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Camden: What’s in store for 2019? Maybe this, or maybe not

By Jim Camden

Published: January 9, 2019, 6:01am

A whole year stretches before us, blank as a reporter’s notebook in the week between Christmas and New Year’s. Instead of filling space by looking back, we peek ahead, calling up images in the crystal ball with the chant of Bullwinkle the Moose:

Eenie, meanie, chili beanie! The spirits of 2019 are about to speak.

The Legislature will convene Monday with calls for bipartisanship on both sides and a pledge to finish “the people’s business” in less than the 105 days allotted for the session. Within 24 hours, Republicans will accuse Democrats of wanting to spend the state’s extra revenue like drunken cowboys at a Dodge City cat house, and Democrats will suggest that Republicans are stingier than a villain in a Dickens novel.

Gov. Jay Inslee will greet lawmakers with a State of the State speech calling for them to “bite the bullet” and approve a capital gains tax to help Washington pay for necessary new programs. Republicans will reply that to help Inslee’s ongoing campaign to control firearms, they will vote for a law to restrict bite-able bullets.

The Washington Policy Center will produce 437 studies, documents, court cases and affidavits indicating that a capital gains tax is an income tax, and therefore unconstitutional in Washington. Democrats will counter that it’s really an excise tax and an income tax is less regressive than the state’s current system, but that doesn’t mean they are willing to vote for one.

In February, Inslee will announce he is seriously mulling a run for president, but will explain in an exclusive interview with The Des Moines Register his trip to Iowa to participate in the annual Bike Ride to Rippey is just part of his normal cycling regimen. A Register poll of likely caucus attendees will have Inslee tied for 20th with “Huh?”

In April, Inslee will announce he is meticulously studying a run for president, but will insist in an exclusive interview with the Boston Globe his trip to New Hampshire is merely a chance to investigate acid rain damage from coal-fired power plants. A Globe poll of likely Democratic voters in the New Hampshire primary will show Inslee tied for 19th with “Is it time for another presidential campaign already?”

On the 103rd day of the 105-day legislative session, House and Senate leaders will insist they can finish on time despite the fact that they have not yet passed a two-year budget. Two days later they will announce they are shocked — shocked! — to discover they need a special session.

Dude!

In June, Inslee will announce he is studiously examining a run for president, but will tell Rachel Maddow in a special satellite interview from the Capitol Dome that Americans would be much better off if the United States raised the federal minimum wage and pardoned misdemeanor marijuana convictions the way Washington has. In a follow-up poll of card-carrying progressives, MSNBC will report Inslee in a four-way tie for 17th with “Huh?” “None of the above” and “Dude!”

In response to a wolf killing a calf grazing on state land in Northeastern Washington, the Department of Fish and Wildlife will spend $39,237 on helicopters, trackers and hunters to find and shoot the wolf. The next day, another calf will be killed on the same land by a different wolf.

In September, Inslee will be listed fifth in a poll of possible Democratic presidential candidates after campaigning all summer on a platform of reducing carbon pollution except for the carbon pollution the comes from smoking marijuana — adding that his state grows the best pot. Political pundits on CNN will be divided over whether Inslee peaked too soon or over-extended the state’s marijuana crop.

In November, turnout in the Washington municipal elections will hit a new record as a result of putting drop boxes in every Starbucks and state-licensed pot shop, which will dispense a 50 percent off coupon for a purchase when voters deposit their ballots.

Dude!

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