A mulligan for the majority

When Senate Democrats needed them most Tuesday, Republicans came to their aid in the debate on suspending Initiative 960.

And it still wasn’t enough to keep leaders of the majority caucus from doing something they didn’t mean to do. Now they plan a do-over.

To recap: In the final moments of the three-hour debate on Senate Bill 6843, Republican Sen. Mark Schoesler pointed out the amended version of the bill Democrats wanted to vote on no longer matched the title of the bill.

That’s a legislative foul. He was right and, for a few moments, the bill had to be set aside.

The remedy was to amend the title — which Republican Sen. Joe Zarelli tried to do in an amendment a few minutes earlier but Democrats voted it down. They apparently didn’t hear Zarelli say something to effect of – ‘if you’re going to do this, at least do it right.’

Well, after Schoesler’s maneuver, Democrats huddled, came up with a new title and then passed the bill on a 26-23 vote.

Three-and-a-half hours later, leaders of the Senate Dems announced they had goofed and voted on the wrong amended version.

A press release stated:

“It was the intent of the Senate to suspend I-960 in its entirety for one year. Due to miscommunication between members and staff, the striker to SB 6843 as drafted and approved by the Senate today only suspends the two-thirds vote requirement.”

Within the release, Sen. Margarita Prentice, D-Renton, says:

“Suspending the entire initiative allows for prompt action now, avoiding the added delay and additional cost to the state that a November public advisory vote would require. The state Treasurer says the state will run out of cash by September, so you can see how that sort of delay is something the state just can’t afford.

“We will run a bill as soon as possible on the Senate floor in line with our original intent to suspend I-960 in full until July 2011.”

Leaders of Senate Democrats might do well to let the House deal with this now.

There’s plenty of Democrats in that chamber who want to snuff out all of Initiative 960 for awhile, if not forever. They’ll have no problems amending the Senate version to their liking and sending it back for concurrence.

That’s got to sound like a better option for senators.