How will Sen. Hill fare in the next election? | Letter
Published 12:21 pm Friday, November 1, 2013
The 45th Legislative District’s Republican Sen. Andy Hill is busy trying to thickly coat what has been a failed four years of elected service with sugar. In a letter published in the Redmond, Issaquah-Sammamish and Kirkland reporters, Hill made his pitch to constituents for why he should be elected next year to a second term as state senator. The purpose of his pitch, which was short on facts and heavy on catch phrases, is understandable: on their face, the shortcomings of his first term won’t likely win him many voters next time around.
In his letter, Hill touts his involvement in the coup led by the turncoat Rodney Tom that established the misleadingly titled “Majority Coalition.” By jumping party lines from Democrat to Republican, Tom got a bigger office and Hill became chair of the Senate Ways & Means Committee. For a first-term senator who will be seeking re-election next year, it was understandable that Hill would be appointed to such a visible role. Unfortunately, Hill failed to do the position justice.
Over the course of the budget process, Hill and his Republican buddies held the process hostage. In an effort to ride the wave of a national conversation about “spending cuts” and a Tea Party conservative agenda, Hill helped force a special session, a “fiscal cliff” and a near government shutdown here in Washington state. In fact, the “Majority Coalition” was not a bipartisan tool used to solve many problems with our state. Rather, the coalition, of which Hill is a major player, actually brought the divisive politics that we see in the other Washington to our state.
For example, in his role as chair of the Senate Ways & Means Committee, writing the Senate’s budget fell to Hill. The initial proposed budget presented by Hill and his allies relied on budget gimmicks and was balanced on the backs of our most vulnerable: the proposed budget included brutal policies that slashed child care for hard-working single mothers, cut aid for 20,000 blind and disabled, permanently slashed the voter approved initiative that would pay teachers a fair wage, and actually created 15 new tax exemptions.
Hill’s proposed budget also swiped $166 million of the Common School Construction Fund for the operating budget; a fund that our state’s constitution not only dictates must go toward school construction, but which was already spent earlier this year. The proposed budget also permanently removed money from the Public Works Assistance Account that creates jobs by building community projects on which local governments depend.
When Hill was presented with an alternative budget that made a substantial down payment toward what the Supreme Court deemed necessary to meet the paramount duty to our school children, Hill and his Republican coalition chose to protect corporate giveaways and tax loopholes. The final budget only closed two loopholes: it corrected a court decision that created a loophole in the estate tax and it included an update to a telecommunications tax, which was a tax to which every company in the industry agreed.
The Seattle Times editorial board detailed how this is not a stable solution in the long-run calling the solution “unrealistic” within our existing tax code and called for the legislature to take a hard look at “the state’s swiss-cheese tax code and target unjustified exemptions.”
Hill may be pleading for forgiveness now, as his election year draws near, but there is no sign that any of his divisive politics would be any better during a second term. And even if voters might swallow Hill’s pill and forgive his attempts to shortchange his constituents now, voters certainly will not forget next year when ballots drop.
Trent Latta, Kenmore
Chair of the 45th Legislative District Democrats
