That puts the Republican minority in the Senate and shared majority in the House in a strong bargaining position.

Legislature expecting OT Budget process keeps lawmakers tangled up By DAVID AMMONS Associated Press

OLYMPIA -- Washington lawmakers headed toward adjournment of their election-year session tonight, besieged by angry protesters and still tied up in knots over the state budget, tax cuts and how to bail out the ailing transportation system.

Budget negotiators worked behind the scenes in the evenly divided House of Representatives throughout the day Wednesday, hoping to craft a deal that will be their ticket home. No breakthroughs were reported, and legislators conceded the obvious, that overtime will be required.

By law, the session can last only 60 days. Either Gov. Gary Locke or the Legislature has the power to call 30-day special sessions.

On Wednesday, the 59th day, while budgeteers worked on their deals, the House got into a tense standoff over two big labor bills as labor protesters staged an ear-splitting sit-down strike. They jammed the hallway outside the bronze House door closest to the office of Co-Speaker Clyde Ballard, jeering the East Wenatchee Republican.

Ballard blocked Democrats' attempts to force a vote on proposals to provide extended jobless benefits for locked-out Kaiser Aluminum Steelworkers and to give state employees collective bargaining rights. Both bills are locked up in committee.

Ballard also came under indirect attack by state Attorney General Christine Gregoire and Democratic lawmakers for blocking a vote on the session's big consumer privacy bill.

Gregoire and the lawmakers blasted "out-of-state megacorporations" for reportedly sending an army of 49 lobbyists to persuade Republicans to keep the measure bottled up. Legislators urged Ballard to see through the business lobby's smoke screen and allow a vote.

"Failure to pass privacy legislation this session would be a devastating blow to consumers in the state," Gregoire told a news conference. "It means yet another year, at least, in which our private information remains an open book, available for sale to the highest bidder."

Ballard said he was disappointed that Gregoire apparently is cutting off further negotiations. He said he has been swamped with calls from businesses and associations who fear the measure would open them up to class-action lawsuits.

Meanwhile, in the latest round of pingpong budget diplomacy, the Democrats drafted a new spending plan for the Republicans to consider. Details were not released. But GOP budget leader Tom Huff said even if a budget breakthrough occurs today -- a big if -- overtime days still will be required.

"The time is tickin'," he said late Wednesday, pacing as he waited for the Democrats' offer.

Huff said the two co-speakers have agreed that it will take a two-thirds vote of the House to access hundreds of millions of dollars from the state reserves. That means the whole budget document will need to be a bipartisan compromise, he said.

Democrats have talked about putting part of the budget, such as transportation funding, on the statewide ballot.

Rep. Don Carlson, a Vancouver Republican who helped Senate Democrats pass their budget last year, said the GOP caucus is united in its insistence on a compromise House budget. So far, so good, he said.

"They continue to tinker, building bridges," he said. "Eventually they'll agree." He predicted a new session that wraps up by next Wednesday.

-- (mark842@hotmail.com), March 09, 2000