This short Legislative session has lawmakers already attending committee hearings in these first few weeks.
Sen. Darlene Fairley, D-Lake Forest Park, said she’s been attending committee hearings on the state’s primary election and voting systems.
“We had a committee meeting on paper ballots and whether there should be a paper trail and how to have that happen,” Fairley said. “There is a large bill out there that talks about how we can have electronic voting and insure it can be private and secure. But my concern is how can you verify that? I am in favor of a paper trail.”
On the issue of the state primary system, Fairley said, “We are hoping to keep it from being the parties’ choice – a closed primary where you give your name and pick one ballot: Republican, Democrat or Libertarian.” Fairley also attended a hearing recently in Ways and Means Committee where the Governor’s 2004 supplemental budget was discussed.
“I objected because in it, 63 percent (of the funding) went to four-year schools, 37 percent to community colleges. I want to see more for community colleges.”
Fairley also wants to try to avoid building another state prison. “We shouldn’t build more prisons, we just fill them up and they never go away and it becomes a cycle of spending money rather than on prevention,” she said.
Rep. Ruth Kagi, D-Lake Forest Park, agrees and said she wants to make some changes to the state prison system. She plans to attend a committee hearing in Appropriations to look at the Department of Corrections. Currently, the state is about 700 over capacity in its prisons. The bump up in overcapacity is due to a couple of reasons, she said.
“When people violate parole, they used to go to the County for lock up, but the county can’t afford it anymore so they are sending them to the state,” Kagi said.
Also, lawmakers passed a “50 percent good time” bill under which, for good behavior, state prisoners can get 50 percent of their sentence taken off. But there’s a glitch. County jails will knock off only a third of a prisoner’s sentence for good behavior. So defense lawyers are advising their clients to plead to charges that will put them in state prison where they can cut their sentences shorter than in county jail. “I have a bill to even that up, to give ‘50 percent good time’ for county (prisoners),” Kagi said. Kagi is also working to find a way to avoid sending even more people to prison, especially non-violent drug offenders.
“I passed a drug sentencing reform bill where the Legislative intent was to send fewer people to prison for non-violent drug crimes, but what has happened is that more drug offenders are going to prison. We need to make some changes to rectify this,” Kagi said. Kagi said one of her biggest priorities this session is to get the simple majority bill passed so that school districts would only need greater than 50 percent of the vote to pass a levy. Kagi said is also working on a package of bills to address medical malpractice, insurance reform and patient safety and civil liability reform. “I’m paying close attention to these bills because I have heard from a lot of doctors on how important it is that we address that problem,” she said.
Rep. Maralyn Chase, D-Edmonds, said she has been busy attending hearings on three different subjects, including trade and economic development, higher education and capital budget. She was on these same committees last year, and since this is a short session, she said she remained on the same committees.
On the issue of trade and economic development, Chase said some interesting things have been happening with biotechnology, which she said is the marriage of information technologies and was founded on the genome project. The hope is that the Puget Sound region will become the center for biotechnology and biomedicine, and perhaps even the global headquarters, she said.
Regarding higher education, Chase said committee members are working to figure out how to find enough money for higher education. There is a surplus of students and not enough money, she said. She pointed out that the economy now requires higher educated people, and not only those educated at four-year colleges.
“The interesting thing is 78 percent of the new economy being built will not require a bachelors degree, but will require some community college and certificate training,” Chase said. “This is something Shoreline Community College excels in.”
After attending capital budget hearings, Chase said she was heartbroken to learn that a new prison will likely be built. Last year lawmakers said they would not have to build a new prison, she said. This news propelled her to find out more about the characteristics of prisoners and she learned that 20 percent are mentally disturbed and 80 percent are drug abusers.
Looking at that, she said, not enough is being spent on early childhood. One-third of students who enter high school do not graduate, and of the remaining two-thirds left, only one-third goes to college. She said that within five years, about 50 percent of people who do not graduate from high school are involved with drugs and end up in prison.
“Functionally, we are building a society not of have and have-nots, but of throw-away people,” Chase said.
Chase said there are two bills she strongly supports. One of these is the solar energy bill, and the idea behind it is that parts for solar panels be manufactured in Washington. The second bill is to have a “Made in Washington” logo, so people who want to support local business people can buy Washington products.
“We have to do something about this outsourcing that is going on,” Chase said. “I remain steadfast in support of businesses.”
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