The Daily News from Port Angeles, Washington • Page 13

Legislative action Senate okays pay hike OLYMPIA (AP) Lawmakers, elected officials and judges are one step closer to getting a pay increase following Senate passage of legislation boosting their salaries. The measure went back to the House for action on major changes, including removal of an escalator clause which would have taken legislative salaries from the present $7,200 to 114,500 by 1982. It passed the Senate 26 to 16 Wednesday. Sen. Gordon Sandison, D-Port Angeles, voted for the bill.

The Senate also combined three House bills affecting salaries 1 for the three branches into a single measure which would increase the pay for legislators to $9,800 a year for those elected in 1978. Another change would boost the proposed salary of the insurance commissioner from $30,700 to $32,500. The Senate also removed provisions granting top majority and minority leaders an extra $3,600 a year. Salary increases in the bill included: governor, $42,150 to lieutenant governor $17,800 to secretary of state $21,400 to treasurer $24,950 to land commissioner $29,250 to attorney general $31,500 to superintendent of public instruction $24,500 to $30,700. Judicial salaries would be: Supreme Court $39,142 to Court of Appeals $36,325 to Superior Court $34,250 to district courts $29,000 to $33,000.

Repassage of the bill, HB1306, without the escalator provision is by no means certain in the House, where the measure received the minimum number of votes required for passage. The bill moved through the Senate in an unusual manner. Hours after being approved by the Ways and Means Committee, it was put on the floor for action without being sent to the Rules Committee, which usually schedules bills for action by the full body. Sen. Pete Francis, D-Seattle, said he opposed the measure because of the removal of the escalator.

"If good people are going serve, you are going to have to pay them enough," he said. The Democratic caucus approved the escalator provision, he said, adding: "Somewhere on the way to the floor some changes were made, and I don't know where those changes were made." And Sen. August P. Mardesich, D-Everett, said he was voting against the measure because high salaries tend to influence legislators to vote to retain their jobs, not on the issues. "The phrase 'citizen legislature' sounds good," replied Sen.

Gary Grant, D-Kent. TH6 DAILY Port Angeles, Thursday, June 9, 1977 I I'm' rori inursady, June 9, Mardesich, defendants pay fines to state SEATTLE (AP) August Mtrdarich believed he violated no law and refused to pay a penny of the settlement. However, Seattle-First National Bank and Household Finance while not admitting guilt, pressed for an end to the legal wrangling. The result: A check for $165,625 went to the state Wednesday, ending a civil suit that had accused the two financial institutions and the former state Senate majority leader of Public Disclosure Act violations. "I indicated I hadn't violated any law and wouldn't pay one penny," Mardesich said in Olytnpia Wednesday after the settlement was signed in King County Superior Court.

"I said I would rather go to court and prove I hadn't violated the law. I have admitted nothing in this settlement." Atty. Gen. Slade Gorton, who filed the landmark suit in November 1975, said his goal was embodied in the settlement, reached after months of negotiations with Superior Court Judge Frank Eberharter. "Our goal was that Initiative 276 (the disclosure act) be upheld, and it was," Gorton said.

The attorney general said the crucial question was whether big companies would have to toe the legal line and observe the disclosure law. Mardesich, an Everett Democrat, was accused of receiving $61,000 from the late Archie Baker, a personal friend and former legal associate. Baker, in turn, had received more than $100,000 during the 1973-1975 period from Seattle-First and Household, based at Though Mardesich said the Baker payments were legal fees, the state maintained he had done no legal work that the money was intended to influence legislation. It said Mardesich violated the law because, while he reported the Baker payments, he improperly listed them on disclosure forms as legal fees. The state said Seattle-First and Household violated the law by failing to register and report as employers of lobbyists.

Both companies said they had done nothing wrong. "Mardesich was the least important of the three defendants," said Gorton. "The heart of this case was the allegations against the financial institutions. "You can safely conclude they won't be involved in the kind of relationship they had with Archie Baker in the future. That was our goal." Gorton, whose office will absorb about $80,000 of the settlement to cover its costs, said he had no idea how the defendants divided the payment.

Eberharter, brought into the case by Judge Frank Roberts said settlement was the only way out of the complex case, among the first serious suits filed under the disclosure act. He Building plans are delayed OLYMPIA (AP) More than a score of proposed amendments remain pending today as the House resumes debate on a $500 million capital appropriations bill. The body spent most of Wednesday wading through more than a dozen suggested changes. The House has agreed with the Senate to put off decisions on all major state building projects until next year, setting up a precedent in which the legislature considers capital budgets the year after it handles its regular operating-budget. Another battle developed over funds to start performing arts centers in Olympia, Yakima and Tacoma.

Shake your Booty to the Beat of "WESTBROOK" Appearing Nightly TUESDAY NIGHT IS LADIES'NIGHT LIVI MUSIC AND DANCINO i warn mm said the the matter already had cost $350,000, and the prospect was for a long, costly process if no agreement was reached. Roberts said some legal problems were so difficult they might never be resolved. For Mardesich, the settlement marked the second time the politician had been taken to court and emerged relatively unscathed. In 1075, he was acquitted in U.S. District Court of extortion and Income tax charges related to $10,000 he accepted from two garbage firms dollars he said were campaign contributions.

Documents taken in that case, made public after the acquittal, contained information about the Baker payments. A legislative ethics board ruled in late 1975 that Mardesich had violated the ethics code. The senator resigned his leadership post under pressure, but had remained a political power in the Legislature. He has insisted the case was filed by Gorton, a Republican, for political reasons. In the end, he said, Gorton offered a low fine in return for admission that he was in technical violation of the disclosure law.

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