Washington: Republican

Moments ago, the Washington State Senate passed SB 5895, the 2009 version of the Homeowner's Bill of Rights. The vote was 25 to 24, mostly split along party lines. A number of Democratic Senators defected to join the Republican caucus in voting against. But the bill passed.

We'll have the roll call up shortly.

UPDATE: Roll call:
E2SSB 5895
Residential real property
Senate vote on 3rd Reading & Final Passage
3/11/2009

Yeas: 25 Nays: 24 Absent: 0 Excused: 0

Voting Yea: Senators Berkey, Brown, Eide, Fairley, Franklin, Fraser, Hargrove, Hatfield, Hobbs, Jacobsen, Kastama, Kauffman, Keiser, Kline, Kohl-Welles, Marr, McAuliffe, McDermott, Murray, Oemig, Prentice, Pridemore, Regala, Rockefeller, and Tom

Voting Nay: Senators Becker, Benton, Brandland, Carrell, Delvin, Haugen, Hewitt, Holmquist, Honeyford, Jarrett, Kilmer, King, McCaslin, Morton, Parlette, Pflug, Ranker, Roach, Schoesler, Sheldon, Shin, Stevens, Swecker, and Zarelli
The Northwest Progressive Institute commends the State Senate for passing this important legislation, and we extend our sincere thanks to Senator Rodney Tom, the prime sponsor, for safely sheparding SB 5895 through to the House of Representatives.

House Bill 2122 would reduce the business and occupation tax for people in the business of "printing or publishing a newspaper" to the same rate paid by The Boeing Co., Weyerhaueser and Microsoft, according to industry lobbyist Roland Thompson of the Washington Newspaper Publishers Association.

That's a 43 percent cut from where it is now. The reduction would take effect July 1 and apparently would last indefinitely. The summary of testimony before the House Finance Committee indicated newspapers said they needed the tax break until about 2015.

The bill, sponsored by House Majority Leader Lynn Kessler, D-Hoquiam, would cost the state about $3 million to $5 million in lower tax collections over the 2009-11 biennium, Thompson said.

Connelly's latest: Just as Rush Limbaugh has seized the soul of the national Republican Party, professional initiative sponsor Tim Eyman seems to set the Republican agenda in this state. [snip] In this Washington, Eyman holds sway. He has set the...

Only eleven days ago, Governor Bobby Jindal (R-LA) signaled that he wouldn't be taking federal stimulus money allocated to his state, if it didn't meet his criteria of being beneficial to the state. Then Jindal rejected over $90 million in funding that would have benefited nearly 25,000 people in Louisiana. Apparently, Governor Jindal believes that helping the unemployed doesn't benefit Louisiana and he would prefer a higher unemployment rate.

Last week, Governor Jindal continued his rant against stimulus spending when he gave the Republican response to President Obama's address to Congress. In that speech, Jindal said the following:
While some of the projects in the bill make sense, their legislation is larded with wasteful spending.