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Olympia Office:
426-A
Legislative Bldg.
P.O. Box 40600
Olympia, WA 98504-0600
Phone: (360) 786-7832
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Toll-Free Legislative Hotline
1-800-562-6000
Website
www.houserepublicans.wa.gov/Armstrong |
Committees:
Appropriations Subcommittee on General Gov't and Audit Review
(Ranking)
Rules (Alternate)
State Government and Tribal Affairs
Transportation |
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April 13, 2007
Dear
friends and neighbors,
It's Friday the
13th. For some, today may be a day of bad luck.
However, in the Legislature, it's our final
cutoff of the 2007 legislative session. A lot of
very bad bills will die today. For the citizens
of Washington, that's good luck!
With just a few
days remaining of the legislative session, the
final week will be spent negotiating compromises
on surviving legislation, including the
operating, capital and transportation budgets.
We are scheduled
to adjourn Sunday, April 22. However, it is
rumored the Legislature may close its business
by Friday, April 20.
As always, I
appreciate your input as we head into the final
stretch of the 2007 session. If you'd like to
contact me, go to my website at:
www.houserepublicans.wa.gov/Armstrong.
It is an honor to
serve you!
Rep. Mike Armstrong
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Majority
party turns its back on property tax relief
It
was my hope coming in to the 2007 session that
we could restore provisions of Initiative 747 -
a ballot measure approved by voters that would
limit regular annual property tax increases to 1
percent. The initiative was overturned last year
by a court decision that is currently under
appeal.
I
was hopeful because the majority party was also
speaking positively about taking action to
restore the initiative's provisions.
Here's what the Democrat House majority leader
said in January:
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"If we don't do
something this year, we are more at risk of an initiative. So I think
every year we punt brings us closer to an initiative. My guess is an
initiative would be worse than anything we could come up with."
Unfortunately, what majority Democrats said in
January is not what they're saying lately. They
have continued to stall on this issue and that's
very disturbing.
On March 5, when
Republicans moved to vote the bill out of the
Finance Committee, the Democrat chairman said
the bill was premature:
“Our side
has not yet had time to have a conversation on
the bill. The bill has been declared necessary
to implement the budget. We have lots of time on
this bill. It is exempt from cutoff so a motion
to this might be appropriate a later time. We
are not yet ready to do this yet at this point.”
Earlier this
week, I and my Republican colleagues again tried
to move the bill by pulling it to the floor, but
the Democrat Speaker Pro Tem indicated it was
too late:
"House Bill
2403 does not fall within the enumerated
exceptions to the Wednesday March 14th deadline
for consideration of bills in the house of
origin, and may not be considered by this body
under the terms of the cutoff resolution."
This is probably
one of the biggest disappointments of the
session. Especially when our folks back home are
having such a difficult time paying their
skyrocketing property taxes. It's been my number
one concern this year.
I voiced these
concerns in a press release that I sent earlier
this week. You can read this release by
clicking here. |
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Fighting bad legislation is as important as
passing good legislation
Some people believe passing good
legislation is the most important thing we can
do here in the Legislature. Unfortunately,
there's a lot of bad legislation that is also
moving through the process. I believe it is
equally important to
protect the citizens in our district
by fighting against legislation that is not in
their best interest.
Being in the minority, it's
often difficult to move good legislation
forward. And since we don't have the votes, it's
often difficult to stop bad legislation.
However, with your input, we have successfully
helped to turn some bad bills into good ones.
We've also been able to influence the majority
party in some instances make improvements to
bills, or to not advance legislation that will
harm our state.
With the final deadline for
bills to be considered by today, this week the
spotlight has been shining on some of the bad
bills. Some we haven't been able to stop, but we
have been very vocal to call attention to these
bills so that they do not fall under the radar
screen.
Here are some of those bills
Republicans are fighting that are under debate
this week in Olympia.
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Allowing people to register to vote
on Election Day. We don't like
this bill because it will contribute
to an expansion of voter fraud, not
to mention the expense of doing this
all in one day. County auditors
throughout the state don't like this
bill. They see a lot of difficulties
with holding elections and trying to
verify addresses on the same day.
Think back to the problems of the
gubernatorial election in 2004 in
King County. This bill will
tremendously expand those problems.
There's plenty of opportunity to
register in advance for an election.
Fortunately, it appears our
opposition has helped to stall this
bill. It hasn't come for a vote yet
on the House floor and today is that
deadline.
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Banning abstinence-only sexual
education in public schools.
Here's a case where the state is
going to force a very sensitive
curriculum upon our local school
districts and they will have no say
in the process. They'll either have
to accept this so-called
"medically-accurate" sex education
curriculum or provide no sex
education at all. And parents are
nearly shut out of the process too.
If you don't want your child to be
enrolled in these classes, you'll
have to "opt out" your child in
writing to the local school board or
the principal. My Republican
colleagues and I offered more than
30 amendments in an attempt to
restore local control and give
parents a voice in the process.
Every single amendment we offered
was rejected by the Democrat
majority. Unfortunately,
this
legislation is now going to the
governor. If this
concerns you as much as it does me,
I would recommend you call the
governor and ask for a veto. Her
phone number is (360) 902-4111.
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Having workers pay into a fund to
provide $250-a-week stipends for
people taking family medical leave.
I wrote about this issue last
week in this newsletter.
Senate Bill 5659 would impose a
2-cent-per-hour tax on all workers
in Washington. Here are some of the
reasons why this is bad legislation:
- While this
tax would be levied on every employee in
Washington, it is projected that only 37,000
of Washington's 3.7 million employees would
access this annually.
- It would
cost the state $100 million with $20 million
dedicated to hiring 96 full-time employees
to administer the program.
- It would
substantially increase small business
unemployment rates.
- It would be
a substantial hardship for small businesses
that cannot cover for employees on extended
absences.
We
had expected this bill to come to
the floor of the House last night
for a vote. However, it didn't. And
if the majority party continues to
hear opposition, we may get lucky
today and that bill will hopefully
die, making Friday the 13th a very
good day for us.
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Hudson family visits state Capitol
Last week, I
was pleased to welcome Kirk and Andrea
Hudson and their family to the state
Capitol. The Hudson family are good
friends from Wenatchee.
The Capitol
campus is a wonderful place to visit,
especially for the family. It's filled
with beautiful flower gardens,
memorials, incredible architecture, and
a spectacular water fountain.
If you'd
like to visit our Capitol, give my
office a call. We can arrange for tours.
Also, it's
fun to see familiar faces from home. And
who knows, you might be the next one in
a photo here in my e-newsletter! |
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For more
news and information, visit my website at
www.houserepublicans.wa.gov/Armstrong
If you would rather not
receive legislative e-mail updates, please
click here and send me an e-mail.
In the subject line, please include the words UNSUBSCRIBE ME. |
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