OLYMPIA… Republicans in the state Senate and House of Representatives today shared the first plan for safely restarting Washington’s economy while state government’s response to the COVID-19 emergency continues.

“Employers across our state are looking to government for a strategy that starts to take the brake off the economy. Republicans have come through with a safe and reasonable approach for beginning the recovery,” said Senate Republican Leader Mark Schoesler.

“We believe many sectors of our economy can operate safely, and employers have every incentive to take the precautions needed to guard the health of their workers and their customers. We trust that if they have an opportunity to open their doors, they’ll make it work.”

“Our state needs a comprehensive plan to restart its economy in ways that continue to emphasize the health of Washingtonians. No one has produced a plan until now,” said House Republican Leader J.T. Wilcox.

“Republicans have been working over the last few weeks to come up with solutions. We know employers and workers need reassurance in these uncertain times. They need to know there’s a plan for them to come back.”

The Republican legislators’ Safe Economic Restart Plan recommends three tiers of actions, starting with steps that may be authorized immediately by Gov. Jay Inslee. They include:

• Convene a Restart Task Force comprising legislative leaders, relevant executive-branch directors and representatives of the business and organized-labor communities. This group will chart a course toward allowing all Washington businesses to reopen, on a phased or limited basis as necessary, with COVID-19 protections for workers and customers in place.
• Allow operations to resume in economic sectors that fit one or more of these criteria: low-risk; personal health; environmental protection; aid to people who are elderly, physically challenged, or both; alternate quarantine locations; assisting businesses with tax-related requirements; and property protection. Examples are auto dealers, solo landscape services, car washes, remodeling companies and contractors, residential construction, hairdressers and barbers, flower shops, RV parks, dentists, installers of home and commercial security systems, and accountants and tax preparers.
• Fully disclose the “metrics” that must be met before the governor’s March 23 stay-at-home proclamation, which closed more than 230,000 businesses abruptly, can be lifted or amended. Knowing the standards will allow the people of Washington to act accordingly.
• Deliver on the massive testing capabilities promised by state health officials ahead of the business-closure order. Direct the appropriate state agencies to acquire antibody tests and work with employers to screen workers. Workers found to have the antibodies resulting from the COVID-19 infection will be immediately eligible for employment.
• Interface with the governor’s Business Recovery Legislative Task Force and be prepared to support recommendations that are achievable, measurable and complementary.
• A moratorium on all state-agency rulemaking not related to the current crisis. Rules are important, but at a time when many businesses are simply trying to survive, the making of new rules seems less than essential. Relief from rulemaking goes hand-in-hand with relief from taxes.
• Exempt small businesses from paying sales and business-and-occupation (B&O) taxes for one year.
• Offer state-government assistance to the many small businesses in Washington that do not qualify for federal emergency-assistance programs.“We are looking forward to working with the governor and majority party to produce the best possible results for both our public health and our economic crisis,” said Wilcox, R-Yelm.

“Republicans work for all of Washington, and we recognize how a strong economy makes for strong families and strong communities. Our state’s economy was particularly strong before things caved in, and we believe it can get there again – and sooner if the governor and Legislature will support these very reasonable ideas,” said Schoesler, R-Ritzville.

Click here to view the Republican plan for safely restarting Washington’s economy.

RITZVILLE…Senate Republican Leader Mark Schoesler, R-Ritzville, offered this statement upon the passing last night of the 41st President of the United States, George H.W. Bush:

“I very well remember the elder President Bush’s time as our chief executive – in fact, he was seeking a second term when I was first running for the Legislature, and I’m sure I learned a thing or two from how he campaigned.

“What I’ve admired about President Bush goes beyond what he accomplished in his term as President. It was also his lifelong public service, from wartime to being Vice President, his devotion to his wife and family, and the class he showed after leaving the White House. The outpouring of tributes to him is well-deserved.”

YAKIMA…The state Senate Republican Caucus has again elected Sen. Mark Schoesler as its leader, two months ahead of the 2019 legislative session.

The longtime 9th District lawmaker, first elected Republican leader prior to the 2013 session, was among the eight senators chosen to the leadership team by caucus members who met in Yakima over the weekend.

“I appreciate that our caucus has again placed its trust in me as our side of the aisle continues working for all of Washington – each corner and every county, whether rural, suburban or urban,” said Schoesler, R-Ritzville. “I see it as a compliment to the 9th District values which I’ve brought to my job as leader for almost a half-dozen years.

“When I look at our new leadership team I see senators who have led the way on our established priorities – like providing more support for our public schools, and for mental-health care, and promoting sensible tax policies that make Washington a good place to do business. And I also see senators who are stepping forward to address issues like affordable housing and homelessness, where a dose of new thinking is needed.

“Even though our side is a year removed from having the majority in the Senate, I think people will see that we’re still leading on the issues that matter the most in our state, especially to the hard-working families and employers who keep our economy going,” Schoesler predicted.

Schoesler was chosen Senate majority leader in 2015 and again in 2017. He returned to being Republican leader for 2018 after control of the Senate shifted due to a late-2017 election in one district.

OLYMPIA…Sen. Mark Schoesler said he hopes people who travel on U.S. Highway 395 will make use of a new online survey to weigh in on safety improvements to the major route between Pasco and Spokane. The survey, billed by the state Department of Transportation as an “online open house,” will be open for input until Sunday, July 22.

“The Connecting Washington package adopted by the Legislature in 2015 included $15 million for safety improvements on Highway 395, which is one of the critical highways in our 9th Legislative District. I’m glad DOT is reaching out to folks who know that road to help guide how those dollars will be invested,” said Schoesler, R-Ritzville.

The state transportation agency asks people to visit https://395openhouse.com/ to review its plans and provide feedback.

“It would be great to see a lot of public participation. That will help make sure the work needed on Highway 395 really gets done,” Schoesler added.

OLYMPIA… The U.S. Supreme Court today ruled in a 5-4 vote that requiring public employees to pay “agency fees” to labor unions is unconstitutional under the First Amendment. Senate Republican Leader Mark Schoesler, R-Ritzville, offered this statement about the decision in the case of Janus v. American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 31, and possible legislation concerning state employees and other public-sector workers in Washington who are subject to union dues:

“This case was never about the labor unions that look out for the interests of a huge number of people in our state’s private sector, including the many skilled workers in aerospace, other manufacturing sectors and the building trades. It was always about the unions that cater primarily or exclusively to state workers and other public employees, and whether those employees get to decide how many of the taxpayer dollars they receive as wages end up being funneled into the unions’ bank accounts. I can imagine how the hardworking members of the Service Employees International Union might want to keep more of their pay if they knew SEIU had just thrown away close to $70,000 of their dues to push the ill-conceived Seattle jobs tax that was too outrageous to survive for even a month.

“The ruling in the Janus case doesn’t change the fact that public employees in Washington lost ground this year to the unions. This coming year we may see some legislative proposals to address those setbacks and protect public-sector union members in ways that their counterparts in the private sector already enjoy.”

April 10, 2018

I serve the people of Washington’s 9th Legislative District, which includes the lower Snake River from the Idaho border west to U.S. Highway 12, a short hop from its confluence with the Columbia. So when there are new headlines about the idea of breaching the four lower Snake dams, I’m always curious about who’s pulling the strings and how.

This time around, the headlines were prompted by a recent telephone poll of 400 Washington residents. It was funded by Defenders of Wildlife, Earthjustice, the Natural Resources Defense Council and other environmental-activist groups.

He who pays the piper calls the tune, and in this case, they who paid for the poll no doubt had a particular result in mind. Thanks to a set of cleverly skewed questions, which began by asking if the respondent wants to keep wild salmon from going extinct (who doesn’t?) and went on to minimize the value of the Snake River dams and the success of federal fish-passage efforts, the outcome was assured. The Spokesman-Review’s own headline, “Poll shows Washington voters choose salmon over dams,” suggests the activist groups’ money was well spent.

Not surprisingly, the subjective poll and the provocative headlines it produced came right as Congress is considering a vote on H.R. 3144, which would help shield the Federal Columbia River Power System (which includes the Snake River dams) from the actions of a rogue federal judge. The bipartisan bill was introduced by our local U.S. Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, whose territory (Washington’s 5th Congressional District) also includes all four dams. It is co-sponsored by two fellow Washington-delegation members, U.S. Reps. Dan Newhouse and Jaime Herrera Beutler, and five congressmen from other Northwest states.

The nonpartisan Washington Policy Center did a good job of exposing the biases and outright falsehoods in the anti-dam poll. But the Bonneville Power Administration and other federal agencies involved in our region’s hydropower are still bound by an Oregon-based federal judge’s 2016 order to produce a new salmon-recovery plan this year – a process that must consider breaching the four Snake dams.

In 2017, when our state Senate was still being led by a bipartisan coalition, a majority of us approved a formal message to Congress in support of the Snake River dams. Our Democratic colleagues who control the House of Representatives refused to vote, however, and kept that message from being sent.

Even so, I hope the conservatives who are in charge in Washington, D.C., will approve the McMorris Rodgers legislation soon and affirm the many benefits the Snake dams offer. Beyond producing enough clean energy to supply nearly 2 million homes, the dams create water storage for irrigation and recreation throughout my legislative district and the surrounding area, and enable fuel-efficient transportation for grain and other commodities from Idaho and southeast Washington all the way to the Pacific Ocean.

Salmon populations are affected by many things – harvests, natural predators and ocean conditions, for instance. But those don’t lend themselves to a lawsuit or a telephone poll very well, so it’s easier to blame the drinking-water wells of rural property owners, as we saw in the environmental-group lawsuit that led to the state Supreme Court’s disastrous Hirst decision. And to target inanimate but tangible objects like big concrete dams that are largely out of sight.

I have no interest in seeing wild salmon become extinct, and judging from the impressive survival rate of juvenile fish passing through the Snake River system in our state, extinction due to the dams isn’t a credible concern. Despite what extremist environmentalist groups want people to think, there is no choice to make between salmon and the Snake River dams, because we can continue to have both. The sooner the other Washington sides with that thinking by passing the McMorris Rodgers bill, the better.

Senate Republican Leader Mark Schoesler of Ritzville is in his 26th year of serving Washington’s 9th Legislative District, which includes all or part of Spokane, Whitman, Asotin, Franklin, Garfield and Adams counties.

OLYMPIA…Sen. Mark Schoesler said the 9th Legislative District fares well in the supplemental capital budget approved by the Legislature tonight, with a highlight being additional funding for important improvements to several state parks in the region.

“Every item on the list is good – money for emergency repairs to the Connell pool, solid funding for conservation efforts and of course more support for critical work at our parks,” said Schoesler, R-Ritzville. “These all were in the version of the capital budget the Senate approved a couple of weeks ago, and I’m glad they now have full legislative approval.”

The 2017-19 capital budget adopted earlier this year supported significant investments in 9th District state parks, but did not go as far as Schoesler hoped. The supplemental capital budget was the final bill approved in the 2018 session, which ended tonight.

“State government supports many recreational opportunities, but nothing tops our state parks because they offer opportunities for people of all ages and abilities. The state parks in our 9th Legislative District are the cream of the crop in my book, and their needs are addressed better through the supplemental capital budget approved today.

The 9th District appropriations are:

• Lyons Ferry State Park campground design and permitting – $400,000
• Fields Spring State Park – repairs and upgrades – $58,000 (in addition to $1,109,000 in the 2017-19 capital budget)
• Steptoe Butte State Park road improvements – $23,000 (in addition to $443,000 in the 2017-19 capital budget)
• Palouse Falls State Park day use area renovation – $11,000 (on top of $209,000 in the 2017-19 capital budget)
• Pioneer Park (Connell) pool house – $25,000
• Match for federal Regional Conservation Partnership Program funding – $2 million

The supplemental capital budget (Senate Bill 6095) now goes to the governor, who has 20 days to sign it.

OLYMPIA…Sen. Mark Schoesler voted today against the new Senate majority’s supplemental operating budget, which makes adjustments to the 2017-19 operating budget adopted last year. He made this statement following the caucus-line vote on the spending plan.

“I appreciate that the Senate Democrats’ budget is respectful of the state’s four-year balanced-budget law, and protects much of the historic investment we made in K-12 education last year. But their budget also reflects the kind of things you see when liberals who have been out of power for years find themselves back in charge with billions of dollars in unexpected revenue on their hands. How else can you explain their decision to drop $700,000 on yet another study of a state bank?

“The majority’s offer of partial, next-year property-tax relief is underwhelming, considering there’s enough revenue available to offer full relief this year. And I can’t believe they are continuing to resist tax fairness for non-aerospace manufacturers across our state, when it was already accounted for in the budget last year and won supermajority support before the governor vetoed it. The lack of support for tax fairness in this supplemental budget was enough by itself to get a ‘no’ from me.

“The Republican alternative I supported would have provided nearly $1 billion in property tax relief and cut tuition for community and technical college students while making historic investments in mental health treatment – all while supporting tax fairness for manufacturers, and leaving our reserves intact. I hope my Democrat colleagues will take a second look at their priorities based on the alternative we proposed, and come up with a better final product worthy of bipartisan support.”