The Democratic majority in Olympia is certainly moving on some basics—most notably Rep. Judy Clibborn’s child health care bill.

Also in play: enacting the recommendations of the Washington Learns task force on education; financial assistance for low-income students; outlawing toxic PBDEs; family and medical leave insurance; domestic partnership bills; the medically accurate sex ed bill; and authorizing simple majority votes to pass local education levies.

Meanwhile, there are a few high-profile disappointments brewing for the Democratic faithful: capping payday loan interest rates and closing the gunshow loophole, for example, seem to be failing.

My personal favorites (a CO2 emissions cap and an anti-censorship bill) also seem like they’re on shaky ground.

Indeed, a concrete measure to lower CO2 emissions (as opposed to Gov. Gregoire and Seattle-area Sen. Erik Poulsen’s “strategic framework for action”), seems to be going nowhere. This is Rep. Maralyn Chase’s (D-32, Shoreline) cap and trade bill.

Second, and this one is a sentimental favorite of mine, Rep. Dave Upthegrove’s bill to raise the standard for censorship of student newspapers—while widely supported—doesn’t seem like much of a priority for the image-conscious Democratic leadership. (Where are you now Mario Savio?)

Currently, federal law provides a baseline of protection for the student press. School administrators have to show “reasonable educational justification” for censoring an “objectionable” article. This vague guideline, according to the court, could mean the article is simply “inappropraite,” or “poorly written” or is somehow “offensive.” The proposal in Olympia would—as states are allowed to under the constitution—provide more rights to students, raising the hurdle for legit censorship so that school administrators would have to show that the speech is unlawful (libelous or obsence) or that it creates “a serious physical disruption to normal school activities.”

Upthegrove’s student free-press bill is simply an attempt to return to the higher standard for censorship that was established by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1969—a decision that was scaled back by the vaguer Hazelwood standard in 1988.

Oh, and then there’s my least favorite bill of all: Sen. Ken Jacobsen’s dog owner’s bill of rights—allowing insufferable dog owners to bring their dogs into bars.

And before I get pounced on by the haters on Slog who like to make fun of the fact that I’m not into dogs, let me say, as I’ve said before, I’m not the hater you think I am. I’m glad to help pay the $88,000 in annual taxes to help run the 11 dog parks throughout the city—on top of the $2 million we already spent building them. (Although it does seem a bit unfair to me that a portion of public land—the 11 parks range from .25 acres to 9 acres—is sequestered off for a specific group of people when we don’t even have enough fields to meet co-recreational soccer league demand). And even though I’m not a dog owner, I’m happy to help pay the $3 million budget for the broad range of pet services provided by the city’s animal shelter to accommodate the estimated 125,000 dog owners in town. (Only about 30,000 of you have gotten your dogs licensed, by the way, which means, legally, you aren’t entitled to all the city services I’m helping to pay for—like making city workers haul off about 200 pounds of dog shit a day from dog parks.)

But beyond paying to help you have a pet in town, I don’t want to hang out with it.