Here are some bits & pieces from Olytown …

• Governor Gregoire is getting writer’s cramp signing the avalanche of bills that passed the 105-day legislative session even though lawmakers were often transfixed by the $9 billion budget gap.  Although lawmakers have been gone for days, the Gov gets the last word and won’t complete this monumental task until May 19. That’s the day she signs the operating budget and construction budget.  May 18 is tentatively the day she signs the  “everything but marriage” domestic partnership bill. (A referendum already is in the works.)

  After days of backstage talks, the idea of a special overtime session of the Legislature has collapsed. The Governor supported a mini-session, but only if the House and Senate could agree on a limited and specific agenda ahead of time. “There is no such agreement,” Herself wrote lawmakers in a rather terse communique (letter here.)

• Speaking of Gregoire, her No. 1 daughter, Harvard-educated attorney Courtney, is legislative director for former Governor Gary Locke, who is, of course, President Obama’s newly installed Commerce Secretary.
• Speaking of Locke and Gregoire, their old friend Ron Sims has been confirmed by the Senate as No. 2 guy at Housing.  Sims succeeded Locke as King County Executive after Locke became Gov in 1996, and Gregoire defeated Sims for the Democratic goober nom back in 2004. Isn’t it nice they’re all BFF now?
• Speaking of Sims,  now that he’s moving on to DC, the King County Council will choose someone to fill the Executive’s post until the November election. A “blue-ribbon” panel will interview four Council-suggested picks and forward at least two names. The Fab 4:  Former Councilmembers Steve Hammond and Louse Miller, Former Seattle Mayor Charles Royer, and Kurt Triplett, chief of staff for the Executive.  Triplett only counts as one person, we hear.
• Pierce County Council has decided not to switch to all vote-by-mail. Auditor Jan Shabro had suggested that for the 2009 elections as a cost-cutting step.
• Speaking of “everything but marriage” bill (see above), we read that Representative Maureen Walsh has been whacked (not literally) by her Franklin County Republican Central committee for co-sponsoring the measure and voting for it. They censured her and warned that they may look for someone to try to take her out (not in the Godfather sense). Walsh says she does a great job of representing the 16th District and believes she has a finger on the pulse of the voters. But she told the Tri-City Herald, “If folks choose to unelect me over this issue, that’s what this whole system is about.”