OLYMPIA — Now it all depends on the other guys.
Wednesday marked the cutoff for legislation to emerge from the state House of Representatives or the state Senate. Bills passed by one chamber go to the other for consideration.
Among the bills that died was one Rep. Steve Tharinger cosponsored to deny personal and philosophical exemptions from the vaccinations required for schoolchildren.
“We went dancing in and out of the realm of reason,” Tharinger, a Sequim Democrat, said of opposition to the bill sponsored by Rep. June Robinson, a Democrat from Everett.
The proposed legislation would have authorized only medical or religious reasons for a parent or guardian to exempt children from vaccinations against such diseases as measles, mumps, rubella, chicken pox, Hepatitis B and polio.
“There just weren’t enough votes to get it to the floor,” Tharinger said, despite a state outbreak of eight cases of measles this year.
The number confirmed in Clallam County climbed to five on Thursday. Two cases were reported in Grays Harbor County and one in Whatcom County.
Tharinger had better luck with a bipartisan bill he backs that would reduce the state’s Business & Occupation Tax for startup enterprises capitalized at $500,000 or less.
That monetary limit might drop to $250,000, he said, but it still would help businesses just starting out that are making big initial investments in machinery, marketing or personnel.
“Hopefully it’s something we can get done by the end of the session,” he said, adding that the legislation would be revenue neutral by eliminating other B&O exemptions “so there’s a simpler tax code.”
Meanwhile, state Rep. Kevin Van De Wege lost his bid to attach prison penalties to violations of the state’s campaign contribution laws.
The legislation grew from Olympic Ambulance owner Bill Littlejohn’s paying employees to fund a fight against adding paramedic services in Clallam County Fire District 2.
The 2013 tax levy failed, but Littlejohn was fined $60,000, a fine later reduced by half.
Under Van De Wege’s bill, such a violator could face a prison sentence.
Van De Wege’s successes in bills moved from the House to the Senate included his renewed efforts to ban toxic flame-retardant chemicals in furniture and children’s merchandise, to outlaw computer-driven ticket buyouts for sporting and entertainment events, and to reign in companies that collect copyright royalties from small venues that present live entertainment.
State Sen. Jim Hargrove’s survivors included his Justice Reinvestment Initiative that would trim some sentences for property offenders but extend corrections department supervision of paroled property offenders.
However, Hargrove deplored a Senate-passed bill regulating oil transportation because it did not address safety standards for ships and barges that carry oil on Grays Harbor and the Columbia river waterways.
“We must ensure we are doing everything we can to protect vulnerable communities and waterways,” he said in a statement early last week.
“This legislation falls short.”
Now each legislative chamber has three weeks to prepare its own budget. Then the House and Senate must reconcile the two spending plans into a single financial bill.
Hargrove said he would work to restore “at least” the $5 million that was pared from the last session’s spending bill to help fund a $14.4 million project to move refuse from an eroding bluff at the shuttered Port Angeles landfill and shore up the bluff.
Looming behind the deliberations is the state Supreme Court’s order in its McCleary decision that legislators must fully fund basic education or face a contempt penalty.
“Not to do it would be to present the court with some interesting choices to apply with the contempt order that they put in force last fall,” Hargrove said.
“I think we can avoid a constitutional crisis and get our job done.”
He said that might require “new resources, not necessarily taxes.
“Fees and assessment might do part of that.”
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Reporter James Casey can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5074, or at jcasey@peninsuladailynews.com
