Gov. Inslee threatens legislators with another special session
Jun 5, 2013, 11:26 AM | Updated: 1:41 pm
Gov. Jay Inslee said he is concerned about the lack of progress in budget negotiations, and if lawmakers in Olympia can’t agree on a budget before the end of the current special session, he will call for another.
“I will call a special session after this if they don’t finish their work. The law is that governors can call sessions until the legislators get their work done and they haven’t got their work done, so they’re going to be here until they get their work done,” said Inslee in an appearance in KIRO Radio Seattle’s Morning News Wednesday.
The governor said they need to have a budget by July 1 to maintain the government’s authority to operate. Not having a budget in place by that time is not something he even wants to contemplate, he says.
“There is plenty of time before that for the legislators to reach an agreement, but we need people to stop trying to leverage this for particular ideological ends.”
“We need the legislators to really buckle down and make some real moves to the middle to try to get an agreement here,” said Inslee. “I’m trying to encourage them to be much more active and in a much more compromising mood, people need to get together here.”
Lawmakers are in the midst of a 30-day special session that began May 13 and is set to end June 11. They face a $1.2 billion budget shortfall for the two-year cycle that ends in the middle of 2015. That doesn’t include an additional approximate $1 billion that lawmakers are seeking in response to a court-ordered requirement that the state spend more on its basic education system.
Inslee said that to come to a budget agreement soon and avoid another special session, “both sides are going to have to make hard decisions.”
“I hope there will be some rapid movement in the next few days because we certainly need that to move forward as a state,” he said.
If lawmakers are unable to reach a deal by next Tuesday, Inslee said that another special session would start the next day.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
