After day of protest, state budget hearing drags into evening

Washington lawmakers were met with loud protests and an outpouring of testimony today on the first day of a 30-day special legislative session called to close a $2 billion state budget gap.

State troopers said most protesters made their opposition to budget cuts known peacefully, but troopers used stun guns on three protesters, arrested four and handed out no-trespassing warnings to 30 more who refused to leave the Legislative Building before being escorted or carried out late Monday.

Protesters from many walks of life converged on the Capitol for a series of actions that drew about 3,000 people during the day. They called for more tax revenue and fewer spending cuts sounded like music for Democrats, noise for Republicans.

“I’m actually very heartened that people are out,’’ Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown, D-Spokane, said shortly before 200 protesters filled the upstairs public galleries in her chamber.

“They are very aware of the consequence of choices, especially the consequences of an all-cuts budget and they are saying pretty emphatically they want us to look at other options.”

In the House, Republican Deputy Leader Joel Kretz of Wauconda said “it’s kind of fun” and that the grassroots are a good way to bring about change. But he said his Republican caucus is opposed to new taxes and believes majority Democrats should try to reduce the cost of government and reduce the impact of regulations on job creation.

Kretz said he once hoped for quick action to enact the cuts but now expects to see slow movement by the Democrat-led Legislature.

Hearings continue Tuesday and later in the week in Senate and House committees on aspects of the budget cuts that will be needed if no new revenues are found.

Today’s protests drew school teachers from as far as Spokane County, as well as college students, home care workers, people with disabilities and mental illnesses. An Occupy the Capitol group that had some members camping out at Heritage Park in Olympia Sunday evening also brought a large contingent.

Their common message to preserve social programs and raise revenues reverberated on the Capitol steps, inside the Capitol and later during a hearing on Gov. Chris Gregoire’s proposed $30 billion supplemental budget.

No one from either party has illusions about how hard it will be to agree on cuts to bridge the budget gap – or to agree on a revenue package to send voters in March or April.

Without revenue, the cuts proposed by Gregoire would eliminate or leave unfilled 1,500 government positions, shorten the school year by four days in 2012-13, eliminate levy aid to tax-poor school districts, shorten the time many offenders are tracked after their release from prisons, and reduce spending in hundreds of other areas.

While protesters agreed lawmakers should find new revenue, there was no unanimity about whose taxes should go up.

Gregoire wants a half-cent increase in the sales tax to cancel cuts such as the shortened school year. Some advocates favor that idea, while others say the sales tax is too regressive.

The biggest placard on display during the day’s first rally said, “Tax the 1%, not the 99% — no sales tax.”

Many would like to see tax breaks for businesses targeted, as Gregoire has also proposed.

Rick Harlan, a Seattle Public Schools employee who works with autistic students, said the sales tax should be raised only if the economic downturn deepens further.

“In the meantime, there are plenty of resources in the state. We have a huge amount of rich people and rich corporations who need to pay their fair share,” Harlan said.

Marie Jubie of Disability Rights Washington said a sales tax increase seems fair.

“Someone who’s really rich, they would have to pay the same amount, percentage-wise,” she said.

Jubie, a Marysville resident who has bipolar disorder, said Gregoire’s proposal to close psychiatric and dementia wards at Western State Hospital in Lakewood would be dangerous.

She said there aren’t enough alternative places for people who would be turned out, some of whom have histories of violence.

Others, like Peggy Myers of Tacoma, who is paid by the state to care for two disabled people in their homes, didn’t have a preference among ways lawmakers could raise revenue.

But Myers said she is willing to pay more in taxes to avoid the cuts: ”I will pay a half cent. I will pay a penny. Because we’re talking about people’s lives here. There’s not a price tag on people’s lives.”

Sharon Kitchel-Perdue, an Olympia-based home care worker, called for higher taxes on banks and other corporations she doesn’t think are paying their fair share.

Protesters refused to leave the Legislative Building after the Department of Enterprise Services closed it at about 5:30 p.m. Three who tried to push past troopers into the building were stunned with electrical probes.

The 30 who were cleared out of the building by force were given orders not to return to the Capitol campus for 30 days or be arrested for trespassing. Of the handful who were arrested Monday, two face possible charges of felony assault including one who bit a trooper's arm, said Trooper Guy Gill. They and one other protester also face possible misdemeanor charges of resisting arrest.

"A small number of individuals here were causing trouble," Gill said. "Everyone else, it was very peaceful and no issues."

Earlier in the day a Seattle school teacher was arrested on suspicion of disorderly conduct after a group of protesters disrupted a budget hearing.

Troopers also barred public entry to the governor’s office in the afternoon, and the House chambers went briefly on lockdown.

At one point protesters took over the Senate galleries and shouted from one balcony to the other over the near-vacant Senate floor, where Democratic Sen. Karen Fraser of Thurston County sat looking on.

“I think this is worth listening to. They worked hard to bring their message,” Fraser said later. “They are being severely affected by proposed cuts in education, in health care, and job opportunities. So I’m listening. ... They are being polite.’’

But Democratic Sen. Tim Sheldon of Potlatch, who favors an all-cuts budget, said the protesters were “disrespectful and silly.” He said he doesn’t expect lawmakers to finish a budget before Christmas.

“I think we’ll find $400 million or $500 million (in cuts) in the special session. Then find the balance in the regular session (that starts Jan. 9),” Sheldon said.

More than 140 people signed up to testify on Gregoire’s draft budget plan in a House hearing that began in the mid-afternoon and ended about 8:30 p.m.