Today, April 3rd, is the deadline for state lawmakers to pass policy bills from the opposite chamber out of their respective committees. Fiscal and transportation measures have until April 9th to clear committees in the opposite house.

The Senate Ways and Means Committee, led by majority Democrats, today approved revised HB 1109, their tax and spending plan for the 2019-21 budget period, and sent it to the Senate Rules Committee. The Rules Committee is responsible for scheduling the bill for debate and vote by the full Senate.

The House and Senate budget versions essentially mirror each other on the spending side, but the overall $52.2 billion Senate plan is about $600 million less than the $52.8 billion passed by Democrats in the House last week. Like the House, the Senate plan includes higher real estate and other new taxes, but it would not impose the House’s capital-gains income tax, its higher B&O tax on services, or the local property-tax increases that House Democrats want in order to pay for their spending plan.

In a press release today, Sen. John Braun (R-Centralia), the lead budget writer for Senate Republicans, said that “the Legislature is well-positioned this year to pass a budget that would support major new investments in bipartisan priorities, like special education and mental-health treatment, without any new taxes.” He added that “the tax increases in the proposed Senate budget are still unnecessary, and the spending is higher than necessary, but there is no question it’s much more respectful of taxpayers than the House approach.”

The House Finance Committee has scheduled a hearing on the Democrats’ capital gains income tax proposal, HB 2156, for Thursday, April 4th, and action to pass the bill out of committee is scheduled for Friday, April 5th.  

Once the Senate passes its version of HB 1109, the bill will go back to the House so members there can approve or reject the changes made by the Senate. It is likely, however,  that a final tax and spending plan will ultimately be worked out by the leadership of both chambers during the waning days of this year’s session, which has now only 25 days to go. If they do not reach agreement by then, a special session would likely be called by the Governor.

Just ahead of today’s cut-off deadline, the House Public Safety Committee this week approved SB 5339, to abolish Washington’s death penalty. The bill was passed by the Senate on a 28-19 party-line vote in February, and observers in Olympia say that this year’s effort to pass the bill into law has a lot more momentum than in years past. They say that it is in part because of the large Democratic majorities in both the House and Senate, but even more so because of a state Supreme Court decision in October. In that ruling, the court found Washington State’s death penalty unconstitutional as applied.

The court did not rule the death penalty itself unconstitutional, and Republicans have said that keeping the death penalty on the books is an important tool for prosecutors to use as leverage in dealing with the most violent offenders, and that in any event, voters should make that decision, not lawmakers.

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