, including a call to do away with the "supermajority" requirement on school levies, which has been dumped in the "X" (dead) File and a prescription drug bill that cleared both the House and the Senate health care committees only to languish, inexplicably, in Senate Ways and Means. Perhaps these bills have been shelved because leadership counts them as lost causes before the regular session's end.
When things are as bad as they are now and so many immense issues loom, it may be tempting to declare victory and go home. Maybe if we just close our eyes and hope, things will be all better by next session. Yeah, and maybe the elves will fix everything while we're away.
Legislators have a job to do, not a clock to beat.
They'd better get busy and get it done right, no matter how long it takes.
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