— from Rick Manugian, Senator Ranker’s Office —
Sen. Kevin Ranker speaking Tuesday on the Senate floor.
Sen. Kevin Ranker, D-Orcas Island, issued the following statement today following the passage of Senate Bill 6195 regarding the funding of basic education.
“This bill is barely better than no bill. It does not solve the problem. We had a bipartisan proposal that would have actually addressed this problem, but in the end neither side had the votes. We did not have the votes because it talked about revenue, it talked about the simple fact that to fix this problem — this $3.5 billion dollar problem — we’ve got to actually fund it.
“Elected officials at all levels need two things to do the right thing, and you can’t have one without the other. You need political cover and you need political pressure.
“We need people to come into our hearing rooms and into our offices and tell us, ‘Yes, that is a great idea, please do that and I am going to be there supporting you if you are willing to do that.’ But I also need those same people to come back with a bat, screaming and telling me that they are going to hold my feet to the fire if I do not do what’s right.
“At this point in time, we have the political cover. The people of Washington state are telling us that we need to do our job. The Supreme Court is telling us we need to do our job, and we have that political pressure. We have people screaming, saying ‘It’s been years — fully fund education!’
“I’ve been in this chamber for eight years, and we’ve been talking about this for eight years. For eight years, we’ve had that political pressure building and we still haven’t done our jobs.
“We need to be bold. We need to step up for our children. My little girl is in the second grade. Can we please solve this problem before she graduates?
“I voted for this bill to move forward because we need to do something, but we should not celebrate this. We should not feel that we’ve done our work. We should not feel that we’ve satisfied our moral and constitutional obligation.”
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Thank you to Senator Ranker for trying your best to fully fund education. We have a great senator representing us in Olympia, but in order to have the funding Sen. Ranker talks about, we have to elect more Democrats to the state senate. Sen. Ranker has told us that he feels secure in his seat and that we should contribute money we would have contributed to him instead to Democrats in other districts to unseat Republicans who refuse to fund education. If you would have contributed to Sen. Ranker, instead contribute that money where it will make it possible for Sen. Ranker to become part of the majority and to do the things we want.
David Turnoy
Senator Ranker is doing a great job for us all. In fact, he truly represents us. When a problem comes up, he is actually concerned about it! That is my kind of politician. There are not a lot of them around these days.
Education wise, we don’t seem to be getting to the mark, as the Senator says. I have a suggestion for all of the state Senators and Representatives. Why not, for just a few years, stop bring home all the funding for community projects, like the Orcas Library expansion, the San Juan theater, etc. (all great projects but isn’t education more important)? Why not put those millions of dollars toward the education funding goals. This is a tall order, but I bet our Senator has considered of this.
Senator Ranker has hit the nail on the head. This Bill is essentially nothing. In my personal opinion, it is actually worse than nothing, because it takes education money and expends it for the purpose of government study, research and surveys.
Our state school districts have been very clear what they need money for, and quite frankly, I trust them to manage it locally far more than I trust the State to decide on that management for them (and anyone who knows me knows that that is saying a lot!). The McCleary decision gives some pretty good guidance where the shortfalls are. Fix them and fund them.
This is not a Democrat v. Republican issue, it is a Constitutional issue and currently (and for the better part of 20 years has been), our state is in violation of its constitution. There should be only one acceptable solution to our leaders coming out of this session – Compliance with the State Constitution… This bill is not that.
I would also like to suggest that we all take Senator Ranker up on his offer – Grab your Baseball Bats, load up a group of kids and lets head to the Capitol.
I agree with everything Justin says except about this not being a Democrat vs. Republican issue; this is exactly what it is. You have
Democrats who want to pass a good education funding bill, and you have Republicans fighting against this tooth and nail. While I am not a big fan of political parties on the national level [many would argue that they are two sides of the same coin, the Republicrats], it is a totally different story at the state level. If you want education funding, get Democrats elected. It really is that simple.
David Turnoy