With this year’s legislative session in Olympia scheduled to end this week, Gov. Jay Inslee is threatening to veto legislators' bills unless a supplemental budget is produced. “I’m trying to focus legislator’s minds on their first priority, and that is getting this budget done on time,” he said at a press conference.
Inslee said there are 35 bills on his desk, with more on the way. He will not sign them until a new budget is drawn up by midnight this Thursday. To get the budget done by then, “they need to pick up that pace substantially,” Inslee said.
Inslee said budgets should be lawmakers' first priority, and there is no reason for the delays. “There’s nothing extraordinary about this session — budgets are always difficult.”.
Inslee was reluctant to go into details about the budget negotiations. “There are differences, they involve financing,” he said. He would not say more, adding at one point, “You may waterboard me, but I’m not going to say more about negotiations now.”
If the session ends without passage of a budget, Inslee said he would act Friday to order a special session.
