As the Legislative session is winding down, 36th District Representative Reuven Carlyle sends these notes from Olympia.

The fast-paced, 60-day state legislative session is slated to end on March 11 and our final days in Olympia are filled with late nights and intense budget negotiations. As we strive to wrap up the people’s business, I wanted to take a moment to provide a high level overview of some of my projects as your representative in the Legislature.

A new independent report says Washington is expected to lead the nation in job growth this year. It’s a great start to economic recovery, but we have a long journey ahead. The heart and soul of our job growth, as always, is small business.

We face a projected $2.7 billion budget deficit following a $9 billion deficit last year. This is from a total of about $34 billion. The Great Recession has caused a dramatic drop off in tax revenues while demand for public services in education, health care, foster care, prisons and much more have increased substantially. It’s a perfect storm requiring courageous honesty about the deeper, more substantive public policy challenges we face.

A vast majority of our work in these final days has focused on balancing the budget in a thoughtful, equitable and economically efficient manner.

Here are some of my personal priorities this year.

I’m pleased to have passed from the House a major government efficiency and reform bill to meaningfully restructure how state government spends more than $2 billion per biennium on technology. I’ve been deeply frustrated that we spend so much without a strong, coordinated, enterprise wide approach. That needs to change and this bill is a major step.

House Bill 3178 is expected to save taxpayers $30 million this year alone and I’m proud of these reforms. That $30 million in savings will help pay for Reading Corps and other vital K-12 services in schools throughout Ballard, Queen Anne, Magnolia and throughout our city and state.

Another of my priority government reform bills is designed to help seek greater efficiencies in our state’s fantastic community and technical college system serving more than 500,000 people in 34 colleges statewide.

I am excited to have successfully included a major amendment in our state’s Race to the Top legislation designed to secure up to $250 million in federal funds for public education in our state. My provision effectively eliminates de-facto tenure for principals in Seattle. Next year I’ll introduce a second major bill to provide principals with greater authority to match the greater accountability we are requiring.

The Governor is expected to sign legislation I sponsored to make texting while driving a primary offense rather than a secondary offense. The bill also prohibits teenagers from using a cell phone for calling while behind the wheel.

Finally, the debate over revenues is not easy. Last year we passed an all cuts budget. This year we need a more balanced approach. One proposal is to raise the general sales tax, an idea that I do not support. I do favor aggressively closing tax loopholes and equalizing our state’s business and occupation and sales taxes across industries in a more equitable fashion. Our tax system is old, clunky and economically inefficient and we need a modern, 21st Century approach to how we fund our critical public services.

I’m passionate about improving government and making it more engaged in delivering services effectively and efficiently. I also hope we have the courage to ask the central question: If we were designing state government from scratch today what would it look like?

There are many other bills, proposals and issues in play in Olympia. Please reach out to me at: Carlyle.reuven@leg.wa.gov or visit my personal blog at: www.reuvencarlyle36.com.

Your partner in service,

Reuven Carlyle
State Representative
36th Legislative District

As the 2010 Legislative Session begins, state Reps. Mary Lou Dickerson and Reuven Carlyle want to hear from you! The two Seattle lawmakers and 36th district legislators are holding a telephone-town hall next Tuesday, January 19 at 6:30 p.m. and will be calling an estimated 30,000 homes in the district, inviting them to stay on the line and participate. Carlyle and Dickerson will be giving opening thoughts (see here and here for some of their plans and ideas for the 2010 session), while the majority of the tele-town hall will be allocated to taking questions from constituents. If you don’t receive a call, you may dial-in directly by calling 877-229-8493 and entering the code 15354. Once on the line, participants may ask a question by hitting *3. (Reuven Carlyle is a sponsor of QueenAnneView.com).

“The Legislature convenes on January 11 and we’re again facing a massive deficit of nearly $3 billion,” Carlyle said in a press release today. “It’s critical that I hear from our community directly about your views, issues, concerns and thoughts on the budget, taxes, education and other important issues.  I’m asking people to reach out and share your views so I can better represent you in Olympia during these difficult times.”

Coffee hour times and locations:

Last month our sister site, MyBallard, spoke with 36th District Rep. Mary Lou Dickerson, who told them she was planning on filing a bill this upcoming legislative session (which begins January 10) that would legalize marijuana. Yesterday they reported that Rep. Dickerson and five other state representatives pre-filed HB 2401.

Meanwhile, Rep. Reuven Carlyle wrote down his thoughts on how he’ll vote on the state budget, which is projected to reach a $2.6 billion deficit in 2010, on his blog. He outlined three criteria for how he will vote on the budget – spending levels, revenue levels, and the question of system change and reform.

“To me systems change is about looking at our structures, systems, infrastructure of methodology, norms and behaviors and asking one core question: What would our systems look like if we designed them anew, today, from scratch?” he wrote. “We too often pull back from ‘what is possible’ before we even get a new idea of the drawing board. I’m not suggesting everything is broken and yet much of how we do business in state government does require a bold new approach.”

Carlyle went on to list several “modest but legitimate examples” of how government reform could be applied, tackling issues such as licensing and liquor (specifically the debate between whether these should be government run, or private sector), technology, transportation funding and the building of public infrastructure, and education reform and the Race to the Top challenge. Read Carlyle’s thoughts here.

Anyone interested in speaking with representatives about the upcoming legislative session is welcome to attend the 36th District Legislative Delegation holiday open house next week, on Tuesday, December 15 from 5 to 7 p.m. at Sen. Kohl-Welles’ and Rep. Carlyle’s district office on the base of Queen Anne at 3131 Western Ave, Suite 421, in the Northwest Work Lofts building. Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles and Reps. Mary Lou Dickerson and Reuven Carlyle will present an overview of the 2010 legislative session and answer constituent questions.

Our sister site, My Ballard, recently sat down with 36th District Representative Mary Lou Dickerson to talk about what she’s working on for the upcoming legislative session, which convenes on January 11, 2010. One bill she’s looking to sponsor would legalize marijuana, an act she believes will ultimately turn into a “net benefit” for the state and its residents. Below are her words:

“We have spent a fortune investigating and incarcerating people for using marijuana. We have not only spent huge sums in this failed effort, we have required individuals and families to spend huge sums on lawyers and other expenses in order to avoid drug-abuse violations on their records. Those who couldn’t afford an effective legal defense have often seen their jobs and lives seriously harmed by the record of the legal violation.

And what have we accomplished with these societal, personal, and family costs? I don’t see the positive benefits. The expensive emphasis on prosecution and fines or other punishment has not deterred marijuana smoking, nor has it had any noticeable impact on accessibility to marijuana. The fact that other countries which have legalized marijuana have not seen consumption rates rise sharply is further evidence that our present policy is a monumentally expensive failure.”

Get the full story, along with the rest of Rep. Dickerson’s statement at My Ballard.