Playing Chicken with the Supreme Court

Apparently that's the consideration of some in the Legislature.  Publicola is reporting that Senator Steve Litzow told a group of regional leaders (in a closed door meeting a couple of weeks ago) that after the election, the Legislature would convene for a special session...for transportation.  (It's a gas tax.)

Now either the Governor would have to convene this or the Legislature would have to get a 2/3rds vote in both houses to have a special session.

So here's the question (bold mine).

From Publicola:

And this brings us to the "One Question" we've got for Litzow: Is he trying to get the Washington State Supreme Court—which is already holding him (along with the entire legislature) in contempt for failing to come up with a plan to fully fund K-12 education—to throw him in jail now? The legislature needs to come up with about $5 billion extra for K-12 education. The Court would certainly be stunned—after being told by the state's attorney at the September's contempt hearing (the state lost, obviously) that school funding was the #1 priority and was "on every legislator's lips" —to then see legislators come up with $12 billion for transportation and not education. 

And second question, actually: How would that square with Litzow's caucus' mantra to "fund education first?"

Another question: what will the Legislature do if I-1351 passes AND they have McCleary on their plates?  

Comments

Anonymous said…
Legislature passed Senate Bill 5904 expanding and requiring Washington State's preschool program (ECEAP) to serve all eligible children in 2018-2019 school year. Where is all the funding or capacity going to come from for now possibly pre-12.

http://www.del.wa.gov/publications/research/docs/ECEAP_expansion_plan.pdf

PSP
10/16/14, 12:14 PM
Patrick said…
How much of I-1351 and McCleary overlap? If 1351 passes and the Legislature funds it, how much of McCleary would remain to be funded?
10/16/14, 3:02 PM
Melissa Westbrook said…
Patrick, I think 1351 is about $1B each year for three years and McCleary still needs to be about $6B by 2019.

But, inherent in the idea of basic funding and fully-funding is class size so I think the two overlap.
10/16/14, 3:47 PM
Anonymous said…
Ah, the hypocritical Steve Litzow, who accuses teachers of putting their interests before the needs of kids when it comes to NCLB and the waivers, yet doesn't see that as a legislator trying to skip out on the state's paramount duty to fully K-12, he truly is putting his interests (like Boeing) before the needs of kids.
Hope he's replaced in the next election.

CT
10/16/14, 8:28 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Tuesday Open Thread

The speaker list is up for the Board meeting tomorrow; not as packed as I thought with just four people on the waitlist. The majority of the speakers are speaking on high school boundaries (with several wanting to talk about Ballard High). There are only three of us speaking about the Green Dot resolution asking the City to not grant the zoning departures that Green Dot has requested.  It's me, long-time watchdog, Chris Jackins, and the head of the Washington State Charter Schools Association, Patrick D'Amelio.  (I knew Mr. D'Amelio when he headed the Alliance for Education and Big Brothers and Big Sisters; he's a stand-up guy.)
Read more

Breaking It Down: Where the District Might Close Schools

Update 2: an absolutely fabulous interactive map made by parent Beth Day (@thebethocracy on Twitter - she covers Board meetings and is fun to read).   end of update    Update 1: Mea culpa, I did indeed get Decatur and Thornton Creek mixed up. Thanks to all for the correction. end of update   I suspect some who read this post will be irate. Why do this? Because the district seems very hellbent on this effort with no oversight skid marks from the Board.    To clearly state - I do not believe that closing 20 schools is a good idea. I think they hit on 20 because they thought it might bring in the most savings. But the jury is still out on the savings because the district has not shown its work nor its data. I suspect closing schools and THEN leasing/renting them is the big plan but that means the district really has to keep the buildings up.   But this district, with its happy talk about "well-resourced schools" is NOT acknowledging the pain and yes, grief, that is to come fro
Read more

MEETING CANCELED - Hey Kids, A Meeting with Three(!) Seattle Schools Board Directors

 Update 2: So I have seen a message from President Liza Rankin on why she, Director Evan Briggs, and Director Michelle Sarju backed out of this meeting.  In a nutshell: - She says there was no organization to the meeting which is just not true. They had a moderator lined up and naturally the board members could have set parameters for what to discuss, length of meeting, etc. All that was fleshed out. - She also claimed that if the meeting was PTA sponsored, they needed to have liability insurance to use the school space. Hello? PTAs use school space all the time and know they have to have this insurance.  - She seems to be worried about the Open Public Meetings law. Look, if she has a meeting in a school building on a non-personnel topic, it should be an open meeting. It appears that Rankin is trying, over and over, to narrow the window of access that parents have to Board members. She even says in her message - "...with decisions made in public." Hmmm - She also says that th
Read more