The Times - Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley

Before

I sat down last week to talk with Rep­resentative Terry Nealey about this year's legislative session in Olympia that ended a couple of weeks ago, I got on line to brush up on what hap­pened. The big-city news analysts were not impressed.

The Seattle Times accused the legislature of playing "chicken with citizens' safety, money and trust."

The Spokesman Review was less harsh, but said of the legislature, "We do wish they'd been more ambitious."

The Tacoma News Tribune put it suc­cinctly: "Lawmakers arrived in Olympia in January with three big, urgent issues in front of them: public education, transportation and legal marijuana. They fumbled all three, let­ting festering problems fester."

When we talked, Nealey, a Dayton Repub­lican representing the 16th legislative district, didn't plead totally innocent to those charges. But he gave some reason­able explanations for the difficulties legislators faced this year, includ­ing one obvious one: "It's an elec­tion year," he said, smiling. (We'll get to his own election plans shortly.)

Nealey also pointed out that no new taxes came out of the session. This was a "supple­mental" budget year, he said. That means that only minimal, necessary changes should be made to the two-year operating budget that was passed in 2013.

Regarding education, the legislature added about $58 million dollars for infrastructure and supplies to the 2014/2015 education budget. The state supreme court has ordered the legislature to significantly increase educa­tion funding. Democrats, and some editorial writers, think they still have a long way to go. Nealey says it's up for debate whether the court requirements have been met.

Legislation that would have brought the medical marijuana laws in line with recre­ational pot laws established after the passage of I-502 last year died. "A lot of representa­tives from the medical marijuana side testified that they did not want to pay the taxes I-502 imposed," Nealey said. "They consider it a medication and it's not currently subject to tax." The new recreational marijuana law calls for a 25% tax on each of three steps: produc­Ken tion, processing and retail.

The legislature took up two referendums regard­ing gun control. One would make gun sale registration mandatory for all private gun sales and the other would eliminate most gun sale registrations. Both received enough signatures to be put on the upcoming November ballot.

"The legislature has three options," Nealey said, when a referendum receives the required number of signa­tures. "We can go ahead and approve it, or we can do noth­ing and let the voters decide," he said. "Third, if we change even one word, the original language as well as the re­vised language will both go before the voters."

It sounds complicated, but in this case, the legislature did nothing. Both gun con­trol measures, with opposite goals, will be on this Novem­ber's ballot.

We talked at length about transportation. A bill was put forward in the senate that would have provided an additional $453 million to the state's transportation budget for a wide range of much-needed transportation projects.

"There were many impor­tant projects in that bill in our district that would have been good reasons to support it," Nealey said.

Those projects included much-needed work to High­way 12 near Touchet in Walla Walla County, the Kiona- Benton Interchange on Inter­state 82 and the Lewis Street Overpass in Pasco. Versions of the bill also may have in­cluded funding to pay for re­placement of the Main Street Bridge at the north end of Waitsburg's downtown.

Nealey also pointed out a project slated for High­way 167 between Puyallup and Tacoma. "This is an extremely important link to the Port of Tacoma," he said, "and it would be a huge help for shipping agricultural products from eastern Wash­ington. B.C. has built a num­ber of new ports recently. They're competing with us."

However, the transporta­tion bill that negotiators ended up putting forward would have been funded by an 11.5 cent per gallon gas tax increase, which Nealey said he couldn't support. "We already have one of the highest gas taxes in the country," he said. "And our economy hasn't completely recovered yet." In fact, the bill died in the Senate.

"I would have been a 'no' on this one, but I've told people I've got an open mind," Nealey said. "A lot of these projects are important and they need to be funded."

Nealey said that he and other Republicans have also been pushing for reforms at the state's Department of Transportation. He said that big cost overruns on major projects like the Highway 520 bridge in Seattle are causing budgeting head­aches.

So what some in the press characterized as a lack of action on transportation actually involved a whole lot of thought and a lot of work, but no final resolution. Transportation funding will be taken up next year - after the fall elections.

Speaking of those elec­tions, Nealey told me he has decided to seek at least one more term. "It's a tough decision," he said. "It's tak­ing up more and more of my time." He pointed out that he has a lot more responsibility now than he did when he was first elected in 2009, and also a lot more influence.

He is the ranking Repub­lican on the House Finance Committee and assistant ranking Republican on the House Judiciary Committee. He also serves on the House Environment and Rules Committees.

I say that Nealey's in­creased influence is a good thing for the Touchet Valley and we should be thankful he wants to put it to use for at least the next two years.