More talk coming on family leave

Excerpts from his blog, Postman on Politics

Expect another debate this year about how to fund the paid-family-leave law the Legislature approved last year.

At a meeting with reporters and editors from around the state Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown, D-Spokane, said that members of her caucus still support the 1-cent-per-hour, employee-paid payroll tax that Senate Democrats have twice approved.

That proposal couldn't get House support. And Brown said she doesn't know if there is any greater consensus this year. But if not, she said, "it will be incumbent upon somebody to come up with a better idea."

Sen. Cheryl Pflug, R-Hobart, said she worries that the burden eventually would be shifted to employers through an initiative campaign. She said the funding should come from the state general fund, a move Gov. Christine Gregoire opposes.

When Brown said that most industrialized nations have paid family leave, House Minority Leader Richard DeBolt, R-Chehalis, said that at least some of those countries are socialist.

"If that's the model we're driving toward, then we have to say that's the model we're driving toward," he said.

Dispute emerges over flood damage

As lawmakers outlined their 2008 plans, it was clear there is a consensus that the Legislature needs to do something for victims of the December floods.

Details, of course, will be tougher to work out, but with DeBolt coming from the heart of flood country, there will be a high-profile advocate.

But it took only a few minutes to see one major difference in how lawmakers view the aftermath of the December floods. House Speaker Frank Chopp, D-Seattle, talked about seeing a Seattle Times photo that showed a logging clear-cut and a massive landslide.

Chopp said the Legislature needs to look at how to prevent similar damage from happening in the future.

DeBolt said there's no argument: "Clear-cuts cause slides. That's what happened in our area."

But he also said that other flood damage was caused by environmental protections, not logging practices. He said salmon-protection laws that require buffer zones of trees left standing near streams contributed to more flooding.

A habitat-conservation plan that was supposed to end long-standing environmental disputes around logging and salmon protection has been proved a "debacle," he said.

"These are really important questions: Who comes first, the salmon or the humans?"

The Senate Natural Resources, Ocean & Recreation Committee will hold a public hearing Thursday "on the relationship between forest practices, flood events and climate change."

This material has been edited for print publication.

David Postman is The Seattle Times' chief political reporter. Reach him at 360-236-8267 or at dpostman@seattletimes.com