Yesterday, Democrat Sen. Brian Hatfield testified before the House Technology and Economic Development Committee on Senate Bill 5442—a rather low profile, bi-partisan bill (Hatfield co-sponsors the bill with GOP Sen. Judy Warnick) regarding eligibility criteria for Community Economic Revitalization Board (CERB) programs.
It’s not so much the bill as what Hatfield revealed when he testified on the bill that sparked our attention. Here’s what Hatfield said:
“A little history of the bill, it was then-Representative Warnick’s bill and it was at the request of outgoing Gov. Gregoire. So, it was an agency request bill, supported by the governor… through negotiations, we had a lot of success with the bill [last session]… The governor [Jay Inslee] got a lot of pressure from the labor lobby after session and they requested that he veto the bill and I got a call from Gov. Inslee, and it’s kinda unique when you are working on a governor request bill that gets vetoed by the governor, but that happens in this business…”
Let’s be clear on what Hatfield testified. Last year, Inslee vetoed his own agency-sponsored legislation due to pressure from big labor. It’s been quite clear that Inslee is quite generous—with taxpayer dollars and with his silence—to his top campaign supporters. However, Hatfield’s testimony makes it quite clear who is truly running Olympia – and it is not Jay Inslee, it’s his million-dollar campaign donors.
