I'm just calling it what everyone eventually will call the "aerospace subcabinet" post that Gov. Chris Gregoire just announced she would be creating in her administration.

In the wake of the 38-page report on the Good, the Bad and the Ugly of Washington state as a workplace for building jetliners, Gregoire held a news conference. She was surrounded by lots of legislators because, after all, we're talking about Boeing here.

I think Senate Minority Leader Mike Hewitt, R-Walla Walla, summed up why everybody was present.

"Boeing (and its subcontractors) are a $36 billion industry and 15 percent of our economy," he said. "For every job Boeing creates, two and a half (other) jobs are created on the periphery."

On Monday, Rep. Phyllis Kenney, D-Seattle, chairwoman of the House Community, Economic Development and Trade Committee, will hold a hearing (at 8:30 a.m.) on the bill that will create what Gregoire called the Washington Council on Aerospace.

Gregoire said the council and subcabinet post are things she can do right away to keep Washington's "edge, razor sharp" in the competition with other states and countries to build Boeing planes.

The subcabinet post, which will be chaired by governor's Chief of Staff Cindy Zehnder, will coordinate aerospace stuff among the departments of Ecology, Revenue, Employment Security and others.

Just before the 2:45 p.m. news conference by the governor, House Speaker Frank Chopp held his weekly meeting with reporters and reminded us just how much the state has done for Boeing and aerospace in recent years.

Foremost on that list is the $3.2 billion tax break over 20 years that Boeing got in 2003 just to assemble the 787 in Everett.

Here's the Guv's take on things:

Gov. Gregoire announces aerospace legislation, responds to aerospace competitiveness study

=> Read more!

I reported yesterday that Sen. Majority Leader Lisa Brown, D-Spokane, said her caucus probably would not vote to put a sales tax increase on the ballot unless it were accompanied by the aforementioned tax credit. That's because they want something to offset what they consider a regressive tax.

The Washington Budget and Policy Center has more info on how that might work.

Here's a link to Schmudget.

The Washingtonpost.com politics blog The Fix, just released its list of the best political blogs state-by-state across the country. Post blogger Chris Cillizza compiled the list from hundreds of suggestions from readers.

Here are the top political blogs for Washington state:

• Horses Ass
  

• Strange Bedfellows (Seattle Post Intelligencer)

• Politics Northwest (Seattle Times)

• The Petri Dish (Everett Herald)

• Your own Political Buzz

• Northwest Progressive Institute Advocate

Yeah, it's unscientific and you can argue about who's on or off the list. (How about Crosscut, Sound Politics?, Eye on Olympia? Not to mention Brad Shannon and Adam Wilson at The Olympian.)

But it's heartening to see that four out of the six listed blogs are products of traditional news organizations. I think Washington state journalists - both newspaper/online and online only - have been particularly adept at adapting the best aspects of traditional reporting (facts, original content, context, fairness) with the advantages of a blog (speed, personality, interactivity.)

Horses Ass (HA) had the double distinction of getting on the "best named blogs" list. The others: Doc's Political Parlor & Lawn Mower Repair (Ala.), Rum, Romanism, Rebellion (Ariz.), My Left Nutmeg (Conn.), The Old River Road (La.), Writes Like She Talks (Ohio) and Not Larry Sabato (Va.)

Rep. Dawn Morrell, D-Puyallup, whose OTHER job is working as an acute care nurse (at Good Sam?), wrote this Opinion-Editorial piece for our paper. And I intercepted a copy for our blog.

As I reported yesterday here, the bill to increase the monthly fee to 95 cents from 70 cents failed to get a two-thirds majority in the House, so it may be amended to put a referendum clause on it. That means you might see in on the August primary election ballot.

We need Next Generation 911 to save lives

By Rep. Dawn Morrell

Nothing is more heartbreaking to a critical care nurse than sharing a family’s pain when we remove life support because a child, parent or spouse suffered brain death from a lack of oxygen. Yet few things are more wonderful than sharing a family’s joy when a loved one wakes up from a coma, able to go home whole and lead a productive life.

=> Read more!

Legislative leaders were briefed on the consultant's report. I'm told the House Speaker Pro Tem Jeff Morris, D-Mount Vernon, invited some folks to list to the report about how Washington stacks up on a competitive basis against other states that Boeing might choose to assemble stuff that flies.

Here's the study.

Gov. Gregoire to discuss aerospace study and proposed legislation

Event Date: Thursday, April 9

OLYMPIA - Gov. Chris Gregoire on Thursday will hold a press conference to discuss the Aerospace Industry Competitiveness Study, as well as proposed aerospace legislation.

Joining Gregoire will be business, labor and legislative leaders.

2:45 p.m. Governor Gregoire to discuss Aerospace Industry Competitiveness Study, announce legislation
Governor’s Conference Room- 2nd floor
Legislative Building
Olympia

Those college president are no dummies. That's why they make the big bucks. (But that's a story for another day.)

The council of presidents at the six four-year universities are being pragmatic by asking the Legislature to double the tuition authority that Gov. Chris Gregoire had proposed to give them them back in December.

They don't want to gamble on any ballot measure to bring in extra money. And it should have been apparent to us reporters that higher education was not going to part of any ballot measure when University of Washington president Mark Emmert started shopping around his idea of a 14 percent tuition increase several weeks ago. (Gregoire has since endorsed that amount, which is twice the 7 percent she proposed in her original 2009-11 budget.)

Let the health care folks try to drum up support for a tax increase for their own programs. The colleges want theirs now. (We're talking an additional $70 million.)

Before the session began, Washington State Labor Council president Rick Bender predicted any tax ballot measure would have higher education as an element because that's what would get the business community to pony up money to finance the campaign for the tax proposition.

Now, it appears only part of the business community will be there: the hospitals, clinics, nursing homes, doctors, nurses -- plus, a couple union locals, such as the Service Employees International Union locals 775 and 1199.

Oh, and the Labor Council won't be a part of that campaign, either. The SEIU ain't one of theirs. (It's a private matter between the labor council and legislative leaders.)

Well, they can. It's a veritable budget phenomenon in Olympia.

I'm using the House budget proposal for the state Department of Corrections for 2009-11 to illustrate how the budget process works, particularly when it comes to "maintenance level" budgets.

Here's the deal: The DOC budget for 2007-09 was $1.769 billion. Its work force for those two years averaged 8,933 fulltime employees.

The proposed DOC budget for 2009-11 (House version) is $1.797 billion. Its work force would number 8,943 fulltime employees.

That's an increase of $28 million in money and an increase of 10 workers.

Why then is that described in House budget documents as a CUT of $118 million and a REDUCTION of 544 workers?

=> Read more!

The coalition of school districts that thinks the Legislature is short-changing them when it comes to money for special education is appealing the adverse ruling it got last month from an appellate court.

The coalition filed its appeal to the Washington Supreme Court yesterday in Tacoma.

I'm not sure yet how special ed funding is going in the 2009-11 state budget, but I do know that Congress gave Washington a bunch of money to do more for special education in schools. However, I'm not sure how much of that money will be used to supplant previous state funding. (It doesn't always matter that Congress will say "no supplanting." It happens sometimes anyway.)

This is one of the first issues I covered when I was assigned to cover the state operating budget. As I recall, at one time, the Legislature had a formula for how much money it would give school districts to take care of their special education students. The formula assumed that in each district 12.7 percent of the students were in special needs students.

That was the limit, with another pot of money for districts that became magnets for special ed students. That formula has been modied some. But the bottom line is this: The state gives a school $6,000 for a regular student, it gives almost $12,000 for every special ed student. (Don't hold me to those numbers. They probably are different today.) The point is, schools want to get the extra money from the state and they think the Legislature has imposed an articifial limit on the percentage of special ed students.

Here's the news release the school alliance, which includes Federal Way (and its very best friend, Tacoma), put out today. Below that are previous news releases that I hope will better explain the issue.

Group Vows to Continue Fight for Special Education Funding in Washington State

=> Read more!

This is pretty high tech stuff for a guy who still refused to buy a cell phone, but here it is: The Online Town Hall.

Here is a link to the page.

You can ask Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown, D-Spokane, about whatever is most pressing on your mind. And it's also pressing on other minds, she'll answer it in a video on her blog.

As of a few minutes ago, there were 7 questions, but I could see only 2 of them when I clicked.

Senate Democrats spokesman Jeff Reading said for the time being, only Brown is answering questions, but other members of the caucus may join her.

Hurry. You've got only 6 days for this cycle of questions. (Then, it starts all over again.)

I'm thinkin' we might see a few questions from Mike Hewitt, a wine salesman from Walla Walla. Ya think?