By Rachel La Corte
The Associated Press
OLYMPIA — The state Legislature adjourned early this morning without passing a supplemental budget plan, leading Gov. Chris Gregoire to call lawmakers back for an overtime special session.
Lawmakers ended the 60-day regular legislative session just after midnight. Just before adjournment, Gregoire said lawmakers will return to the Capitol at noon Monday for a special session that could last as long as a month.
“They all know they don’t have a choice,” she said. “We’ve a job to do, we’ve got to get it done. The public’s confidence in them is wholly dependent on whether they get that job done. They know that.”
Lawmakers are looking to close a budget gap of about $500 million through the end of the two-year budget cycle ending June 2013, as well as leaving several hundred million dollars in reserves.
There had been several hours of speculation on Thursday about whether Senate Democrats would try to vote on a budget House Democrats passed earlier in the evening. That plan, an agreement between House and Senate Democrats, keeps in place a delayed payment to schools that Senate Republicans said ensured its failure in the Senate. Ultimately, Senate Democrats didn’t have the votes and decided to not take up the budget Thursday night.
The House Democrats’ chief budget writer, Rep. Ross Hunter, introduced the replacement bill — known as a striker — to amend a Republican-crafted plan that passed the Senate last weekend. The new proposal makes no cuts to education or higher education, but still includes a one-day delay in payments to school districts to help balance the budget, a move Republicans have decried.
Before the House took its vote, Hunter called the budget proposal “a reasonable set of choices in very difficult times.”
Rep. Gary Alexander, of Olympia, the Republican lead on the budget in the House, called the delay an accounting maneuver. “This is just kicking the can down the road,” he said.
In the Democratic proposal, a $330 million payment to school districts would be delayed by one day to move the obligation into the next two-year budget cycle. Republicans have said that the idea is a non-starter for them. Democrats, in turn, don’t like the Republicans’ plan to delay a pension payment by a year.
Gregoire said Thursday night that once lawmakers are able to get past that impasse, there shouldn’t be a problem in passing a budget agreement.
“Once they do that, I believe the budget writers can go to the table and get the job done, and I believe they can do it in a bipartisan way,” she said.
The budget drama began last Friday and continued into early Saturday morning, after a Republican-crafted budget passed out of the Senate with the help of three conservative Democrats. Senate Republicans have argued that Democrats have since refused to talk with them.
The Republicans’ plan makes deeper cuts to state programs than either House or Senate Democrats’ original plans do, especially in health and human services programs. It also proposed about $74 million in cuts to schools and colleges. Republicans were able to advance their budget with a rarely-used procedure known as a “Ninth Order,” which allows any bill to be pulled to the floor — even those that haven’t had a public hearing. That budget passed last weekend on a 25-24 vote.
In addition to the supplemental budget, lawmakers still need to pass a construction budget when they return for the special session.