Letters March 31

Losing track

The Washington State legislature is again into a special session.

This was supposed to be a 60 day session.

Last year was supposed to be a 90 day session.

According to the newspaper, this is the sixth legislative session in seven that has been extended into special session.

I believe our representatives consider this to be the norm.

They appear to spend the majority of their time writing hundreds of various bills early in the session, spending hundreds of hours in committee hearings discussing these bills (many of which never move forward out of committee), saving the most important work of finalizing a budget near the end.

The parties not coming to agreement again this year, the governor called a special session.

This time he even threw a tantrum and vetoed 26 bills without consideration (which had consumed hundreds of hours of legislator’s time to get to his desk), because the legislature could not get their act together to pass a bipartisan budget on time.

I think once elected our legislators when they arrive in Olympia lose track of what their mission and responsibility is, which in my mind is to provide a budget that will allow the State of Washington to function in the best interests and for the welfare of its citizens within the state constitution.

In addition to receiving a salary, the legislators receive daily per diem while in Olympia. Every extra day costs us taxpayers thousands of dollars. Maybe if they were only paid per diem for the days of the regular session, and none for overtime, the budget would receive the priority early in the session it deserves in a bipartisan manner. The other solution is to send elected representatives to Olympia who make passing the budget timely a priority, so an extra session is not required.

Bob Lothspeich,

Colfax