Bills fill Olympia hopper

Published 12:01 am Saturday, January 1, 2011

OLYMPIA — One state lawmaker wants to protect airline passengers from getting their genitalia touched during pat-down searches.

Another seeks to allow ballot counting to begin before polls close, though the results could not be released any earlier.

Still another, inspired by stra

tegies used to help unseat an Everett state senator, hopes to shine a brighter spotlight on political committees.

Their ideas are embedded in the 75 bills waiting for lawmakers when they arrive Jan. 10 for the 2011 legislat

ive session.

Rep. Sherry Appleton, D-Poulsbo, hopes to unite the House of Representatives against the more aggressive pat-down searches implemented by federal Transportation Security Administration workers in October.

Her House Joint Memorial 4000 describes the methods as “intrusive” and asks the TSA to stop using them.

“These new procedures are potentially offensive and humiliating to every individual upon whom they are imposed and, indeed, particularly egregious in their application to women, children, and disabled members of our society,” the bill reads.

She contends they have “discouraged travel by creating fear of physical intrusions of the person” and wants the old manner of searches brought back.

Some actions taken by a Seattle political consultant against Sen. Jean Berkey, D-Everett, in August would be restricted under a bill drafted by Sen. Craig Pridemore, D-Vancouver.

Moxie Media created a web of political action committees to steer money into independent campaigns against Berkey. The firm has been sued by the state for failing to disclose in a timely manner the source of some of those dollars passed from one PAC to another.

Pridemore’s reform measure would ban one PAC from funding another unless one is controlled by an established political party or party caucus.

It also would require PACs created to support or oppose specific candidates to include the candidate’s name and party affiliation as well as the office they seek and year of election. Two PACs could not use the same name under this bill.

“We saw a great deal of effort to influence this year’s campaigns by groups that hid their identities,” he said. “This is an issue that everyone, regardless of party or political ideology, can unite on — disclosure and awareness of who is behind campaigns and how the money is being used.”

Speaking of elections, Sen.-elect Scott White, D-Seattle, doesn’t want county auditors to have to wait until polls close to begin tallying mailed ballots.

He’s proposed letting the count of early-arriving ballots start on Monday — the day before a Tuesday primary or general election. The bill requires results be held in secret and not released until after 8 p.m. on Election Day.

Already, he’s running into opposition.

Steve Breaux of the Washington Public Interest Research Group called it a “seriously flawed” idea and suggested problems would arise even if every election worker keeps the tallies secret.

“Someone, somewhere — a candidate, a political operative, a blogger, someone — will announce on Monday afternoon, ‘I have a source on the inside that says so-and-so is ahead according to the votes they’ve tabulated so far,’” Breaux said in a statement.

“True or not, such a claim would make its way into the mainstream media and it would influence voter behavior, and thus the outcome of an election,” he contended.

The better solution is to hire more workers and buy more counting machines to speed up the counting process, Breaux said.

White also will ignite controversy with his bill to outlaw smoking of cigarettes, cigars and pipes in cars with passengers under the age of 18. Violators would be given a traffic ticket.

Only a few of the bills sitting in the hopper deal in any way with the projected $400 million deficit in the current state budget, arguably the most pressing problem facing lawmakers.

One calls for restructuring the Department of Social and Health Services.

Rep. Mike Armstrong, R-Wenatchee, is the sponsor, and this is essentially the same bill he pursued in the 2010 session that never came up for a vote.

This time might turn out differently. Armstrong garnered 34 co-sponsors — Republican and Democratic. Among them are Republican Reps. Dan Kristiansen of Snohomish, Kirk Pearson of Monroe, Mike Hope of Lake Stevens, Norma Smith of Clinton and Barbara Bailey of Oak Harbor.

The bill aims to break one of the state’s largest agencies into four separate and smaller entities. Armstrong contends millions of dollars — and dozens of lives — will be saved over time with the change because less bureaucracy will translate into lower costs and better delivery of services.

Rep. Larry Crouse, R-Spokane, is sponsor of a bill to suspend, modify and repeal several unfunded mandates the state imposes on local school districts. The mandates consume valuable time and money of the districts, resources which could be better spent on the students, he said.

Among the provisions is one to no longer require at least 150 minutes a week of physical education for grades first through eighth and let districts set an appropriate amount of exercise time for students.

Another part would suspend until 2013 a requirement for civics instruction to students in the 4th, 5th, 7th, 8th, 11th and 12th grades.

Jerry Cornfield: 360-352-8623; jcornfield@heraldnet.com.