The third time should be the charm for state transportation improvements. It better be.
As legislators return to Olympia on Monday for their second special session, they surely must know that now is the time for the action that escaped them in the regular session and their first special session.
There’s considerable room for optimism about passage of the state’s operating budget and a general construction budget. Compromises could be enacted within a couple of weeks, some legislators say. That’s encouraging. But there should not be any reason to push decisions on transportation to the end of the scheduled 30 days of this special session, either.
Impressively, the Legislature and Gov. Gary Locke have already enacted two vital transportation reform measures. Private contractors will be able to win contracts to both design and build highway projects. And the permit process for transportation projects will be streamlined.
All that progress can still be lost. The Legislature must end its transportation work by enacting a tax package, including a portion that will go into effect without voter approval. But lawmakers — House Republicans, actually — are still stuck on a couple of remaining issues. Their insistence on more changes risks paralysis over relatively minor reforms, but the House Republicans do have points to make.
Their plan to revise the prevailing wage law for construction projects is moderate, focused on how the wage is calculated in rural eastern Washington. Unless they can sell their plan better (and quickly), however, they ought to be willing to give ground. There is a reasonable fallback: the Blue Ribbon Commission on Transportation’s call for further study of the issue.
Democrats ought to be the ones to move on the GOP desire to contract out some small transportation maintenance projects now performed only by state employees. The idea certainly could — and should — be structured to preserve all existing state maintenance workers’ jobs. But the flexibility to mobilize private contractors to some small maintenance jobs could speed repairs, helping motorists and saving a few dollars.
Rep. Joe Marine, the only Snohomish County Republican on the House Transportation Committee, and committee Republican co-chair Maryann Mitchell both say they would be willing — very reluctantly — to go into a third special session if it means getting a better deal for the public. That may be a necessary negotiating position, but it puts a premium on public patience — and Gov. Gary Locke’s.
Even Locke, the state’s most reasonable politician, might abandon his promise to keep legislators in Olympia until they produce a transportation package. Republicans would have more to lose than he would, because their share of a 49-49 House tie depends on Marine’s seat. Because he was appointed, Marine is facing a November election to keep the position in transportation-slammed southwest Snohomish County. Another failed legislative session isn’t an option for him, Republicans, the county or the state.
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