#waleg

Republicans in the State Senate yesterday voted to preempt the provisions outlined in I-1433, which voters overwhelmingly approved in November. 

The initiative, which passed by a 15% margin, would raise the minimum wage for all non-exempt, non-agricultural workers to $13.50 over the course of five years. It also includes provisions for paid sick leave. 

A series of three Republican-backed bills—all of which passed out of committee yesterday—are angling to whittle away at the rules laid out by the initiative and, in one case, essentially render the initative meaningless. 

The three bills seek to create a teen wage (which they’ve been at for a while, despite a lack of proof that such sub-minimum wages are at all beneficial to the larger economy), a special lower wage for nonprofit workers, and a minimum wage of $9.53/hour for “any employer located in a county with a population less than one million 9  five hundred thousand people.”

Which is every county in the state except King County. 

The $9.53 wage still includes provisions for paid sick leave and stipulates that the minimum wage be tied annually to inflation (the bill states it’ll be based on the ”consumer price index for urban wage earners and clerical workers”) to maintain consumer purchasing power (which is required by law)—however, that number remains too low to rent an apartment in most of the state. 

For example, a one-bedroom apartment in Spokane rents for $695, which requires a person to be earning over $2,000 per month to not be considered burdened by their rent. At $9.53, a person would earn just over $1,500 per month at full employment. Under this minimum wage, workers in Spokane would still need to spend half their income just to rent a place.

It’s unlikely that any of the bills will pass—despite the Senate’s makeup—in large part because there’s just not the political will to go back on what voters have expressed. However, it’ll be necessary for voters to make it clear that this is not how they want their lawmakers spending their time. 

So here’s the thing about Washington, which we’ve said a billion times before but bears repeating: Our tax structure is garbage. It’s been called the most regressive in the nation by far, meaning that the tax burden is shouldered more heavily by lower-income residents.

We keep maintaining this unequitable tax structure year after year, because the dramatic tax solutions that would help fix this (HELLO INCOME TAX) are politically toxic.

And considering what we ***should*** be doing to implement progressive taxes in Washington State, the Democratic House budget released yesterday should seem like a reasonable compromise: It raises B&O taxes, but cuts them altogether for smaller businesses. Under separate legislation, it relies on a capital gains tax, but only for earnings over $25,000.

This offers a sharp contrast to the budget that the Republican Senate released last week, which relies on two pretty weak principles: We have most of the money we need already, and most of the state are red-blooded, tax-paying Americans supporting Seattle’s experimental, communist utopia.

Both of these are false. Washington State totally relies on Seattle’s money. And there are better ways to get the money we need than to keep the status quo, which, again, places an unfair burden on our state’s poorest.

Still, the crux of the Senate budget is this: Flatten property taxes for school funding across the state and eliminate local levies (to attempt to satisfy McCleary), thus increasing Seattle and other cities’ tax burden for school funding. Reject state employee union agreements and give everyone across the board a raise of about $500 each year.

This stagnates middle class (and some low income) jobs and does nothing to fix a tax structure that favors the rich. It doesn’t address ridiculous loopholes like the tax break for buying a jet, nor does it touch on the fact that the state’s copious millionaires are failing to contribute much more to the community than the people who bus tables, make lattes, care for your elderly parents, or clean your apartment building. 

We do not have to keep doing this. 

As the Governor made clear when he released his budget proposal earlier this year, there are more progressive sources of revenue that we could be chasing without bleeding small businesses or whatever dry. 

This isn’t about a balanced budget using our existing, bonkers system—it’s about how when we have an equitable tax structure, we have more revenue, and we can use that money to pay for things.

Today at 3:30, the Ways & Means committee will hear a few bills, including one from Senator Mark Miloscia, who Sucks™. This is the bill’s first reading.

The digest is very innocent-sounding:

[Text: Addresses the homelessness crisis in the state and the goal of ending that crisis.]

But in fact, it is the kind of law-and-order approach that has never, ever worked and instead just gums up the system. Some of the points include:

Makes camping on public property illegal.

Preempts homeless encampments.

Of course, technically camping is pretty well prohibited on public property, it’s just that there aren’t really the resources or the political will to spend all day, every day chasing people around. And anyway, we know exactly how disruptive; after Mayor Ed Murray ordered that the Jungle be swept, many of the occupants were encourage to go to the Field of Dreams...which was then also promptly swept. 

It’s not a great use of resources. Neither is state preemption, described as such:

State preemption of a subject of law occurs when the Legislature has determined that it will regulate a field of law and that local control over that subject is not permitted. For example, the state of Washington has preempted the field of firearms regulation and setting penalties for violations of the controlled substances act; for those subjects local governments may only enact laws and ordinances that are authorized by and consistent with state law.

So much for Small Government, huh? But one of the really yucky parts about the bill, which doesn’t seem to be at all grounded in fact, data, or best practices, is this little tidbit:

The state preempts the entire field of homeless encampments. Commerce may authorize homeless encampments within specific guidelines. Before authorizing an encampment, Commerce must provide neighborhood notification and local public hearings must be completed in conjunction with at least one neighborhood group, the local city council, and the local county council. Encampments in public parks and other critical areas are allowed only after a countywide public vote.

By January 1, 2018, the ten largest cities in the state, as determined by Commerce, must identify on a map all the unauthorized campsites in that jurisdiction. The map is to be posted on that jurisdiction's and Commerce's website, updated daily.

Ÿ  By July 1, 2018, the largest cities in each of the state's two most populous counties must authorize as many encampment spaces as necessary to house all of that city's homeless population and enforce unauthorized camping statutes.

Ÿ  By January 1, 2019, all unauthorized encampments must be closed down or that jurisdiction must not receive any state funding for homeless programs.

Ÿ  By July 1, 2019, all cities in the state's most populous county must authorize as many encampment spaces as necessary to house all of the city's homeless population.

Ÿ  By July 1, 2020, the largest city in the state's third most populous county must authorize as many encampment spaces as necessary to house all of that city's homeless population.

Ÿ  By July 1, 2021, any local government that duly enacts laws or ordinances permitting homeless encampments must authorize as many encampment spaces as necessary to house all of that local government's homeless population.

Ÿ  All available encampment spaces must be listed on that local government's web site and be reported daily to Commerce. A local government that fails to provide adequate homeless encampment spaces must not receive any state funding for homeless programs.

On a daily basis, a local government must report the following information to the department, as well as list the information on that local government's web site: the number of unauthorized encampments; the number of unauthorized encampments that are closed; the total number of people in unauthorized encampments, emergency shelters, and transitional housing, as well as the number of entry and exits into such housing; and the number of deaths in both authorized and unauthorized encampments.

Ÿ  By January 1, 2024, there must not be any authorized or unauthorized encampments as there will be an adequate supply of housing eliminating the need for such encampments.

Ÿ  The State Auditor must provide an annual certification to the state Legislature and State Board of Health that Commerce is compliant with the requirements set forth in this section

So basically, the bill would require that the local governments monitor and track the activities of every single homeless person who try to lay their head down somewhere. 

Is that some nanny state shit or what?

The WA GOP is such a puzzling group of people; this kind of surveillance is the exact kind of thing that conservatives rail against, and yet, if it’s targeting a specifical, marginalized group, they’re A-OK with it. 

Jessyn Farrell, like a rock star, introduced an incredible pregnancy accommodations bill to the Washington State House this session. It passed the house yesterday—which is great! But before it passed, it was watered down below the standard of similar anti-discrimination bills.

While most anti-discrimination legislation applies to employers with eight employees or more, the bill was amended to match a Senate bill co-sponsored by Confirmed Douchechill Michael Baumgartner (and a-ok Karen Keiser), which only keeps employers with 15 or more employees on the hook for the legislation.

It’s a weird carve-out, giving employers with anywhere from eight to 14 employees special permission to not give reasonable accommodations like, say, bathroom breaks. Or letting pregnant people keep water at their desk. Or giving them less-strenuous work instead of making them take leave.

The revised bill gets far more specific than the original bill, as well—which sometimes in labor protections can be good, like providing a specific amount of leave. In this case, “reasonable accommodation includes, but is not limited to” got replaced with “reasonable accommodation means,” limiting the scope of the legislation. The revision only requires employers give “reasonable consideration” into other accommodations.

NARAL points out that while some argue that the legislation can be modified later, that doesn’t usually actually happen:

Supporters of the "compromise" bill pointed out that it can be amended to include all women at some future date. In our experience, these kinds of assurances have been empty promises. Washington state passed a law banning some, but not all, forms of marital rape in 1983. At the time, advocates were told it would be a simple matter to amend the law to make clear that marital rape is illegal under all circumstances. It took 30 years for legislators to make good on that promise. Washington women can't wait another 30 years to get workplace accommodations during pregnancy.

Like, it’s hard enough to get a bill passed, much less do housekeeping on that bill in a timely manner.

The WAGOP sure loves small government! Why, they want the government to be so smail that it can’t do anything. Except regulate how the City of Seattle can do its business. They do want the government to regulate that.

Or at least that’s what it would seem from looking at a bill that’s being heard in Olympia today, which would ban rent control for commercial buildings. Currently, residential rent control is barred under state law, but cities can help small businesses out (and the GOP loves small biz. Right? RIGHT?) by helping control the rents they pay on their spaces. 

However, Rep. Matt Manweller—who maybe thinks slavery is kind of cool and also doesn’t believe in the gender wage gap and is also pretty into discrimination against trans folks—doesn’t think the City should be able to pass its own laws in this regard (because small government? I guess?). 

HB 1082 was read and discussed today as part of the Local Government committee, where numerous developers argued that commercial rent control “meddles with supply and demand” and that high rents aren’t the reason why small businesses go out of business. They also argued that “nobody” would lease in a rent-controlled area.

The Mainstreet Alliance’s Bill Daly argued that that wasn’t true.

“Small businesses...are being displaced as their customer base deteriorates as their customer base deteriorates around them,” he explained. “Rent plays a role in their ability to compete. We don’t understand why it’s necessary to deny a municipality a tool that it can use.”

“I don’t think it’s good for our democracy to take away power from cities and circumvent power from the cities,” argued Washington CAN!’s Xochitl Maykovich. 

Councilmember Kshama Sawant, who has been pushing for increased assistance for small businesses with commercial rent control and the addition of some rent control measures for residential areas, wrote a letter to the House Dems about the bill. 

“HB 1082 shamelessly sides with wealthy real estate investors against small businesses, similar to what the state government did in 1981 enacting RCW 35.21.830, which bans residential rent control,” she wrote.

“At that time, legislators sided with landlords and real estate corporations against residential renters. Tens of thousands across our state have been forced into homelessness, or have stayed in their homes only with a greater and greater sacrifice. Doubling someone’s rent, a not uncommon event in Seattle, should be illegal. Instead, the legislature in 1981 prohibited its prevention, on behalf of the real estate lobby.”

She also did some next-level shade-throwing by attaching her own version of the bill, which looks like this:

Rep. Matt Manweller is back to work today in the WaLeg and he...seems...to...be...pro-slavery?