That is, budget-writers spent almost $3 billion in federal stimulus funds, took $800 million from building projects and plowed the money into other state programs and spent most of the $700 million Rainy Day savings account.

"We are using federal money, which has been a godsend," said Rep. Kelli Linville, D-Bellingham, chairwoman of the House Ways and Means Committee.

She said the House budget proposal would be balanced, but she expects a tax package to be put to voters at some point, perhaps providing additional funding for education and-or long-term care.

"It's very likely that a proposal will come," Linville said. "(But) the revenue package is not something we're pinning all of our hopes on."

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I seriously expected to read news accounts of legislators and state officials being trampled to death by each other in the stampede to appear before the state Salary Commission and beg them "Please, don't give us a raise!"

The announcements were coming in such quick succession that I couldn't keep up....the governor, Republican lawmakers, Democratic lawmakers, new state treasurer Jim McIntire. House Majority Leader Lynn Kessler, rather than risk reinjuring her aching neck, avoided the fray. She wrote a letter.

And then, of course, I saw what Randy Dorn had to say. (If anyone can figure out what he was saying, would you please tell me?)

It sounded as if he really, really, really wanted to get paid more but couldn't come right out and say that because everyone else was being so, well, self-sacrificing. So instead, he started building a case for a humongous raise in 2011 and 2012. (See, if you're a state employee, your retirement is based on your highest two years of pay in your final five years of work.)

There's still time, Randy. All you have to do is hang on for two years, get a pay raise for the final two years of your term after the economy improves, and you can accomplish through legitimate work what you couldn't do through special legislation.

Here's what Brad Shannon wrote in his story about the salary commission vote. And here's what Brad wrote about Dorn's appearance.

There will be public hearings through May, then a final decision by the commission.

And here's the story I wrote last year about Dorn trying to boost his pension by about $90,000 a year.

Questions on candidate pension
A candidate for state schools superintendent tried for two years to get lawmakers to boost his pension. He says costs cited by the state were exaggerated.

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An alert reader (lobbyist Jim King) pointed out that Auditor Brian Sonntag gets to fill in for Gov. Chris Gregoire this weekend because all the people ahead of him are out of state this weekend.

The Washington constitution lays out the order of succession of who takes over as governor in the event of "disablility" of the real governor (I guess being out of state counts as a disability.)

1. Lt. Gov. Brad Owen (but he's leaving Friday).
2. Secretary of State Sam Reed (he's in Oregon for the weekend).
3. Treasurer Mike Murphy (he's out of state now and isn't back until Jan. 6.
4. Auditor Brian Sonntag (Bingo! He's a homebody for the holidays.)

After that it would have been Attorney General Rob McKenna, Schools Superintendent Terry Bergeson and, finally, Lands Commissioner Doug Sutherland.

So, the governor wasn't scraping the bottom of the barrel for her temporary replacement. She scraped the middle.

Here is my earlier post about Sonntag filling in for the guv this weekend.

Secretary of State Sam Reed today certified the results of the Nov. 4 general election.

We set a record for turnout and number of ballots cast, 3,071,587.

The 84.61 percent turnout of registered voters was record and a couple counties had a turnout higher than 91 percent.

Reed certifies Washington’s record election turnout

Secretary of State Sam Reed has certified Washington state’s 2008 General Election results, capping a watershed election year that included a hotly contested presidential primary, the first-ever Top 2 Primary, and a record voter turnout in November. Governor Chris Gregoire also certified the vote tally on three statewide initiatives.

=> Read more!

This is the group that will set salaries for all the statewide elected officials -- governor, attorney general, etc. -- Supreme Court judges and legislators.

The new salaries probably will take effect on Sept. 1, 2009 and Sept. 1, 2010.

Right now, the governor's salary is $166,891. Legislators make $42,106.

The 2009 meeting schedule has been set for setting the salaries for Washington State’s elected officials.

The meetings are as follows:

January 20 and 21 (Tuesday / Wednesday) -- 9 am Olympia Phoenix Inn

February 17 (Tuesday) -- 6 pm Vancouver Downtown Hilton

March 17 (Tuesday) -- 6 pm Bellingham Best Western Lakeway Inn

April 23 (Thursday) -- 6 pm Richland Red Lion Hotel

May 19 (Tuesday) -- 9 am Tacoma Downtown Courtyard

une date TBD --Phone Conference Call will Originate in Olympia

Please visit our website at www.salaries.wa.gov for additional information.

That's my math. Assuming Secretary of State Sam Reed is correct in his prediction for an 83 percent turnout.

I tallied the number of votes cast in the presidential race. That's 459,497 votes. An 83 percent turnout in those three counties would put the total turnout at 1,567,886 ballots.

(Reed's office says the three counties have a total of 1,889,019 registered voters.)

So that's 29.3 percent of the presidential ballots counted. There will be a falloff down the ballot.

I'm mystified by some of the returns. For instance, there are only 11,000 to 13,000 ballots counted in some of the King county legislative races, and you must know the total is going to be close to 50,000 for many of those districts.

Incumbent Attorney General Rob McKenna, a Republican, has a very comfortable lead over Democrat John Ladenburg, who is Pierce County's executive.

Randy Dorn, the former Eatonville principal and school worker union chief, has a 15,000-vote lead over incumbent Schools Superintendent Terry Burgeson with 922,000 ballots counted so far.

State Rep. Jim McIntire, a Seattle Democrat, has a slight lead over deputy state treasurer Allan Martin. Both are seeking the top job.

Lands Commissioner Doug Sutherland, Auditor Brian Sonntag, Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler, Lt. Gov. Brad Owen and Secretary of State Sam Reed appear headed for reelection.

This is with roughly 33 percent of the vote in.

David Ammons, spokesman for Secretary of State Sam Reed, passes on this update on voting in the general election.

It looks as if 10 percent of the ballots statwide -- 300,000 of 3 million -- already are in. That's 10 percent of those who are expected to vote in the Nov. 4 general election.

(Seems strange saying "Nov. 4" election when hundreds of thousands of ballots are in 12 days before the official election date.)

FYI: Here are some mail-back voting stats from the counties we’re monitoring by their Web sites, seven counties with about 65 percent of the population. Also, I learned something new by reading the King County elections site and seeing info about what amounts to another method of early voting. I was reminded that counties are required by federal law to maintain at least one poll site with voting equipment (usually touch-screen) for use by voters with handicaps -- and any voter registered in that county is free to use it. Communications Director Bobbie Egan says they’ve seen modest in-person usage of their machine at county election center at Renton. In-person voters, of course, may not cast a mail ballot as well, and the counties are able to make sure that two votes are not counted for the same person. http://www.kingcounty.gov/elections/voting/earlyvoting.aspx

David Ammons
Communications Director
Office of Secretary of State
360) 902-4140

Ammons was forwarding an email from David Motz:

As of this morning, the seven counties that show counts of ballots received on their websites show a total of nearly 298,000 in so far.
(*King, Pierce, Snohomish [with lag of 1 day behind], Spokane, Clark, Yakima, Kittitas. These counties total about 65% of all voters.)

Of our nearly 3,622,000 voters, it looks like about 456,000 – or about 12% - will be poll voters (366,000 in King & 90,000 in Pierce).

As of last night, the percentage of absentee and vote by mail ballots that have come in for the seven counties are:

King................15%
Pierce..............10.5%
Snohomish...........10.5% (without Oct. 23 numbers)
Spokane.............21%
Clark...............16%
Yakima..............22%
Kittitas............23%

CAUTION: almost every number in this email can/will change.

Stuart Elway's latest poll, which contacted 405 registered voters Oct. 16-19, shows that Tim Eyman's Initiative 985 (traffic congestion) is leading 49-33 with 18 percent undecided.

Elway's poll has a 5 percent margin for error. (If you did the poll 100 times, it would turn out this way 95 times.) Elways said this is his last poll before the election.

Booth Gardner's Initiative 1000 (assisted suicide), is leading 55-37, with 8 percent undecided.

The SEIU's Initiative 1029 (homecare worker training), is leading 72-10, with 18 percent undecided.

(My colleague, Jason Hagey, is posting an item about the governor's race, so I'm looking down the ballot.)

There are so, so many undecideds with only two weeks to go.

"That's what keeps them up at night," Elway said of the other statewide office seekers.

Rob McKenna leads John Ladenburg 48-29 in the attorney general race, with 23 percent undecided.

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What struck me was the heavy ballots for Pierce County. The conventional ballot and the Ranked Choice Voting ballot for county executive, council and other county races.

I used to be a go-to-the-polls voter, until one year when I had to work past 8 p.m. and didn't have a chance to vote. So, I signed up for vote-by-mail.

Auditor Pat McCarthy used to send out a "I voted today" sticker, so I could wear it to the office and annoy traditional voters like Peter Callaghan.

On the other hand, at least this time I didn't have to put a stamp on my ballot because the county paid postage. And it was heavy, too. Definitely a 2-stamp ballot, at least.

I found two Republicans on NARAL's list of endorsements: Marcia McCraw, who is running against incumbent Lt. Gov. Brad Owen. Owen did not get an endorsement. And Steve Litzow, a Republican running for the state House seat being vacated by Rep. Fred Jarrett, D-Mercer Island. Jarrett is running for Senate.

The abortion rights organization gave a dual endorsement in the 41st Legislative District race: Litzow and Democrat Marcie Maxwell.

NARAL also endorsed Initiative 1000, the Death With Dignity ballot measure. I suppose that's consistent for a group that advocates for "choice."

2008 Federal Candidates

U.S. President
Barack Obama (D)

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A student called us earlier in the week to give us a heads-up on the forum, and teacher George Rother sent me this follow-up e-mail.

"We have received confirmation from candidates for the 3rd Congressional District, representatives of our gubernatorial and presidential races, State Insurance Commissioner, Thurston County commissioner as well as local legislative races," Rother said.

It's open to the public, he said.

Here's his full e-mail:

Since our school first opened we have sponsored a Presidential Election Year Candidate Forum. In 2004 we hosted the largest forum in the county and had candidates for state and local offices in attendance as well as representatives for the presidential campaigns.

We expect this year’s candidate forum to again be the largest in the county. In the past we have had several venues for candidates and enlisted the assistance of local Olympia dignitaries and personalities to introduce them to the students. We also combine a mock election with the event that we coordinate with the Auditors Office.

=> Read more!