The state's 1997 legislative session is over, and Gov. Gary Locke has one more week in which to sign or veto the bills it passed. (If he does not take action on a bill, the bill becomes law.)

With Republican control of both houses in Olympia for the first time in many years, and with Christian right yahoos prominent in the Republican delegation, this year saw a flood of bills ranging from ugly to dangerous to deranged. Many of the more horrific ones didn't make it out of the legislature: expanding the death penalty to juveniles, banning Native American tribes from making campaign contributions, eliminating the Growth Management Act, forcing state schools to teach homophobic curricula, allowing minors to be involuntarily sent to mental hospitals on the word of a parent, redefining physics so that large property owners could steal ground water, two different tort reform bills. The list is long, and many will be back.

More immediately, Locke's record on the bills that have passed has been spotty at best. He has vetoed some bad bills (gay marriage), actively helped pass others (welfare reform, Paul Allen's stadium). He has yet to act on a number of them, raising the strong possibility he'll let many of them pass quietly into law.

Here's how a few of the more visible battles have gone:

Welfare Reform: Given Locke's shameless exploitation of his "son of immigrants" image, he could scarcely avoid challenging some (though not all) of the anti-legal-immigrant provisions of the punitive welfare "reform" package passed by the legislature. Other than that, Locke's compromise with the lawmakers left most of the odious portions intact: a five year lifetime limit, no guaranteed child care, no guarantee that training or education will be available, a long-term commitment to privatization, and a requirement of community work after only eight weeks of "grants." And, of course, less money for the poor to "live" on, and workfare jobs--for the people who can find them--that will rarely lead to permanent work at livable wages. But, hey, Microsoft's got lots of jobs. If you happen to be a young single mother in Moses Lake, that's your own damn fault.

Gay Bashing: As with most Clintonoids, Gary Locke's ability to do the right thing increases as the amount of money at stake decreases. Hence, his highest-visibility action this session has been his veto (and thus successful killing) of a largely symbolic anti-gay-marriage bill. (Here's a hint: it's already not legal.)

With the additional quashing of a bill designed to force public schools to teach anti-homosexual curricula, the session turned out to be far less harmful than it could have been. Whether that will translate to support for Hands Off Washington's initiative and hoped-for ballot on protecting the rights of gay and lesbian employees, though, is another question. It's telling that such a positive, pro-active measure has to go through an exhausting signature-gathering process to even be considered. If a gay civil rights measure generated money for insurance companies--or if Paul Allen were (visibly) gay--the law would be passed tomorrow.

Crime: In Washington, as in every other state in the U.S., expansion of the prison-industrial complex continues virtually unquestioned. Amongst a number of tough-on-(street)crime bills becoming law, the one putting all 16- and 17-year-olds into adult legal and prison systems is probably the worst. (Surprisingly, a similar bill allowing the death penalty for juveniles didn't make it--this time.) With Bill Clinton announcing a new Republican-approved federal initiative last week that will impose mandatory, draconian adult sentencing on juvenile offenders, it seems like this is the trendiest way these days for Legislators de Sade to work out their punishment fetishes.

Education: The budget bill finally passed was not as hostile to public education as the legislature would have liked--but it's still bad news, "we love the kids" rhetoric from Locke & lawmakers notwithstanding. The ideological hostility of some lawmakers to public schools showed in both funding cutbacks and in support for a charter school proposal remarkably similar to one state voters rejected by a 2-to-1 margin last year. As a result of the additional cuts, Seattle's schools alone will face an estimated deficit of $11 million next year. While there's plenty wrong and wasteful with the public schools (starting with the top-heavy, salary- heavy administrators), those problems need to be fixed by communities themselves--not by state reps still mad that the state constitution bans mandatory chapel attendence.

Stadium: Gary Locke's most shameful hour (thus far). Not only for going out of his way to do the bidding of one extremely wealthy man, Paul Allen, and running roughshod over the electoral, legislative, and judicial processes along the way (much more about this next week); but because while Locke spent every waking hour for weeks doing Paul's work, Rome was burning. The Governor could have been using his legislative influence to twist arms for better outcomes on social services, the environment, health care, any of a number of vital issues under attack by The Forces Of Evil. Instead, he used his authority to force legislators to approve a package intended to make Paul Allen richer at taxpayer expense. Thanks, Gar.

Next week, as the dust continues to settle: environment, health care, civil rights, reproductive rights, redefining democracy, and more!