There’s More Than One Way to Reinvent State Government

The Governor’s Task Force is Doing Plenty of Talking, But Here’s an Idea That Might Have Worked

By Erik Smith

Staff writer/ Washington State Wire

OLYMPIA, July 20.—When Washington state’s seemingly endless budget crisis entered its second year last January, Republicans complained that no one was talking about reinventing government.

They can’t say that anymore.

People are talking about it at a series of task-force meetings that kicked off this week and will tour the state. People are talking about it on a website managed by the governor’s office. And by the time the Legislature returns next January to confront what may be the state’s worst budget shortfall ever, even if no one has quite managed to reinvent anything, they’ll definitely have talked about it.

Gov. Christine Gregoire’s blue-ribbon commission on state-government efficiency held its first meeting in Tacoma Monday night. The Governor's Committee on Transforming Washington's Budget is a 32-member panel with a membership that includes just about every major interest group and political persuasion in the state. Any of them left off of the committee were no doubt in the audience instead. The meeting drew a standing-room-only crowd that sucked most of the oxygen out of the meeting hall. A parade of citizens trooped to the microphone. Nearly all of them pointed out that their favorite state program is vital and must not be cut.

Most observers are polite about the process – after all, the Democratic governor took pains to involve everyone, and it was launched with the best of intentions. But it’s not as if anyone expects the hearings to reveal anything anyone hasn’t heard before. And if the 32 members haven’t been able to reach consensus during years of open warfare in the state Legislature, it’s hard to imagine them reaching agreement now. Said state Sen. Mark Schoesler, R-Ritzville, “In my adult life, I’ve seen decisions made more successfully by a half-dozen people sitting around a kitchen table with a pot of coffee.”

There’s something interesting about that idea. A state senator suggested something pretty much along those lines during the last legislative session. It was a radically new approach, and some think it might have had a better chance of getting something done. But that might have been the problem.

Desperate Times and Desperate Measures

The trouble the Legislature faces in 2011 – and the next few sessions after that – isn’t exactly a secret at the statehouse. For more than a year, everyone from the governor on down has been talking about the 2011 session with a sense of dread. Since 2009 lawmakers have had to deal with a $12 billion shortfall, the result of ambitious spending plans that far exceeded expected tax revenue – and that was even before Wall Street collapsed and the economy tanked. They’ve gotten through the crisis so far with a patchwork of short-term fixes. They’ve raided every account they can find, they’ve spent one-time federal money, and they’ve made the easiest cuts. But the budget remains seriously out of whack, and next year it’s all going to happen again.

The latest projection is that the state will run $3 billion short in the next two-year budget cycle. In 2013-2015, it is expected to run short by another $5 billion to $6 billion.

All of which explains the interest in reinventing government – code for paring state government down to essentials and farming out as many functions as possible to the private sector. The idea never sits well with the Democrats’ constituency in labor and the social-service lobby, but even Gregoire is starting to use delicate words like “reset.” At her Tacoma appearance, she said, “As we look at how we transform and what are the needs and what are the realities of the economy of tomorrow, I've asked each and every one of these folks to assume everything is on the table. There are no sacred cows.”

It’s just that when the hearing was over, panelists were left wondering how the governor was going to get the beef to the slaughterhouse. “It sounded very much like our typical budget hearings,” said Kelli Linville, D-Bellingham, chairwoman of the House Ways and Means Committee. “We’ll just have to see what happens.”

So what was that other idea?

And Now For Something Completely Different

Earlier this year, when the Legislature knew trouble was coming but no one was sure how big it was going to be, state Sen. Jim Kastama, D-Puyallup, started touting an unusual concept. Why not create a commission with the power to do something?

He called it the ARROW Commission, short for Agency Realignment and Reallocation of Washington.

What Kastama envisioned was a small body, a half-dozen members strong, composed of Washington’s elder statesmen and women. No sitting legislators, no representatives of special-interest groups. He envisioned a membership list of former elected officials and civic leaders – the sort of people whose reputations command respect in the state’s political community. His wish-list included former governors Dan Evans, John Spellman and Booth Gardner, former U.S. Sen. Slade Gorton, former state Sen. Sid Snyder, former television newswoman Ruth Walsh McIntyre.

The idea was that they’d come up with a plan to pare down state government and make it more efficient. They’d prepare legislation, and they’d be able to submit it directly to the House and Senate floors for an up-or-down vote, bypassing committees where political opponents might bottle it up. If the Legislature said no, their proposal would be in written form – and someone might be able to run it as an initiative.

The proposal got all the way to the governor’s desk, as a proviso in the budget. Gregoire nixed it. In her veto message, the governor said the commission would duplicate the work of existing boards and commissions. She pointed out to reporters that she was taking a strong stand this year against boards, commissions and government studies. Then she launched her own commission.

Thought He Had a Deal

Of course it didn’t duplicate any existing board or commission, Kastama said. No panel in state government has that kind of power. But it will take that kind of authority to make serious changes in state government, he said – if anybody actually wants to make changes.

The alternative is a body like the one the governor created. “You look at the governor’s 32-member commission, you will never get consensus,” he said. “You have people who will fight to the end, but they will never give.”

Kastama modeled his concept after the federal Base Realignment and Closure Commission, the congressional panel that makes recommendations about the closure of military bases – and which limits the power of individual congressmen to block closures in their home districts. There’s really a parallel situation in state government, he said, when it comes to individual members and the programs they defend. But somehow there has to be a means to make tough decisions, for the good of the state.

“I have developed a lot of programs in the last 14 years, but I am willing to lay it all on the line. If they say, 'Sen. Kastama, we can’t afford it,’ I’m willing to let it go.”

To make something like that work, there has to be bipartisan involvement, he said. And respect. And a certain amount of willingness by political leaders to cede their authority.

All of which makes him wonder about that veto. He said he thought he had a deal with the governor. He was one of the moderate Democrats who wavered this year in his support for the budget and tax package, and that was the price of his vote.

“I was shocked,” he said. “I would not have voted for the budget if I had known what was going to happen. The last budget we passed was a bus stop on the way to catastrophe. It was nothing by comparison with what is going to happen next session.”

The commission might have ensured the next budget would be sustainable, he said. It might have improved the state’s long-term planning as well. Kastama said he’s still interested in pursuing some something along those lines – perhaps some sort of bipartisan legislative effort after the election, independent of the governor’s panel.

But he’s not part of the governor’s task force. “I wish her well,” he said.