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Brad Own, our Lt. Governor, is widely ridiculed as a joke .. a rock band leader who gets off in pretending to be a politician by getting elected to a job no one wants. Could that change?
The legislature is now going to into a special session where the state budget mist be decided. Lt. Gov. Brad Owen has questioned whether Sen. Jim Hargrove, a Hoquiam Democrat, should continue to serve as a proxy for Sen. Mike Carrell of Lakewood, a republican who is absent because o he is awaiting a stem cell transplant. In his absence. More from the Gray’s Harbor “Daily World.”
Democrats technically have a one-vote majority in the state Senate, but Sen. Rodney Tom, D-Medina, and Sen. Tim Sheldon, D-Potlatch, joined Republicans to create the 25-member Majority Coalition Caucus in January. If Carrell is out sick and Hargrove doesn’t cast his proxy vote, Senate floor votes could end up in a 24-24 tie.
In that case Owen, who is president of the Senate, would be called upon to vote and break the tie.
“Sen. Hargrove is a very honorable person, and what he’s doing is commendable,” Owen said. “But I do think that at some point Sen. Hargrove needs to say, ‘Hey, OK, look, your folks aren’t willing to compromise, I’m not willing to do this anymore.’ That’s my opinion.”
“At some point if they’re using the (Majority Coalition Caucus) to keep things from happening, you might have to say ‘enough is enough,’ ” he continued.
Hargrove declined comment to the The Daily World on the situation and whether he will continue to serve as a proxy in the future.
The Senate could also reach a 24-24 tie if a member of the Majority Coalition Caucus crosses the aisle to vote with Democrats. The last time Owen stepped in to vote was 2009, when the Senate reached a tie vote on a bill regarding local governments’ authority over tax revenue. His vote meant the bill passed into law. In his TVW interview, Owen said the validity of that law has never been questioned.