In the post below this one, I promised to keep you in the loop on the house buyers’ bill of rights—legislation that has famously been torpedoed the last two years in a row—but seemed headed for a victory this year.
For example, while Speaker Frank Chopp (D-43, Wallingford, Capitol Hill) did the building lobby’s bidding and killed the bill last year and the year before—it actaully passed the House of Chopp this March. And as recently as last week, Senate Majority Leader Sen. Lisa Brown told reporters that the bill—which passed the Senate last year and the year before—was a top order of business this week. Top that: As recently as this morning, Sen. Brown’s office told me the bill was good to go.
Well, I just talked to the bill’s chief advocate in the Senate, Sen. Rodney Tom (D-48, Bellevue, Redmond, Kirkland), and he told me: “Consumers in Washington state are going to get screwed one more time this year.”
According to Sen. Tom, the BIAW, the building lobby, has gotten language into the bill—in a striker sponsored by Sen. Mary Margaret Haugen (D-10, Camano)—that would scratch a house buyers’ guaranteed warranty.
The guaranteed warranty is the whole point of the bill, and Sen. Tom told me he will not bring his bill to a vote if Sen. Haugen’s language remains. He seemed resigned to the prospect, however, that the Haugen language was staying put and thus the bill was dead.
