OLYMPIA — The Legislature has spit out Steve Tharinger’s bill to license mid-level dental professionals, and it’s turned a mostly tin ear to Kevin Van De Wege’s bid to control music copyright enforcers.
But it’s answered Tharinger’s walk-up call for Medicaid payment parity to telemedicine providers and endorsed his prescription to empower Asian medicine practitioners to treat serious illnesses if medical doctors concur.
Meanwhile, legislators helped Van De Wege throw a wrench into “ticket bots” buying up admissions to popular entertainment and sports events, and endorsed Jim Hargrove’s move to extend criminal courts’ control over property offenders.
The win-some, lose-some action closed out February in the capital, where Tharinger and Van De Wege, both of Sequim, are 24th District representatives and Hargrove of Hoquiam is state senator. All are Democrats. The district encompasses all of Clallam and Jefferson counties and most of Grays Harbor county.
Last week saw lengthy committee meetings that had legislators working late into the night.
This week, both the state House of Representatives and the state Senate will move bills to the floors of their respective chambers, where they will be approved or turned down.
If approved, they will be forwarded to the opposite chamber for action.
The Legislature is scheduled to finish business at the end of April, but still faces major issues that include full funding of public education under an order from the state Supreme Court known as the McCleary decision.
A scorecard by legislator follows:
Hargrove
Hargrove said 11 of the 22 bills he had introduced survived Senate committee hearings and soon should move to the Senate floor.
They include a measure creating a Memorial Highway honoring four men who received the Congressional Medal of Honor, each with his own mile of U.S. Highway 101 with two on each side of the Clallam-Jefferson county line. Two are from each county. Two served in the Civil War, one in World War II and one in Vietnam.
A key piece of Hargrove’s agenda, the Justice Reinvestment Initiative, advanced out of the Ways & Means Committee.
It would decrease jail terms for some property offenses but use diversion programs to keep offenders under courts’ control for longer periods of treatment or drug-abuse therapy than they would serve in jail or on parole.
Washington state currently has the nation’s fifth stiffest penalties for property offenders but the country’s fifth highest rate of property crimes, Hargrove said.
He said similar programs in other states have decreased property crimes, which he said could drop by 1,000 a year in Washington.
“We wouldn’t be doing this at all if that weren’t going to be the outcome,” he said Saturday.
Another of Hargrove’s top priorities is a bill to fund domestic violence prevention programs with small fees for marriage licenses and divorces. It also advanced.
“The whole purpose is to try to provide some steady funding for these domestic violence programs around the state,” Hargrove said.
“We really need to get ahead of the game by providing some prevention too.”
Tharinger
A third attempt to license dental therapists and dental hygiene therapists — analogous to medicine’s nurse practitioners — died in committee under pressure from the Washington State Dental Association, which has opposed creating such mid-level professionals for 11 years, Tharinger said Saturday.
Still, he said, he will try to introduce programs to increase state aid for dental residencies in under-served and rural areas, to cover dental students’ education loans or to defer their loan repayments.
Tharinger’s bill to give payment priority to telemedicine providers — distant doctors who consult with local physicians and their patients by televised connections — also advanced. It would make private insurance companies pay the same for telemedicine as for in-person medical services.
Olympic Medical Center provides telemedicine consultations through its partnership with Swedish Medical Center and through the Seattle Cancer Alliance.
Tharinger also saw advance a bill he co-sponsored to tighten the exemptions parents may claim for having their children vaccinated before they attend school.
It would close the vague “personal” exemption but let stand exemptions for valid medical reasons and religious beliefs.
Van De Wege
Despite testimony on HB 1763 by Dale and Janice Dunning, owners of the Oasis Bar and Grill, 301 E. Washington St., Sequim, a committee weakened Van De Wege’s measure to reign in copyright enforcement agencies like ASCAP and BMI.
The agencies collect royalties on behalf of music composers from venues that present live entertainment, such as the Oasis and the Dam Bar, 242701 W. U.S. Highway 101, Port Angeles. Its owners, Jim and Elda Brandt, also testified on behalf of the bill.
But the house Business and Financial Services Committee weakened the bill to “make it pretty easy for these people to keep harassing business owners,” Van De Wege said Friday. “The copyright people all hired lobbyists when I introduced the bill.
“I think there’s some hope, though. There’s some strategies I have cooked up. We’ll see if any of them are successful.”
Van De Wege’s bill outlawing the computerized mass purchase of sports and entertainment admission by so-called “ticket bots” passed the House floor 98-0. It now advances to the Senate.
According to House testimony, ticket bots are computerized scalpers that can corner up to 20 percent of available ticket inventory for resale at inflated prices.
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Reporter James Casey can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5074, or at jcasey@peninsuladailynews.com.
