Free Republic

Approves restrictive House bill OLYMPIA—The Senate fell one vote short today of adopting truly independent and comprehensive performance audits. Instead the Senate approved ESHB 1064, which creates an unelected political board to establish the criteria of any performance audits instituted. The bill passed by a vote of 30-19.Amendments offered by Sen. Pam Roach (R) and Sen. Bill Finkbeiner (R) would have allowed the state auditor to establish the scope of performance audits and conduct them without having to gain permission from an unelected political board. Both amendments failed by votes of 24-25. The language in the defeated amendments closely resembled...

On March 20, Tim Eyman kicked off signature gathering for his latest initiative, I-900, which would mandate performance audits of government programs. One guest that night at Salty's in West Seattle stood out from the usual Eyman crowd of anti-Olympia zealots: state Auditor Brian Sonntag, a Democrat. In fact, Sonntag's appearance at the Eyman shindig was so noteworthy that master of ceremonies David Boze, a host at conservative-talk station 770 KTTH, jokingly referenced it. "Brian Sonntag is the only guy I know who'd come as guest of honor to a campaign kickoff for an initiative he didn't even support," Boze...