Attorney general lays out agenda

Attorney General Rob McKenna outlined an ambitious legislative agenda Thursday that deals with cell-phone privacy, online child pornography, shared sick leave for domestic-violence victims and mortgage-foreclosure scams.

The Republican also is pushing for several changes to open-government laws when lawmakers return to Olympia for a 60-day session that begins Jan. 14.

One proposed bill would bar prison inmates from big legal awards in records cases. Another, co-written with Democratic Auditor Brian Sonntag, would force local governments to tape-record closed-door, or executive, sessions.

The taping legislation would let judges review conversations from government bodies' executive sessions and determine whether officials were abusing the law that shields some legal, real-estate and other discussions from public disclosure. Sonntag's staff found about 400 incidents of concern when doing agency and local government audits, McKenna said.

Toby Nixon, president of the Washington Coalition for Open Government, said the group favors the executive session taping measure, and Gov. Chris Gregoire also supports it. McKenna said he would not seek to change the $100 penalty for officials who violate the act.

Sen. Darlene Fairley, the Lake Forest Park Democrat who leads the Senate Government Operations and Elections Committee, said the records law proposals will get heard. But as a former city council member, she wants to hear what local governments think they need.

McKenna, who is running for re-election and has no major opponent, is following up on what he said is a high "batting average" for passing legislative proposals into law since he took office in 2005. Aides said he has sponsors for more than half of his proposals, which number more than a dozen, and he listed his top priorities as those dealing with public safety.

Some of his proposals would:

• Create a new crime of viewing child pornography, and allow noncommissioned officers who have forensic-analysis training to assist police in child-pornography investigations. The latter would let the aides participate without violating the act by viewing the evidence.

• Give more tools to protect consumers facing foreclosure by requiring that self-described "rescue" companies provide written contracts that fully disclose loss-of-home risks to the homeowner and give five days to change one's mind. It also would let the homeowner receive 82 percent of any equity taken by the company if a third party purchased the home.

• Let state employees who are victims of domestic violence or stalking use or borrow "shared leave" from other workers, which they now can do for illnesses.

• Require that consumers opt in, or give clear consent, before a marketing outfit can publish their private cell-phone numbers in a directory. It would set a penalty for violations of up to $50,000.

• Help consumers hit by identify theft by requiring that law enforcement officers take police reports from victims, which lets victims avoid fees when freezing credit accounts. Two other bills would let out-of-state business records be authenticated by affidavit and let prosecutors bring separate charges against an identity thief for each use of stolen information.

• Change a spyware law he got passed in 2005 by lowering the evidence requirement for proving violations, adding violations and creating liability for Web-hosting companies that tolerate or participate in unlawful downloads onto computers.

• Narrow the definition of "blight" in cases of eminent domain, or the taking of private property for public use, and require publication of a pamphlet that explains such takings. The meaning of blight would pertain to specific properties rather than general areas.

• Require that legal damage awards won by incarcerated people be given to the crime victims' compensation fund. McKenna said some inmates are abusing the records law, winning the "public disclosure act lottery." But the one case he cited, which resulted in a $200,000 legal award to a prison newspaper, would not be affected, because the editor, Paul Wright, was out of prison at the time. Nixon said his organization has not taken a position on this bill, but he has strong concerns about it.