State Senate Republicans Take Over, Pass Budget Early Saturday

GOP state senators used rare procedural moves that wrest control of the senate beginning Friday and resulted in the minority party passing its own budget with three democrats joining the vote, acoording to a story in Publicola.

Democratic Sens. Jim Kastama (D-25, Puyallup) and Rodney Tom (D-48, Bellevue), both members of the ad hoc, swing-vote conservative Democratic caucus known as the Roadkill caucus, along with Sen. Tim Sheldon (D-35, Potlatch), gave Republican budget leader Sen. Joe Zarelli (R-18, Ridgefield) Zarelli the votes the GOP needed for the coup.

Zarelli said the swift action was necessary because a Democrat-sponsored budget did not have enough votes to pass.

“If the legislature is to have any chance of adjourning March 8 the Senate needed to reach agreement on a budget as soon as possible,” Zarelli said in a statement published on Publicola. “Because we still have to negotiate with the House of Representatives. There was no assurance that the Senate majority party would have enough votes for its plan; in my mind, bringing an alternative forward became the responsible thing to do.”

By Saturday afternoon, the new budget was blasted by King County Executive Dow Constantine.

“Here in King County, we have spent the past two years enacting methodical, thoughtful reform of local government across party lines. What happened this morning in the state Senate is the opposite of government reform. It is a political stunt that has already wasted millions of taxpayer dollars," Constantine said in a news release Saturday.

“The Republican-led Senate vote in the wee hours of the morning robbed residents of an opportunity to see, much less comment on, a state budget that would have devastating impacts upon them," he said

Rather than save money, Constantine said the Republican budget will cost the county money by killing proposed measure HB 2748.

“The political stunt in the Senate also killed HB 2748, a bill King County put forward to enable much-needed efficiencies. This measure would have saved $1 million a year in the unnecessary overhead costs of maintaining separate local Flood and Ferry Districts and redirected those funds into greater flood protection and water transit service for the people and businesses of King County. Again, reform derailed by political tricks.”

Constantine also said the multiple votes against family planning and reproductive parity are in direct opposition to the values and interests of the vast majority of the people of King County.