As an adoptee, state Rep. Tina Orwall once hoped to win more disclosure. As one who gave up a child for adoption, Sen. Ann Rivers didn’t want to allow more. In the end, a compromise bill signed into law by Gov. Jay Inslee this week strikes a middle ground both lawmakers are hailing as a step forward for those involved in adoptions.

The legislation – House Bill 1525 – lets those adopted before October 1993 obtain a copy of their original birth record, if the birth …

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If case you wondered, Gov. Jay Inslee isn’t getting a pay raise this year – or in 2014. But the nine members of the Supreme Court led by Chief Justice Barbara Madsen will get raises on Sept. 1 – when their pay rises above that even of the governor.

The Washington Citizens’ Commission on Salaries for Elected Officials finished its work today and it is holding pay for governor – the top elected official’s spot – at $166,891. That’s the same it’s been since September 2008, shortly before the economy’s bottom fell out.

UPDATE: “It’s appropriate for these times …

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The Washington Supreme Court heard arguments Tuesday in a class-action case brought by “live-in” home care aides against the state Department of Social and Health Services over unpaid work hours that could cost taxpayers $95 million or more, if the court upholds earlier court rulings.

TVW’s coverage of the hearing is here:

The 22,000 workers in the suit tend for disabled clients, some of them severely, and they saw their work hours cut by an average of 15 percent during 2003-07 under a “shared living” rule adopted by the state agency for Medicaid clients. …

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The Thurston County Food Bank is earmarked for $1 million in the state Senate Majority Coalition’s proposed capital budget. The money would help pay for a warehouse purchase in Tumwater, refrigeration equipment in the new storage space and also a new roof for the food bank’s distribution center in downtown Olympia.

The $3.6 billion Senate proposal authored by Republican Sen. Jim Honeyford of Sunnyside went public Tuesday, and the House is expected to follow suit at noon Wednesday with its capital-construction plan.

The Senate proposal has money for other South Sound projects of note:

•  $816,000 for the Washington

…

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Some legislative ideas are dubbed dead on arrival and then there are the ones for which the funeral quite possibly preceded the birth.  We’ll just have to wait and see on Democratic Sen. Rosemary McAuliffe‘s $1.5 billion-a-year income tax plan introduced today. She would send it to voters as a referendum in November.

McAuliffe offered up her idea – Senate Bill 5900 – a week after Gov. Jay Inslee offered up a $1.2 billion revenue plan and one day after the Republican-dominated Majority Coalition Caucus offered up its two-year spending plan for 2013-15 that pretty much …

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So far, so good: Gov. Jay Inslee is living up to a campaign promise not to claim “executive privilege” to shield government records from disclosure.

The Freedom Foundation, which sued former governor Chris Gregoire over her use of the claimed privilege to deny some 500 records requests, says it put in requests for a half-dozen sets of documents from Inslee which Gregoire had denied on grounds of executive privilege. The new Democratic governor’s staff provided all of them. Plus ,a foundation spokeswoman said, no new privilege claims have been asserted since Inslee took office in mid-January.

In a news release, …

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A retired Western Washington University professor testified to a Republican-controlled state Senate committee  Tuesday that climate change stopped in 1998 and that human-caused greenhouse gases are not responsible for fluctuations in the Earth’s temperatures or melting polar ice caps.

The startling testimony from emeritus professor Don Easterbrook is at odds with an apparent consensus among climate scientists  and climate-science literature about human causes behind the the rise in global temperatures over the past century. His testimony  came one day after the Legislature sent Gov. Jay Inslee a bill that sets up a legislative work group to study Washington’s best …

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Gov. Jay Inslee’s climate-change study bill passed the House Monday and is on its way to his desk for signing. Meanwhile, skeptics of the science Inslee relies upon may want to turn to the Senate Energy, Environment and Telecommunications Committee at 1:30 p.m. Tuesday for some reassurance.

That’s when Dr. Don Easterbrook, retired geology professor emeritus from Western Washington University and a climate-change skeptic, is scheduled to give an hour-long presentation at the Capitol Campus. Easterbrook has done research into climate change around the world and authored a book, “Evidence-Based Science,” which disputes that …

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