Daily WTF?--Evergreen State Edition

Two items, both Olympia, both courtesy the Evergreen Freedom Foundation.

One:

Update on Labor

Posted by Rachel Culbertson - February 09, 2010

As session continues to storm along, several bills concerning labor issues are passin' on through.  Here's an update on a few bills of note.

The Daycare Unionization Bill, HB 1329, is still awaiting a hearing by the Senate Labor and Commerce Committee.  ...

Last week I expressed some concerns over the collective bargaining provisions of the bill, but today I’d like to point out another concern.  In a KOMO article last week, a SEIU union official told reporters that instead of forced unionism, the substitute bill will allow daycare owners the choice to join. Yet according to the bill language, if 30 percent of the workers in a “bargaining unit” vote to join a union, all daycare owners and workers in that particular unit will be unionized (we call this “card check”).

It’s still unclear as to how many daycares within a certain region would be considered a bargaining unit, but an article from the Family Policy Institute yesterday had a good way of explaining what this could look like:
 “… it appears that this bill would compel all child care centers to become part of a union if one person from 30% of the centers says they want to join.  Therefore, if there were 100 centers with 5,000 employees, 30 signatures (one from 30 different centers) could compel all 5,000 employees to become union members.”

 His Imperial Majesty and his minions in The Other Washington are said to be very fond of the idea of "Card Check", although they prefer to call it by such euphemisms as "Employee Free Choice", and the like.

Meanwhile, elsewhere--or not, it's still the state legislature--EFF reports that

When rules don't apply: Committee holds public hearing on title-only tax bill, no public notice

Posted by Amber Gunn - February 09, 2010

How in the heck does a legislative committee hold a hearing on a title-only bill?

SB 6853 was introduced today and also scheduled for a public hearing today at 1:30 in the Senate Ways and Means Committee. H/t to Jason Mercier of the Washington Policy Center for bringing this to my attention.

The bill is titled "Relating to creating the legislative review of tax preferences act of 2010." It has only one section and it looks like this:

NEW SECTION. Sec. 1. This act shall be known and cited as the legislative review of tax preferences act of 2010.
--- END ---

 So, apparently the congresscritters running the show in Olympia--one guess which party controls both houses!--have decided to play by Pelosi/Reid rules.

By the way, EFF also points out that 

they are breaking their own rules. Senate Committee Rule 45 requires at least five days notice before a public hearing is held.

We'll see how "transparent" they find the results of the nest few elections...

Addendum:  If they pull this crap with taxes, what will they do with guns?  For that matter, how do we know what this is going to contain when it's contents are finally revealed?