What's happening the last week of the Washington Legislature's session

A capital gains tax, I-1000, a $50 billion-plus budget — Democrats are negotiating with Democrats on these and other issues coming into the last week of the Washington Legislature’s session.

Reporter Austin Jenkins joined KUOW’s Angela King to lay out what remains to be done.

Interview highlights

The state's to-do list

The big thing of course is the House and Senate still need to come together on a final budget deal. I'm told they're making progress; so much so that negotiators apparently took Easter Sunday off.

This will be the state's first $50 billion-plus two-year state budget.

Also on the to-do list: I'm watching what lawmakers do with I-1000. This is the affirmative action initiative to the legislature. If they don't pass it, it goes on the November ballot.

And I'm also looking to see what they end up deciding to do about the current cap on local school levies, which many school districts are crying foul about.

Possible repeal of state's death penalty

The Senate voted for the second year in a row to repeal the death penalty and once again that went over to the House and it died -- didn't get a vote.

Jim Drew, writing in The News Tribune, said Attorney General Bob Ferguson, who had requested this legislation, says there were the votes in the House to do this repeal. State Sen. Reuven Carlyle, a Seattle Democrat, put the blame squarely at the feet of House Speaker Frank Chopp for not allowing that vote.

Of course the Supreme Court has ruled the existing death penalty statute unconstitutional so we're not currently carrying out executions.

The latest on a capital gains tax

Last week House Democrats passed their tax package out of committee and that does include a new state capital gains tax.

But Senate Democrats seem disinclined to go for this. They didn't include it as part of their budget. They do have a capital gains tax proposal but it's not actually baked into their budget at this point.

I think it's probably a long shot but it's still definitely in play with this final week to go.

According to The Guardian, Spokane Rep. Matt Shea used a private messaging app to discuss spying on political opponents.

This is a strange one. Shea is a conservative Republican member of the Freedom Caucus – a controversial figure in his own right.

Shea used the encrypted messaging app Signal back in 2017 in advance of a planned “antifa revolt” to participate in what The Guardian said were “private discussions with right-wing figures about carrying out surveillance, psyops and even violent attacks on perceived political enemies.”

The Guardian is saying that Shea also appeared willing to participate in surveillance of activists. He wasn't talking about violence himself.

We haven't heard a response from Shea yet.

Will Republicans kick Shea out of the caucus?

I don't see that happening.

The most likely thing is somebody runs against him, a fellow Republican in his district. There's been talk of that, but he's been getting re-elected pretty handily in recent years.