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Friday, February 22, 2008

Oly Action: Perhaps

posted by on February 22 at 14:15 PM

Low-income housing advocates are nervous that Rep. Maralyn Chase’s (D-32, Shoreline) bill to adequately protect tenants who are displaced by condo conversion—which she moved out of the House a few weeks ago—is going to die in the Senate’s consumer protection committee.

The chair of the commitee is liberal Sen. Brian Weinstein (D-41, Mercer Island). Why would Sen. Weinstein sabotage the condo conversion bill? The theory was this: Sen. Weinstein wasn’t going to move on the House condo bill until the House moved on his homeowner protection bill.

Well, I just talked to Sen. Weinstein, and he said, “I expect to pass it,” by next Friday’s deadline. (Bills from the opposite house have until February 29 to pass policy committees.) “I have no problems with the bill,” he said

He also said the theories that he was holding up the condo bill to wait and see what happened on the House side with his homeowners’ rights bill are wrong. “They’re not related,” he said.

He also said he had a good meeting with House Speaker Frank Chopp (D-43, Capitol Hill) about the homeowners’ rights bill. Last year, Weinstein accused Chopp of caving to the BIAW by snuffing Weinstein’s homeowner bill.

He didn’t say Chopp promised to move the bill forward, but he did say: “It was a good discussion. He asked good questions and it was a good meeting. Last year at this time, the bill was dead.”

So: He expects the condo conversion bill to pass and Chopp hasn’t killed his homeowners bill yet.

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