Rob McKenna announced today his office is suing the Building Industry Association Washington and the Master Builders Association of King and Snohomish Counties.

This is a follow-up to the state Public Disclosure Commission report that those two groups appeared to be acting as political action committees by funneling money into Change PAC, a group that runs a lot of ads bashing incumbent Gov. Chris Gregoire.

There's about $1 million in questioned contributions between the two groups. I wrote a blog item about this earlier this week.

Naturally, the BIAW hit pieces were designed to undermine Gregoire and advance Republican Dino Rossi's chances in their rematch.

McKenna's challenger, Democrat John Ladenburg, said McKenna should recuse himself from any investigation because he's gotten some much money himself from BIAW, but it didn't happen.

Rob McKenna
ATTORNEY GENERAL OF WASHINGTON
For Immediate Release:
Sept. 19, 2008

Attorney General’s Office files two suits against builders groups for alleged campaign violations

OLYMPIA–The Attorney General’s Office today filed two lawsuits— one against the Master Builders Association of King & Snohomish Counties (MBA-K&S) and the other against the Building Industry Association of Washington’s Member Services Corporation (BIAW-MSC)—both for alleged violations of the state’s campaign finance disclosure law.

=> Read more!

State Sen. Joe Zarelli of Ridgefield, top Republican on the Senate Ways and Means Committee, sent out an e-mail today, a follow-up to yesterday's report that our revenues are going to dip another $530 million over the nest three years.

The projected deficit for 2009-11 is now looking like $3.2 billion, minus a lot of the $700 million in the rainy day savings account.

Joe, as he points out himself, is always looking for ways for the state to save money, and he is relentless. He's like the Energizer Bunny for the Senate GOP.

Anyway, Zarelli says the tentative deal that Gov. Chris Gregoire has struck with state employee unions will cost the state an additional $500 million, if the same state-paid health care premiums are extended to non-union workers and K-12 employees.

The contract has an 88-12 split on premium costs. Employees pay 12 percent.

Here is Zarelli's full budget tidbit,
as he calls them. And his e-mail to us press folks.

Dear Press,

In light of questions at yesterday’s revenue forecast meeting, it became clear there is a yearning for suggestions on how to address the growing deficit.

As I have attempted over the last couple of years to provide helpful solutions to stabilizing our budgeting practices and given the current budget imbalance, here is one more budget item to consider and it raises the question as to whether the collective bargaining agreement the Governor reached with state employees on health care benefits is financially feasible, and a first priority.

Sincerely,

Joe Zarelli

Zarelli points out that state workers had to pay 16 percent of their premiums after the so-called "Rossi budget", aka "Locke budget" of 2003-05.

I wouldn't bank on The Guv's office renegotiating its contract with the unions, although anything is possible after the Nov. 4 election. If the Legislature were to vote down the union contracts that would force a renegotiation, but how likely is that with Democrats holding 63-35 and 32-17 majorities in the House and Senate, respectively?

Dino Rossi reacts as Christine Gregoire approaches to shake hands after a televised debate at KIRO TV during their race for governor October 17, 2004. (Peter Haley/The News Tribune)

Gov. Chris Gregoire and Republican challenger Dino Rossi are set to debate each other on live television tomorrow night in the first of five, possibly six debates this year.

The candidates should have a good idea what to expect: They debated four times in 2004.

The one-hour debate begins at 9 p.m. It will be held inside a KOMO television studio in Seattle in front of an audience of about 80 people, according to Gregoire campaign spokesman Aaron Toso.

Neither candidate knows the precise questions, but the campaigns agreed on eight general topic areas, said Rossi spokeswoman Jill Strait. They are:

• Budget/taxes
• Economy/jobs
• Education
• Environment
• Transportation
• Health care
• Public safety
• Government ethics/reform

After a two-minute opening from each candidate, they will field questions from KOMO 4 News anchor Dan Lewis, Seattle P-I reporter Rita Hibbard, taped questions from Spokane TV station KXLY and Portland station KATU, and four pre-taped voter questions, Strait said.

Gregoire won a coin toss (tails) and will make her opening and closing statements after Rossi, Toso said.

=> Read more!

A reader of my blog post yesterday on the Attorney General debate wanted to know if there was video of it.

The answer: Yes.

TVW, the state public affairs TV network, sent a camera to Gig Harbor and recorded Rob McKenna and John Ladenburg debating each other for the first time.

It's scheduled to run initially at 7:45 p.m. Tuesday as part of TVW's Election Tuesdays programming, but it's already up and available for viewing on the network's Web site.

Check it out here.