The deadline for bill cut-off passed yesterday in Olympia, Washington meaning, if the bill did not pass out of committee, it’s dead. Seeing some of the bills that did make it out of committee, while others were allowed to, or made to die is very disconcerting. It’s as if common sense has no place in our state legislature.
Probably the most needed bill, Liz Pike’s HB 1788 that would have permitted local school districts to decide on their own if qualified, licensed and properly trained teachers would be permitted to arm themselves to defend students should a shooter access the school, bypassing several layers of security and violating every existing gun law, as happens in every school shooting, was allowed to languish, dying in committee as chairs did not even wish to discuss it.
Troubling in this is that the chair of the House Judiciary Committee, Seattle Democrat Rep. Jamie Pedersen, stated that he “was not receptive to the bill.” What is troubling, if not downright hypocritical, Pederson has the right to carry a firearm inside the Capitol, concealed on his body during session as there is no effort to end the legislator’s right to defend themselves on the floor of the legislature.
While I do not know for certain if he ever does, he retains that right to if he so chooses, but denies that same right to others that would be a position to stop a school shooter before they were able to inflict harm on many others, the average school shooting taking between 2 to 4 minutes and Police taking at least 5 minutes to arrive.
Police would be there in time to either neutralize the shooter after several people were dead or injured, or witness a suicide again.
Instead of allowing teachers and school staff the opportunity to be trained, provided they were qualified and properly licensed, Democrats like Pederson are pushing their own measure to expand background checks on private gun sales, as if criminals will now undergo such a background check when they buy a stolen or illegal weapon or even throw together a makeshift gun.
But at least the measure that might allow theaters to serve alcohol survived and made it out of committee, showing me that too many legislators in our Capitol have a curious sense of priorities.
To go along with this policy of what can only be described as Anal-Cranial Inversion Syndrome, we read Democrat backed bill would make it tougher to suspend students.
Citing “concern that school suspensions unfairly target minority students, making it harder for them to keep up in their school work,” Democrats have proposed a measure, SHB-1680 that “bars school districts from suspending students for an indefinite period of time or from excluding a disciplined student from school.”
Unruly students that are separated from other students for a time would be required to receive individual teaching, at taxpayer expense within the school. Being caught with a firearm at school would be the only reason a student would be the only reason a student would be barred from school, provided they were caught and disarmed before shooting the place up and killing several other students.
As Issaquah Republican Rep. Chad Magendanz puts it, “This forces school districts to choose between the safety of students and individualized tutoring that can break the budget.”
One measure long needed did make it out of committee, though. A bill that “would give school districts the option of holding back third graders from passing into fourth grade if they score ‘below basic’ on the Measurement of Student Progress test required by the state” was sent to the floor of the House over protestations by several Democrats, including recently elected Teachers Union Representative Monica Stonier, an educator from Vancouver’s 17th district who said, “We are holding kids accountable because grownups haven’t stepped up to fund their early education.”
Yes, in true Democrat fashion, the problem isn’t that teachers like her fail to properly educate the children in their charge, it’s because you greedy parents want to keep some of your paychecks to feed, clothe and house your own children.
Little wonder she has been nicknamed “Moronica” as she supports other measures that increase the cost of education, an expense that already consumes over half of the state budget and graduates children with decreased skills in reading and math.
Other Democrats argue “that the state’s failure to pay for full-day kindergarten and smaller class sizes in early grades made it unfair to impose measures on students that could prove detrimental to their self-esteem and enthusiasm for school.”
That they may be unable to adequately perform basic functions like making the proper change or reading simple instructions isn’t as important as they “feel good” about their lack of skills, I guess.
The legislator continues to struggle to fulfill the requirement laid out by the State Supreme Court in what is known as the McCleary case that stated it is the state’s “paramount duty” to fully fund basic education, but still pushes measures to fund the poorly designed boondoggle of the Columbia River Crossing that will force Clark County to accept Portland, Oregon’s financially failing light rail and take on some of their $1.6 Billion in unfunded liabilities.
Democrats, who have held a stranglehold on the majority in Olympia for over a decade now continue to push that measure, all the while wanting to suck off more and more of our paychecks, as was said by Stonier above.
We are little more than ATM machines to these dullards in Olympia.
Common sense thrown out the window? Perhaps they never had any in the first place.
