A quick catchup for you:

BUDGET ROLLOUT…
Official Olympiadom, public employees and all of the budget-dependent groups anxiously await next week’s rollouts of the Legislature’s competing budget proposals — and tax plans for the statewide ballot.  The Senate Democrats unveil their budget plan on Monday morning, closing the projected spending gap of $9 billion with budget cuts, Obama bucks, fund raids, deferred pension contributions, tuition surcharges and so forth. The House Democrats will follow up with a similar all-cuts budget.  Then when the howls begin in earnest, we’ll see some plans for a revenue package to put before the voters, most likely in August or November. Governor Gregoire has backed off her heck-no-on-taxes stance. If all goes according to plan, the final budget will be voted on next month — first the Senate, then the House, then to negotiators to iron out the final deal, then final passage and on to the governor’s desk, and finally, apparently, on to the voters for the tax question. 

BYE TO PARKS?
Among the many cuts already floated by the governor are up to 40 of the state’s 120 state parks. House Majority Leader Lynn Kessler, D-Hoquiam, and others are looking for alternative financing to help trim the closure list back.

LABOR GROUPS …
Three powerful labor groups, the Washington Federation of State Employees, Washington State Labor Council and the United Food and Commercial Worker, have withdrawn from the coalition that is trying to drum up support for a revenue package. The Washington Education Association, health care alliances and others still are hanging in there, and have commissioned polls to help lawmakers craft a tax plan with maximum chance of passing.

HELLO, REP. MORRELL …
Representative Dawn Morrell of Puyallup has been elected by her Democratic peers to lead their House majority caucus. She replaces the much-admired Bill Grant of Walla Walla, who recently died. Morrell had been his vice chair.

TRANSPORTATION …
Speaking of budgets, the Senate has rolled out its transportation spending plan for the next six years, including a $4.3 billion budget for the next biennium. Unlike the partisan firefight that awaits as the operating budget and taxes are debated, the transpo budget is a doggone lovefest. Minority Republicans, including Dan Swecker of Rochester, joined Senate Transportation Chair Mary Margaret Haugen, D-Camano Island, at a newser to unveil the plan Wednesday afternoon. It mostly closes a long-term projected deficit and finances most of the previously authorized highway, ferry, rail and rapid transit projects.

VIADUCT NEWS …
House Speaker Frank Chopp, D-Seattle, indicates that  that he’s softening his opposition to the Alaskan Way Viaduct plan that has been endorsed by the governor, King County and Seattle, inclujding a tunnel.  He tells The Seattle Times the odds are decent that the bill will pass this session.

LOCKE’S NEW GIG…
Former Governor Gary Locke is confirmed by the U.S. Senate as the nation’s 36th Commerce secretary. He’s the first Cabinet member from Washington since Brock Adams (Transportation, back in the Carter years.) His communications director could be Roger Nyhus, who held the post back when Locke was governor and now runs a blue-chip public affairs consulting firm in Seattle.