By Remy Trupin, Special to JTNews
Why does the Federation advocate in Olympia?
For the past eight years, the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle has maintained a presence in our state capital. We recognize that advocating on behalf of the agencies we support provides significant assistance. Important decisions regarding nursing homes, for example, can mean millions of dollars for Caroline Kline Galland Home.
With the advent of welfare reform in 1996, the federal government relegated responsibility for many social programs to the states. As a result, our state legislature and governor partner with Jewish Family Service’s refugee programs. Our work builds coalitions with other faith groups and ethnic service agencies, brings in new volunteers, and protects our beneficiary agencies’ relationship with government.
Wrap-up of the session
The 2004 Legislative session was scheduled for 60 days — convening Jan. 12 and adjourning on March 11 at midnight. As I wrote this, the legislative session was three days from adjournment. Therefore, much of what is in this article is an educated guess. However, there have been some clear wins for the Jewish community during this year’s state legislative session.
Politics
Because of retirements and legislators moving up to other offices, there was significant turnover in the Senate leadership this year. Senator Bill Finkbeiner (R-45th) moved into the Senate Majority Leader position, and Senator Luke Esser (R-48th) was elected to the Senate Floor Leader spot. Geographically, the Senate power moved to Seattle’s Eastside: Redmond/Kirkland and Bellevue, respectively.
As this was a “short session,” the legislature was focused on wrapping up its business. Once adjourned, members of the legislature are allowed to go out and campaign for their seats All House members and half of the Senate must do this.
Front and center was the supplemental operating budget, which for the first time in many years did not face a deficit because of decreased revenue. Also on the docket were issues as diverse as the “mad-cow” scare, primaries, and domestic violence legislation.
Next year
When the legislature convenes in January 2005, a new governor will be sitting in the newly renovated Capitol Building. This governor will face a significant budget shortfall (yet again) — a deficit of somewhere around $800 million. Additionally, there will most likely be a turnover of many legislative members in the fall election. Currently, the legislature is closely divided, held by the Democrats in the House (52-46) and the Republicans in the Senate (25-24).
How did our priorities fare this year?
Our agenda was designed by our primary social service beneficiary agencies. It is aligned according to area of interest.
Children, Youth and Families
Refugee and Immigrant Limited English Pathway: This year, JFS faced a $70,000 cut to this program. The state contracts with JFS to provide employment training and English as a Second Language programs for legal immigrants and refugees. We were able to block the cut this year, and add $1.25 million into the budget to keep the program whole next year.
“Act for Hungry Families/Reducing Hunger” (Senate Bill 6411): As part of a broad coalition of organizations, we supported an effort to reduce Washington State’s embarrassingly high rate of hunger — we are in the top five states in percentage of “hungry” families. The legislation that passed this year, sponsored by Senator Dale Brandland (R-42nd), provides additional resources for hungry families exiting from the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program rolls, enhanced school nutrition, and provides food stamps for former drug felons, the only felons excluded from receiving food stamps.
This legislation is expected to bring an additional $30 million of federal funds to our state, greatly helping food banks such as JFS’s Polack Food Bank serving hungry neighbors.
Adults
Protecting the General Assistance – Unemployable (GA-U) Program: This program assists many clients of JFS. Individuals, who are disabled for more than three months, are single and unemployable receive a meager $339 a month and limited medical benefits. This is the safety net for the people at the farthest edges of society’s margins.
This year, the Senate proposed cutting the program by nearly $16 million, which would have limited disabled individuals to six months of assistance in 24 months, and legal immigrants and refugees to one-year of lifetime assistance. We were able to defeat this proposal.
Seniors
Protect nursing home funding: The governor proposed cutting nursing home reimbursements by nearly $11 million. This would have further strained Kline Galland Home’s resources. In the final budget passed by the Legislature, this cut was eliminated.
In last year’s biennial budget, a $6.50 per day/per bed tax was levied on residents of nursing homes. The intent was to raise additional federal funds for long-term care, but it doesn’t benefit nursing homes such as the Kline Galland Home. We worked to eliminate this burden this year, but were unsuccessful.
Human Rights
Genetics Discrimination legislation (Senate Bill 6180 and House Bill 2772): This year we led a coalition of organizations to enact legislation that would protect individuals from having their unique genetic information used to discriminate in employment and insurance.
Through the efforts of Senator Rosa Franklin (D-29th), we were able to pass landmark legislation that would bar discrimination in employment. Representative Shay Schual-Berke (D-33rd) also worked hard to pass legislation which would have barred discrimination in life insurance, but that legislation died in the Senate after passing unanimously in the House. Governor Locke signed Senate Bill 6180 into law on March 9.
Would you like to get involved? Contact the Government Affairs Committee of the Jewish Federation by calling Sam Levy at 206-774-2217.
Remy Trupin is director of Government Affairs at the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle. This story is part of an ongoing series of articles designed to educate our community on how the funds contributed to the Federation Community Campaign are literally changing people’s lives for the better, locally, nationally and overseas.