The 2017-19 state budget
What they say
His campaign says that as chairman of Senate Ways & Means he led the 2017-19 operating budget, and that it achieved full state funding of basic education under the McCleary ruling while cutting property taxes for 73 percent of Washington residents.
“as chairman of the Senate Ways & Means Committee, he led the 2017–19 state operating budget”
What the record shows ·
Substitute Senate Bill 5883, the operating budget for the 2015-17 and 2017-19 biennia, lists him as its only sponsor. The Ways & Means Committee's report on the bill lists him as its chair. The Senate passed it 39 to 10 on June 30, 2017, with his Yea; the House passed it 70 to 23 the same day, and it became Chapter 1, Laws of 2017, 3rd Special Session.
Limit: Sponsorship of the budget bill is what "led" can be checked against, and it holds. The results the campaign attaches are not tested here. Whether the state met its McCleary duty was for the state Supreme Court to decide, and its orders were not read for this desk. The 73 percent figure was not traced to any official source, and this desk has not established which bill's property-tax changes it measures.