Ed. In the meantime Senator Stephens passed one welfare bill in our cash strapped Senate, Senate Bill 5337, sponsored by Sen. Val Stevens, R-Arlington would allow privately owned airports to apply for state grants and loans funded from aircraft taxes and dealer license and registration fees.
From Publicola: “I have a warning for the business community,” state Sen. Val Stevens (R-39, Arlington), said on the floor of the senate on Saturday, “if they succeed here, this will be the playbook for when they come to pick you off in the future.”
Was Stevens sounding the alarm about one of this year’s bills to take away services from or brand undocumented workers? Was she speaking out against the attorney general’s bill to allow law enforcement to get special injunctions against people with no prior criminal record? No.
Stevens was speaking against state Sen. Phil Rockefeller’s (D-23, Bainbridge Island) bill to sign off on an agreement between Gov. Chris Gregoire, environmentalists, and TransAlta—the company that runs Centralia’s coal-fired electricity plant (the number one polluter in the state)—to phase out coal by 2025.
Stevens began her speech with the famous quote about how “they first came for the communists, and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a communist…” (and apparently oblivious to the irony of a Republican saying it in 2011, she continued with the next line about “how they came for the trade unionists.” She wrapped up the famous aphorism about “coming for the Jews” and no one spoke out—and “then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me.”
So, comparing the governor to Hitler and Centralia to the Warsaw Ghetto, I guess, Stevens went on: “I will not sanction this agreement by voting for this bill, I don’t want to participate in the destruction of another community. I watched, and I saw what happened to my communities when they shut down the timber industry. What industry will be next, will it be the paper mills, will it be the cement industry glass, gypsum, or lime? Oil refineries? I don’t believe that just shutting down coal is going to be the end of the story.”
Stevens was one of 13 senators to vote against the bill, which passed 36-13.