2011 First Special Legislative Session

Day 29 - 9:00 AM and we're back on the House Floor. The Ways and Means Committee met until 1:00 AM this morning ... my Republican colleagues on the committee are doing one heck of a job for the citizens of Washington. According to news reports, there is an agreement on the Operating Budget, except the Senate has said they will not vote on it until the Debt Reduction Constitutional Amendment is passed by the House ... so the chaos will continue.

The House and Senate passed the Workers Comp Reform Bill last night. All in all, it's a significant improvement to the system, saves the taxpayers $1.1 billion over the next four years and saves businesses money. It's a good win for everyone.

It appears we'll be getting briefed on the budget this morning. The Governor and budget writers have said the budget must include at least $800 million in reserves. The reason is the revenue forecast coming on June 16th is likely to be $300 to $500 million less than projected.

#Capital #operating #budget #revenue #forecast #workers #comp #reform #15th #District #Rep #David #Taylor
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2011 First Special Legislative Session

Day 28 - We're back on the House Floor this morning to consider a few bills. If today goes like the rest of this Special Session, we'll run 6 to 8 bills for the day. To put it into perspective, we run 30 to 50 when we're actually working, so 6 to 8 bills per day is nothing to be happy about.

We've been told an agreement's been reached on the Workers Comp reform bill. I've been able to read it and it appears to have some good provisions in it, especially the structured settlement provisions which is essentially compromise and release. We've also heard the Operating Budget negotiations are improving, so we could actually get that finished by Wednesday. The Capital Budget negotiations, however, are not going well and could be a significant roadblock to actually ending this session.

The Ways and Means Committee is scheduled to meet at 5:00 tonight, which means we might be working late. It's amazing that 28 days into the Special Session the Democrat Majority continue to move frivolous bills forward for consideration.

#Workers #comp #reform #capital #operating #budget #15th #District #Rep #David #Taylor
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2011 First Special Legislative Session

Day 27 - Back on the House Floor this morning. We're running two bills right now with Speaker Chopp actually presiding over the House ... first time this year! The Workers Compensation reform bill hit a rather large snag yesterday and this morning. It seems the Governor and the Democrat Majority tried to play us and were caught red-handed ... Hehehehehehe, it's nice to be relevant. As long they continue to play games with us, things will continue to be painful for them. I want to be very clear, the proposal forwarded by the Democrats will save no money, increase the cost of administration and offers absolutely no incentive for injured workers to negotiate a lump sum settlement agreement.

As I reported yesterday, there are five major bills necessary to implement the budget; unfortunately, on Day 27 of the First Special Session we have yet to consider any of those five bills. My prediction, we will not get the work done by Wednesday and will be called back in June after the next revenue forecast. By the way, revenue is currently $30 million below the projection, which is less than the original revenue projection the 2009 budget was based upon.

We're debating SB 5912 which expands family planning services to 250% of the federal poverty level ... Yup, I'll be a no. Why are we considering a bill that expands a social service when the state is facing a $5 billion deficit? This is crazy!

We broke for lunch and are back on the House Floor getting ready to run three bills. When we're done with those three it'll bring our total for the day to five.

#Workers #comp #reform #SB #5912 #revenue #deficit #Rep #David #Taylor #15th #District
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2011 First Special Legislative Session

Day 15 - Sitting back on the House Floor waiting for the day to start at the scheduled 9:00 am. It looks like we have about 12 bills to run today, but the real question is "Will we be working on Thursday"? We couldn't get an answer to that question last night. We've Caucused on all but three of the bills on today's Calendar and should be able to run them quickly, but if history is any indication, the Democrats will have to Caucus for two hours on the various bills, then break for lunch and then run a few bills in the afternoon. Frustrated doesn't even begin to describe my mood this morning.

We've heard that the Democrat Majority wants to run the Capital Budget this morning; unfortunately for them, we can kill HB 2020 if we don't give them 3 votes. That gives us a little power to negotiate for Workers Comp Reform. Based on everything I've heard the last two days, we could be hear a really long time. I still think the Democrat Majority is holding out for the June 16th revenue forecast and hope for some sort of indication revenue is going up. If the last few months are any indication, revenue will not be going up and then the real decisions will have to be made.

#Revenue #forecast #capital #budget #HB #2020 #workers #comp #Rep #David #Taylor #15th #District
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2011 First Special Legislative Session

Day 14 Update - Well I think it's safe to say I won't be home tonight and tomorrow may also be a stretch. Things are getting very interesting ... It appears the 4 Corners (both caucuses from House and the Senate) are meeting with the Governor and are arguing about the budget and now the Capital Budget is in play because the Democrat Majority must get 3 votes from us to pass the bond portion of the Budget. Now the we are relevant, we can play hardball and demand a vote on Workers Compensation Reform.

#Capital #Budget #Workers #Comp #Reform #4 #Corners #Rep #David #Taylor #15th #District
http://chum.ly/n/8c6e16

2011 Legislative Session

[Resent id=8727905 2011-04-21 19:30:49 from davidtaylor] Day 102 - Here we go again, back on the House Floor waiting to see what if anying we'll do today. Yesterday we ran one bill ... that's one as in single, uno, 1. It's been pretty frustrating that past few days, but the end is near ... at least the end of Regular Session. According to the Chief Clerks Office, a full 30 day Special Session could cost the taxpayers as much as $426,000. In a year where every dollar matters, the Democrat Majority couldn't get their crap together and end the circus on time.

Looks like we'll be running a few bills this morning and finally get some work done. None of the bills are real big issues, but at least we're doing something. It still sounds like we'll finish the Regular Session Friday evening (sometime between 3:00 and 9:00 PM) and move into a rolling Special Session on Momday. Based on everything we're hearing, the House Democrats and Senate are lightyears apart, which could mean a long Special Session. Apparently the House and Senate will have an agreed list of bills necessary to implement the budget (NTIB), but getting to that agreed list may take awhile.

In case you missed it, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) found Boeing was retaliating against it's largest union when it decided to put a second 787 Dreamliner plant in South Carolina. Apparently, Boeing can remedy the complaint by building a new plant in Washington. Seriously?!?! This is incredible. Does the government want Boeing to relocate all it's operations to another Country? That's exactly where this ruling could lead. Wow!

We're making a Procedural Motion right now to move to the 8th Order of Business to consider Workers Compensation Reform. The motion failed, but we did get one Democrat vote with us and four other Democrats refused to vote. Things are getting very interesting ... I'd love to be a fly on the wall of the Democrat Caucus. Special Session could be all sorts of fun.

#Boeing #NLRB #Special #Session #NTIB #workers #compensation #reform #15th #District #Rep #David #Taylor
http://chum.ly/n/852e07