This week, Greater Spokane sponsored its annual year-end legislative forum in which it questions four influential legislators about the upcoming session.
This year’s event was moderated by Jim Hedrick, the city of Spokane’s lobbyist. The participants were new Senate Majority Leader Jamie Pedersen [D-Seattle], Senate Minority Floor Leader Shelly Short [R-Addy], House Deputy Majority Leader Larry Springer [D-Kirkland] and House Deputy Minority Leader Chris Corry [R-Yakima].
Here were some of the questions posed. The answers are edited for brevity and clarity.
Q: With the initiatives on the November ballot, what are voters trying to tell us with the outcome of these ballot measures?
Jamie Pedersen: “I would say that we did make the right call about which initiatives to send to the people. And, unlike the initiative that passed [2066 to ban efforts to ban natural gas in new construction], which I suspect we're unlikely to do anything about in the legislature, because I think we're gonna watch and see how that plays out in the courts, these were not close votes. I thought there was a chance the attempt to repeal the capital gains tax [2109], and take away funding from public education, would not crack 40%, but I was surprised that it was nearly a two-thirds majority upholding the tax.
“And, then I was even more surprised that the Climate Commitment Act, and the associated charge on carbon, which a lot more people pay, like all of us, was upheld by a nearly two-thirds majority. And, even the long-term care trust, which is a little harder to understand, was upheld by what I think, you know, in our state, when you get to 55%, that's a pretty convincing victory. What do I think the voters are trying to tell us with that? I take it as a broad affirmation of our work over the last six or seven years.”
Shelly Short: “I have a slightly different take than my friend across the aisle. A lot of the historic nature of even bringing those initiatives to the legislature maybe painted a different picture with families, and the challenges that they've been facing, whether it's the price of gasoline, the taxes they pay. I think it was tremendous, actually, really created history to see that many initiatives to the legislature be certified. The challenge that you get into when you get into the voting piece of the three were the effect statements, the ballot titles, all written by our incoming governor, and the challenge of really working to have folks understand it.
“The voters have spoken, but we still need to make sure that these policies work. And so, whether it's the Climate Commitment Act, Long-Term Care Act, capital gains, or how we do taxation in this state, we really do need to continue to look forward and say, how do we need to move these things going forward? How do we fix those? And so, I'm hoping we're going to have that discussion.”
Larry Springer: “I want to take a moment to just say a word or two about the natural gas initiative, because it's a little confusing. The long range implications of that bill, which was then repealed by initiative, is more complicated than most of us realize. And I look at that, at natural gas, the burning of natural gas, either for heat, water, cooking, or backup energy supply, as a really critical link in the next 20 years if we are going to adequately address climate change that takes the effect of wildfire throughout this state, because we're so dry, which has an immediate impact on our power grid, because we're going to have to protect the power grid from trees.
“If we do that, we're going to need a backup energy supply to hit base load requirements at a time when we are putting more and more stress on our power grid, because we want electrical charges for our cars everywhere and we want to electrify everything else, which is a good idea. But to do so without addressing the fact that our electrical grid can't handle it, we probably do need to think seriously about whether there is an alternative energy source, in this case, natural gas, because solar and wind are coming, but they're not there yet. We were a little quick on the pedal. It has been repealed. We're going to wait and see what the lawsuit says before the legislature starts tinkering with it. But I think it's something we're going to have to tinker with.
Q: The state has a projected budget deficit, between $4 billion and $14 billion, depending on whom you listen to. How should legislators address it?
Chris Corry: “Our state budget has more than doubled in the last 10 years. Some of that was a natural boom and growth out of the recession, and that's good and normal, but a lot of it is new programs that we've added on to. The pandemic was a blessing for some budget stuff because we got new monies in, but a lot of those monies were one time, and so now we've got to be careful to make sure that we're not funding ongoing spending with one-time monies. Obviously, we could do that as a business, so my concern is we need to have a clear understanding of what the problem is, that our revenues are not lagging. It's our spending continues to grow, and I think the priority should be looking at certain programs. I think we need to have agencies do deeper dive audits to make sure we're not just continuing to pass on costs without understanding what we're getting for that money for the state.
“One of the things that I don't understand, what really frustrated me this past month is Governor Inslee agreed to just under $3 billion in new raises and then this week announced hiring freezes and budget reduction measures for agencies. Those two shouldn't go hand in hand, and so I think he's handing us a very hot potato.”
Larry Springer: “We will also have some very difficult conversations with our constituent groups out there who are all going to come down to Olympia and ask that we fund projects. I did a napkin calculation of the projects Greater Spokane is advocating for. It's about $130 million. That's going to be a hard conversation to have, and we will have those early on. There will no doubt be some legislation introduced for revenue. Those will be difficult conversations. We may, in fact, act on some. Most we probably will not, so it's an iterative process, and it would be helpful to have groups like GSI come and help us prioritize as well.”
Q: Some are talking about this upcoming session being another housing session in Olympia, because we've got a housing shortage. How do you think the state's strategy on affordable housing is progressing? Where do you see opportunities for housing policy to advance this session?
Larry Springer: “We need a million, almost a million and a half, new housing units in the next 10 to 20 years. We have dirt to put it on, but we have really high costs to actually get it built, and we need to figure out how to reduce those costs. Those one and a half million new units will not be single-family homes. They just won't. They will be multi-family, or they will be a small subset.
“I think personally, and I think my caucus would agree that expanding the allowable uses for accessory dwelling units statewide is a good thing to do. It will by no means make a major dent in our housing supply, but it helps. What I think is going to be the real focus will be in urban centers, where we will continue to struggle with zoning requirements to create the kind of dense housing in and around transit centers. Our friends in local government don't like to be told by the state what their zoning should be.”
Shelly Short: “The biggest challenge I see is really the footprint of where to put new housing and the Growth Management Act. I've had several bills that, with stakeholder help, we've been trying to say you have an urban growth area, and it's not a one and done when the Growth Management Act was put into place, but that's the way it's being treated by appeals and the Growth Management Hearings Board. We’re trying to make some progress. I wish it was a little bit more than that because what I really want to show the supporters of GMA is that you can do both. You can think thoughtfully about where your growth is, but you need to be able to adjust those boundaries based on where the need is.
“We've got to make sure we're not making it worse. Look at the State Building Code Council. The [natural gas] initiative [2066] passed. I get it's being challenged. But the council refuses to deal with the initiative that passed in terms of how they're going to deal with natural gas. ,Some of the green standards, some of the things that, while they are good, they add tremendous cost, and so I would just continue to caution folks that I serve with that we need to be careful with that.
“We have challenges with companies that would like to add additional shifts, which create jobs, but they can't because the housing's not there, and so I hope that we're not just looking at the urban environment, the urban core for this kind of development, that we're also looking rural as well.”
Chris Corry: “I do think that this is going to be a big year for housing, and even though we have done a lot, this is a ship that takes a long time to turn, right? We're probably not going to see fruit from all of the trees that we started planting over the last few years for a few more years, but that doesn't mean that we should stop at all.”
Q: Everybody has noticed that insurance rates are up across the board. And we've got probably five or six questions here about insurance rates, about what the legislature plans to do about insurance rates. What levers and knobs exist for you folks to help with that and what plans do you have that might address some of those cost issues?
Chris Corry: “There's a lot of factors. There's stuff that the state has no control over. Globally, disasters are expensive and values have gone up, costs have gone up, replacement of costs have gone up. So those are some drivers that the state really can't control.
“But there is a lot of stuff, I think, direct and indirect, that the state can influence. I think first and foremost is public safety and crime. We have to be tougher on crime. We have to change the mindset, right, wrong, or indifferent, about the proliferation of crime on any level, but the idea that you can do something in our state and get away with it. And so to do that, this is not a direct insurance thing, but it will have an important impact on the insurance industry by making sure we increase our law enforcement presence across this country or across the state. We give proper judicial support, and that includes on the prosecutors, public defense, and with our judges, making sure they have the proper support so that they can prosecute and try these crimes. Those will have downstream effects.
“We have a new insurance commissioner coming in from the Senate. Hopefully we can work with her to look at ways we can incentivize insurance companies to grow and plant flags here. We've lost carriers over the last decade.”
Q: Childcare, cost of childcare, availability, accessibility. What movement do you guys see happening in this upcoming legislative session?
Larry Springer: “I’m not going to pretend that I have the answer to that. It is part of what we hope to steer revenue from the capital gains tax toward. That's the intent. We'll see if we can make a significant dent. But part of the struggle there around childcare is when I think of childcare, it's not taking your one-year-old to somebody's house and letting them play with blocks all day. It's child care with qualified, well-paid childcare workers who can also transition for those three, four, and five-year-olds who now can benefit from early childhood education in addition to their childcare placement. And that's the continuum that I think we need to be on. And that's not cheap. The capital gains tax was the revenue source there. We'll see if that's sufficient or not, but that's where we're headed.”
Shelly Short: “I think what we've done is we've made that the model and not all of it could attain that level. I do understand we want our kiddos to be ready. You know, transitional kindergarten, a lot of schools are doing that. I think there's a lot of positives there. But the hard part is now it's all the system. I'm not saying it's bad, but the challenge of not having different things for families, different options for families, I think is where this has hurt that. Do many areas in my district are childcare deserts and it absolutely affects it. But I'm one of those moms that we did have that stay at home mom who absolutely adored working with kids. She did amazing things with them. She didn't just put them in front of a TV all day. And I think the problem is, is we've lost that. We've lost options for parents. And I think that's an unfortunate, just an unfortunate thing that has come about, you know, as a result of that.”
