Columbian Editorial (Re-posted with permission)

Technical Foul
Olympia lawmakers are now law-breakers

A state budget deal was reached Sunday, and the full Legislature was called back to Olympia to do something about it. They reconvened Wednesday.

But instead of passing the budget on the first day of reunion time and then clocking off the public dime and going home, lawmakers are still dilly-dallying around with its details and readying to address other unfinished business.

Most citizens, and even some lawmakers, may be unaware just how out of dilly-dally time the Legislature really is. Right now, it is operating under what is called a special session. A special session is really only meant for extreme circumstances, not a Legislature's inability to agree on a list of state income and outgo.

But that complaint is so April. And citizens have rightly moved on. We are in a special session, it is costing taxpayers money that the operating budget could surely use, and we simply want it to end as soon as possible -- preferably before the session's constitutionally mandated 30-day deadline hits on June 10. Another session will be called if this 30-day one doesn't do the trick.

But lawmakers already missed another very important deadline that could possibly land them with misdemeanors should a county prosecutor wish to pursue it.

The law we never heard of before was brought to our attention by the Evergreen Freedom Foundation. It states that "a budget for state government shall be finally adopted not later than thirty calendar days prior to the beginning of the ensuing biennium." The ensuing biennium in this case is July 1, so budget work should have been done by June 1. And check out the follow-up to this piece of law: The RCW states that any "officer or employee" who violates this requirement "shall be guilty of a misdemeanor."

The law was put on the books decades ago, so figuring out the then-legislators' true intentions behind it, and its punishment of a misdemeanor, is not entirely possible. The intent was likely to be sure a budget was in place so state agencies and school districts would have time to refine their own budgets, which are dependent on the state's fiscal decisions.

We aren't sure if this law is good or bad. Legislators should weigh in -- after the budget deal is finalized, that is. Nor do we know how it would be enforced practically. A 1979 attorney general's opinion on the matter even suggests that since the full Legislature is an entity, not an officer or employee, you could not subject lawmakers to the misdemeanors.

While the punishment may not be available, certainly the law's demand that the budget be completed within 30 days of the next biennium cannot be fussed with or debated away. And any law that is on the books ought to be honored or repealed.

Why have state laws that go unenforced?

Evergreen Freedom Foundation P.O. Box 552, Olympia, WA 98507 Phone: (360) 956-3482, Fax: (360) 352-1874 Email: effwa@effwa.org