Politics Oly Action: Domestic Partners Expansion Passes Senate
posted by on March 6 at 11:57 AM
After passing the state House 62-32 earlier this session, the domestic partnership bill passed the Senate yesterday, 29-20.
This year’s bill would provide gay couples with about 174 more rights (married people have 480 total). Some of the new rights in this year’s bill are the right to go to family court when dissolving a partnership, the right to transfer property between partners without paying real estate excise taxes, the right to share nursing home rooms and private nursing home visits, and the right to exclude your house as an asset when applying for Medicaid funding for nursing home residency. Romantic!
Last year, the state created a domestic partnership registry and granted about 23 of the rights that married couples have, including hospital visitation and allowing partners to give informed consent in medical decisions, make funeral arrangements, and inherit property in the absence of a will.
Sen. Ed Murray (D-43, Capitol Hill), the Senate lead on the bill, was happy to point out that this year’s Senate vote picked up two new Republicans over last year’s vote—”the most Republican votes we’ve ever gotten on a gay rights bill in the Senate,” Murray says.
Two votes might not sound like a lot, but as Murray points out, jumping from one Republican supporter to 3 in a 49-seat body is a jump from 2 percent to 6 percent—a 200% increase.
One of the pick-ups is Sen. Cheryl Pflug (R-5, Maple Valley), the deputy leader of the Senate Republicans. For my money, she’s actually been the R leader this year, taking a high profile on things like transportation and the budget and, I think, doing the Rossi campaign’s framing work for the upcoming election.
Republican leader Sen. Cheryl Pflug. Loves the gays!
Interesting that she would go for the domestic partnership bill.
I’m expecting a call back from her so she can fill me in on why she broke with her caucus on this issue.
Cheryl Pflug = MILF?
Uh, lez?
Cudos to Jamie Pederson and Ed Murray for the passage of this bill. It may not be romantic, but for someone who's been "married" for 38 years, it's about time we got some of the same rights as my married siblings get on the first day.
Is there a list of the 480 rights that married couples get anywhere?
It's Kudos, and this will be about defusing a challenger in the 5th.
judging by Cheryl's awful, 90's soccer mom, helmet hair, she's hoping to cozy up to the gays in an effort to get one of them to give her a badly needed make-over.
um, it passed on tuesday, not yesterday.
Cheryl has drafted a lesbian Democratic opponent when she runs for re-election this year. Phyllis Huster has already filed for office, and will be running against Cheryl Pflug this year for her Senate seat. Cheryl didn’t want to give her opponent any ammunition to use against her. That’s why Cheryl broke with her caucus, and voted in favor of expanding domestic partnership rights.
You got the right to sing the blues...
Pflug was a nice pickup, but the big surprise for me was Curtis King. Who would have ever expected a Yakima Republican loves the gays?
what about the right for a foreign partner of a washington resident to live and work in washington legally? or is that entirely federal?
regardless, that's a BIG one.
Take a # Harold. And have your eyes checked.
Never mind the fact that three Republicans voted in favor of the bill. Note that SIX Democrats voted against it.
Senators
Hargrove
Shin
Sheldon
Rasmussen
Hatfield
Kastama
Gotta boot those motherfuckers.
Shin in Edmonds/Lynnwood is the surprise Democratic Senator voting against the bill. The 21st district is very solidly Democrat in recent years.
Republican Pflug is Pfine by my book.
Shin was definitely a surprise. Kastama even voted for the original domestic partnership bill, yet switched his vote for this expansion. Is he concerned about his reelection this fall? I don't see any tough challengers on the horizon there. Tami Green changed her vote this year to support domestic partnerships and the 28th is a lot scarier for a Democrat than the 25th -- I guess she's the one with the balls in the Pierce suburbs.
As for the other Democratic noes, they're all rural Dixiecrats. Probably best for the party to just tolerate them so they can keep their supermajority. Both of the reps in Hatfield's districts are pro-domestic partnerships but are still on the conservative wing of the House Caucus. I'm sure the party will keep gunning for Sheldon but given his personal vote in Mason County I doubt he's beatable.
Brad @4:
You can get a list of the marriage-triggered statutes at LMA's RCW Project page. It's being updated at this moment, but it's close enough to get an idea of the breadth. The executive summary is here.
Comments Closed
In order to combat spam, we are no longer accepting comments on this post (or any post more than 14 days old).