Short Sessions, Mixed Results: WA, WI, OR, WY, UT

A few states have already wrapped up their sessions for 2008.  Some like Washington State cranked out impressive gains for state consumers and workers in a short period, while others accomplished far less, either because of political gridlock or lack of progressive leadership.  But significant progress was made on key issues in most of the states profiled in today's Dispatch.

Washington

In just sixty days, the Washington State legislature passed a remarkable 335 bills. The legislature passed strong bills protecting the environment, consumers, and people affected by the mortgage crisis, making the state one of the country's leaders in progressive victories.

Toxic Toys:  We've highlighted the great efforts in Washington state to protect children from toxics in their toys and products.  The legislature passed HB 2647, which is one of the most comprehensive toxic toys protection bills in the country.  Not only does the bill ban phthalates, but it also reduces the allowable lead limit to 40 parts per million.  Additionally, it requires identification of other chemicals of high concern and publishes information on chemicals used in children's products and whether any safer alternatives exist.

Climate Change:  Washington state continues its great record of taking action against climate change by passing:

• HB 2815 - requires reduction of greenhouse gases by 50% below 1990 levels by 2050 and provides funding for green collar jobs.  We've highlighted the importance of developing a green workforce before and Washington state is leading the states by passing this bill.
• SB 6580 - requires the Department of Community, Trade and Economic Development to provide municipalities with a tool to measure greenhouse gas emissions, and establishes a competitive grant program to give funds to municipalities implementing programs to fight climate change.

Mortgage Crisis and Affordable Housing:  The legislature passed a package of bills that offers protections from subprime loans and deceptive lending practices, including:

• SB 6381 - creates fiduciary duties for mortgage brokers, ensuring that they look out for the interest of borrowers.
• SB 6471 - protects consumers by closing a loophole between federal and state jurisdictions and requires all mortgage brokers be regulated by the State Department of Financial Institutions.
• HB 2770 - sets up limits on pre-payment penalties and forbids brokers from tricking unwary borrowers into accepting a subprime loan when they know that the borrower is qualified for a lower interest loan.
• SB 6272 - expands financial literacy through education and counseling to promote greater homeownership security.
• HB 2014 - requires landlords to provide tenants with relocation compensation for condominium conversions and extends the time period that tenants have to move out to 120 days.  It also allows cities to restrict the number of condominium conversions.

Health Care:  As highlighted last week, Washington state is on its way to providing affordable health care for all its residents. While SB 6221, which would have provided comprehensive care, did not pass, SB 6333 did pass. SB 6333 creates the Citizens' Work Group on Health Care Reform, which authorizes a detailed analysis of leading health care reform models and requires engaging the public in developing recommendations for comprehensive reform.  Other positive health care measures include SB 5261, which gives the insurance commissioner authority to review the rate increases of health benefit plans; rates have increased dramatically since the authority stopped regulating it.  Unfortunately, SB 6241, which would have prohibited the sale or use of prescription data for marketing purposes, failed to pass the House.  

Immigration:  Governor Christine Gregoire signed an Executive Order creating a New Americans Policy Council to promote strategies to help legal immigrants become naturalized, learn English language skills, and facilitate public-private partnerships to better integrate those new Americans into the fabric of the state's society and economy.  The Washington state legislature took the additional step of providing $340,000 in funding to promote community economic development and build the capacity of organizations across the state to provide naturalization assistance to legal permanent residents.

Other Steps Forward included:

• Campaign Finance: SB 5278 was signed into law allowing voters in cities and counties to decide whether to use public money for local election campaigns.
• Expanding rights for same sex couples: SB 3104 grants about 170 of the rights and responsibilities of marriage to those in domestic partnerships, including being able to share bank accounts, hold property together, and have immunity from testifying against each other in a court of law.  The bill has been signed into law.
• Investing in broadband development: The legislature has sent to the Governor SB 6438, which would create a statewide needs assessment of broadband Internet resources as well as a working group to develop a high-speed Internet deployment and adoption strategy for the state.
• Encouraging schools to offer healthier choices: SB 6483 makes it easier for schools to buy locally grown food; it has been delivered to the Governor.
• Working Families Credit: SB 6809 was passed by the legislature and delivered to the Governor.  It would establish the Working Families Credit (WFC), which will give qualifying families a credit equal to 10% of their federal Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), although funding for the program was left for next year.
• Nursing ratios:  To protect patient safety and reduce stress on nurses, HB 3123 requires hospitals to implement nurse staffing plans, with nurses themselves having a central role in developing and evaluating the plans.  The Governor has signed the bill into law.

Failed bills:  While there were substantial gains, the legislature did fail to pass a few important measures, most notably:

• HB 2449, which would have allowed for day care worker unionization. The bill died after a contentious battle between House and Senate.
• HB 2833, which would have added Pierce County to all-mail voting but died in committee.

Washington state legislators truly took the lead on implementing a progressive agenda, particularly given the short length of their session.  As House Speak Frank Chopp said, "We did a whole lot this session, and I'm proud of that."

Wisconsin

The biggest news coming out of Wisconsin this year may be the retirement of the Green Bay Packers' beloved quarterback, Brett Favre, but lawmakers were largely able to keep to the task at hand and pass a budget before the end of the shortened 2008 session.  However, they may find themselves back in Madison to deal with a worsening budget situation.  Despite leaving some key issues on the table due to partisan divisions, lawmakers laid a solid foundation for future success in 2009.

Budget:  Approving a $1 increase in the cigarette tax, the legislature increased state spending by $763.3 million dollars, down from the $1.5 billion included in Gov. Doyle's original plan.  BadgerCare Plus, the state's plan to provide free or affordable health care to children throughout Wisconsin, will be expanded in January 2009 to include childless adults.   

Incremental Successes included:

• Access to Emergency Contraception - Bucking recent trends that sought to limit access to reproductive services, the Governor and lawmakers enacted Act 102, which requires hospitals to provide emergency contraception to sexual assault survivors.
• Fire-Safe Cigarettes - Assuming Governor Doyle adds his signature to AB 717, Wisconsin will join 22 other states in requiring that all cigarettes be fire-safe by automatically extinguishing when they are not being smoked.
• Reining in Notaries Who Prey on Immigrants - Notaries public in Mexico and Latin American countries have legal training and dispense legal advice, while in the US they are only authorized to administer oaths and witness signatures. AB 468 imposes stiff penalties on notaries who scam immigrants by charging them for legal advice.

Missed Opportunities and Partisan Strife:  The legislature tried but failed to pass a ban on text messaging while driving, as well as a statewide smoking ban, which the US Surgeon General reports would have no negative impact on local economies and in many cases results in economic growth.  Indicating the partisan differences between the Republican-led Assembly and the Democrat-controlled Senate, the Assembly passed a measure making English the official language of Wisconsin and an amendment to the constitution designed to preempt a Senate proposal guaranteeing health care to all residents.  Both measures were not even taken up by the Senate.

A Foundation for 2009:  In the last few days of the legislative session, State Sen. Jon Erpenbach re-introduced his groundbreaking health care reform proposal, Healthy Wisconsin.  Healthy Wisconsin stands out from other state initiatives by guaranteeing comprehensive health care coverage to all residents and establishing a uniform, affordable funding mechanism that is proportional to employers' and families' ability to pay.  Healthy Wisconsin would save the state $14 billion over ten years.  A recent analysis by Citizen Action of Wisconsin shows that the average family could save 40% to 62% of what they currently spend on health care under Healthy Wisconsin - a savings of $1,320 to $4,180 per year. 

Putting Healthy Wisconsin back on the table gives health care reform advocates a plan to run on during the November elections, a strategy that helped Democrats takeover the State Senate in 2006.

Oregon

Oregon held an experimental even-year session in February that lasted just three weeks.  Designed as a test for a possible switch to yearly legislative sessions (Oregon is one of 6 state legislatures that only meets once every two years), the short duration left little time for resolving controversial issues.  Several bills, however, were passed that implement small but important progressive reforms.  These reforms were focused on children, families, and the environment.

In support of children and families, Oregon passed several bills relating to education, senior care, foster care, mortgage reform and product safety.

• On senior care, the legislature increased the Medicaid reimbursement rates and allocated $12.2 million for adult foster care, assisted-living and residential care centers.  This should help ameliorate the problem of low reimbursements leading care homes to reject Medicaid recipients.  On foster care, funding was increased by $7.3 million for child-welfare workers. 
• For homeowners, two bills reforming mortgage practices were passed.  SB 1064 increases oversight of mortgage bankers and brokers.  HB 3630 requires more complete notification to homeowners facing foreclosure.  The bill also regulates foreclosure consultants and prohibits rescue mortgage scams. Two additional bills that protect homeowners from foreclosure managed to pass the House, but died in the Senate under firm opposition from the mortgage industry.
• Product safety laws were enhanced by a bill, HB 3631, that requires retailers to remove unsafe and recalled toys from their shelves.  Under current law voluntarily recalled toys often remain in stores and continue to be sold.
• In education, the legislature preserved the ability of schools to charge tuition for full-day kindergarten.  This arrangement had previously been struck down in court.  Since full-day kindergarten lacks a state funding stream, without the law, schools would have to eliminate full-day kindergarten for approximately 3,000 children.  While some lawmakers objected to the practice of charging tuition, agreement on appropriating the 50 million dollars needed to fund full-day kindergarten could not be reached.

On the environmental protection front, bills decreasing energy use and supporting renewable energy and green jobs made it into law, as did a bill promoting long-term planning.

• Energy efficiency in government was given a boost by a bill that requires state agencies to reduce their energy consumption 20% by 2015.
• Clean energy and green jobs were bolstered by legislation that expanded tax credits to renewable energy equipment manufacturers.  The credits were doubled from $20 to $40 million dollars.
• Smart growth is being fostered by legislation that moves forward the states 30-year land use review (the "Big Look").  Housing rights were advanced by legislation that prohibits "facially neutral" housing policies if they have a disparate impact on a protected class.  This is an important reform in light of the diminished legal protections in this area that have resulted from adverse court decisions.

Criminal Justice: The Oregon Legislature also worked to get out in front of a ballot initiative that would mandate stiff minimum sentences for even first-time drug and property crime offenders.  The initiative, which is likely to cost $150 million dollars or more if implemented, will now vie with a legislature-backed initiative that increases penalties on repeat offenders, offers treatment instead of prison for first-time offenders, and will likely cost just a fraction of the more draconian proposal.  This attempt to prevent stiff mandatory minimum sentences is vitally important in a state that currently spends more on prisons than any state in the country on a per capita basis.

The legislature also bowed to anti-immigrant attacks and codified (SB 1080) the Governor's Executive Order to bar undocumented immigrants from being able to apply for Oregon's driver's licenses.

In the category of things left undone, Oregon failed to advance health care legislation that would have created a constitutional right to healthcare or to expand health insurance coverage for children.

With just three weeks in session lawmakers had to race against the clock to pass significant legislation.  Given the time limitations, several significant steps forward were taken to help improve the lives of Oregonians.  Only time will tell if Oregon decides the experiment was a success and moves to yearly legislative sessions.

Wyoming

In its short session, Wyoming lawmakers largely limited their work to passing the state budget and promoting policies that legislators hope will reduce the carbon emissions from the state's coal production.

The $3.5 billion budget bill avoided proposed general property tax cuts in favor of targeted relief to senior citizens, veterans and the disabled, while maintaining funding for state services.  The budget included $30 million per year for mine reclamation projects in the state.

A number of bills concentrated on trying to promote projects for "clean" coal (an oxymoron for many environmentalists), including:

• $20 million for a joint University of Wyoming elk and General Electric project establishing a research facility to study ways to reduce carbon emissions from coal production.

• HB 90 appropriates $250,000 to the Department of Environmental Quality to regulate the capture and injection of carbon dioxide into the earth.

• HB 89 will allow surface property owners to sell the "pore space" below their lands to store carbon dioxide and other substances as part of "carbon sequestration" schemes.

• $10 million for the construction of a coal gasification plant near Elk Mountain in Carbon County.

The legislature also passed SF 65, which will allow prisoners to petition for new trials based on DNA evidence.

On the campaign finance front, the legislature passed HB 3 to authorize electronic campaign filing, but the Governor vetoed a bill that would have lifted campaign contribution limits from $1000 to $3,500 and elimited the $25,000 limit on political contributions.

Utah

While the session started with larger ambitions, a diminished budget surplus and political deadlock led to less dramatic results -- a good thing in the case of a proposed $100 million tax cut which was shelved. 

Regarding the environment, the session was a mixed bag:

• On transit, the state spent $2.6 billion to rebuild I-15 in Utah County, while sticking local taxpayers, rather than the airport itself, with much of the cost for funding a light rail line to Salt Lake City International Airport.

• The legislature approved Clean Air and Efficient Vehicle Tax Incentives, a $750 tax credit for vehicles meeting higher air quality and fuel efficiency standards.  Unfortunately, compressed natural gas vehicles were excluded. 

• A Net Metering Program will allow customers to sell back excess electricity generated, such as from a customer's rooftop solar panels.

Public Education:  With voters rejecting the plan by legislators last year to privatize public education through a voucher system, the legislature got the message to improve the public school themselves.  Education speading increased $239 million, with teachers given a $1,700 raise and per-pupil funding going up 2.5% along with more equity in how school building funds are distributed throughout the state.

Immigration:  Governor Jon Huntsman Jr. signed anti-immigrant bill SB 81 into law.  The bill was amended from its original version in early March, notably removing the provisions that would have ended access to in-state tuition rates for undocumented immigrants who reside in the state.  What remained in the bill included allowing local law enforcement agencies to enforce immigration laws, forbidding localities from engaging in "sanctuary" policies, and requiring public employers and their contractors to verify the legal status of workers.  However, implementation of all provisions are delayed until 2009 in the hope, according to the Governor, that the federal government will resolve the issue first.  The legislature also approved HB 262, which requires the Office of Legislative Research and General Counsel to study the actual costs of undocumented immigration to the state.

On health care, broader plans to expand coverage were replaced by a task force, HB 133, to study the problem.  However, $18 million in tax breaks for buying health care were approved, along with a program to educate low-income residents about existing health care options they are eligible for that are underused.

Other significant laws approved included:

• SB 83 - a watered down bill to require some reporting by payday lenders.
• SB 38 - the Transparency in Government Finance Act to put key government finance information online.
• SB 16 - expanded right of prisoners to use DNA to seek a new trial.
• HJR 1 - a resolution declaring that federal trade agreements should not undermine state lawmaking authority, give investors additional rights to ignore state and federal laws, undermine state use of procurement policies, or undermine state regulatory powers over domestic industries.
• SB 299 - a bill originally intended to eliminate Salt Lake City's domestic partnership registry, but which after some compromises may do little more than force the city to change the program's name.