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Session winners
• K-12 teachers and employees — 4.4 percent pay raises.
• Same-sex couples — gaining 170 legal rights in domestic-partner registry.
• Environment — climate change legislation, Growth Management Act links to global warming, green-collar jobs grants.
• Health care reformers — new rate-setting authority for insurance commissioner, hospital errors disclosure, discipline system reforms for health care professionals, major insurance reforms set up for consideration in 2009-10; small subsidy of small- business employees authorized.
• Gov. Chris Gregoire — passed top legislative priorities, kept $836 million in bank.
• Dino Rossi — Democrats' budget leaves $2.4 billion shortfall in 2009 as gubernatorial campaign issue.
• Government disclosure — searchable budget database passed.
• Consumers — privacy of wireless phone numbers, new restrictions on heavy metals in toys.
• Seniors — a new statewide falls-prevention program, and additional funding for dental care.
• Foster care — new funding for more social worker visits, education screening and sibling contact, plus a pilot program of a new class of foster parents.
• Homeowners — foreclosure reforms including consumer education, broker accountability and help to build low-income housing.
• Builders — avoided home warranty against construction defects and contractor licensing requirements.
• Low-income taxpayers — working family tax credit approved, but no benefits for at least another year.
• Housing — $70 million budgeted for Housing Trust Fund and $10 million for other low-income housing aid.
Session losers
• Property tax relief — only minor adjustments passed, including changes to eligibility for disabled veterans.
• Paid family leave — lawmakers pay for a computer system, but no funding source is identified for benefits next year.
• Sex offenders — DNA bill expands list of crimes requiring biological samples.
• Government disclosure — bill to tape executive sessions died.
• Homeowners — warranty against builder defects died; so did contractor licensing proposals.
• Doctors — bill preventing pharmaceutical companies from collecting their prescribing data for marketing purposes died.
• Seattle SuperSonics — no state money spent to keep the NBA team in the state, despite a last-minute push.
• Health Care Authority — the state agency sees its major computer project canceled to save money, after $7 million already had been spent.
• The House — 10 members of the 98-seat chamber say they will not run for their office again.
The Olympian
Big strides vs. baby steps: Parties put their spin on session
By Brad Shannon And Adam Wilson | The Olympian
It's over. The Legislature adjourned its 60-day session Thursday night, with Democrats and Republicans trading barbs about how much the majority Democrats spent in supplemental budgets — and in the previous three years.
"The big gloom and doom will be here next year when we get here," Senate Republican Leader Mike Hewitt of Walla Walla said after the Senate approved the $306 million supplemental budget on a party-line vote.
"We were disciplined. We were prudent. We were frugal," countered Senate Ways and Means Committee chairwoman Margarita Prentice, D-Renton.
Prentice painted the picture of a still-healthy state economy, citing a 4.5 percent jobless rate, and insisted that $836 million in reserves is plenty, despite staff predictions that a $2.4 billion shortfall awaits lawmakers in January if the economy does not accelerate.
Only Democratic Sen. Tim Sheldon of Mason County crossed party lines; in the House, only Republican Rep. Tom Campbell of Roy crossed over.
The House let a measure die that would have raised training standards for home care workers. The Service Employees International Union 775 NW had threatened a citizen initiative if a stronger version of the measure was not passed, but top Democrats — Gov. Chris Gregoire, House Speaker Frank Chopp and Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown — were unable to muster enough support.
Ending the session at 7:39 p.m., the Senate let die a resolution to Congress that called for a halt to the Air Force contract for refueling tankers that went to Northrop Grumman and the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co. instead of The Boeing Co. The House had passed it nearly unanimously a week before.
Flood control
But the operations and capital budgets, which include financing for flood-control projects along the Chehalis River, were the centerpieces of a session that lacked landmark pieces of legislation.
An exception was a major expansion of rights for same-sex couples on the state's year-old domestic partnership registry.
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