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Page A-2 - Shelton.Mason County Journal - Thumday, March 1, 2018
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Legislators frame bill as win for open government;
opponents hope for veto from Gov. Jay Inslee
By JOSH KELETY
WNPA Olympia Bureau
Following last week's rap-
id-fire vote on a bill to exempt
the state Legislature from
state public records laws, law-
makers are going into damage
control with public backlash
mounting.
The bill, SB 6617, explic-
itly exempts lawmakers from
the state's Public Records Act,
and applies immediately and
retroactively -- meaning that
existing records going back to
statehood would be off limits
to disclosure requests. The
legislation allows disclosure
of lawmakers' calendars and
communications with regis-
tered lobbyists, but only docu-
ments created after July 1,
2018.
preme Court, where the liti-
gation is ongoing.
Public outcry over the bill
was immediate. On Tuesday,
13 daily newspapers across
Washington state published
front-page editorials con-
demning the bill, and the Se-
attle Times reported that over
the weekend, Gov. Jay Inslee
had received over 500 emails
from citizens criticizing the
legislation. On Monday, his
office received 200 phone calls
from people opposing the bill,
according to the report.
Sen. Jamie Pedersen, D-
Seattle, who voted for SB
6617, said in a phone inter-
view that he hasn't received
any constituent emails that
support the bill.
Now, some lawmakers
are going into damage con-
ter is private, they wouldn't
have the confidence to do it
again," Sheldon said.
Sheldon said he's heard
negative comments from
some of his constituents on
the bill's speedy approval.
"I think the process was a
very short timeline, which is
hardly seen in Olympia," he
said. "I don't agree with that
process and I apologized to
people for that process."
MacEwen, R-Union, wrote
in an email that Lanese's rui-
ing would have required each
legislative member to employ
his or her own records staff.
"That simply wouldn't have
been practical; nor would it
have been an efficient use of
taxpayer dollars," MacEwen
wrote.
Griffey, R-Allyn, wrote in
an email that each legislator
would have their own public-
disclosure rules and policies.
"That's simply not doable,
and it would stall the-legisla-
Introduced on Feb. 21,
the bill was rushed at break-
neck speed to a vote Feb. 23
in both the state Senate and
House. It passed both cham-
bers in 20 minutes with wide
margins and no floor debate.
"In my 18 years in the Leg-
islature, this is by far the fast-
est I've ever seen a bill pass,
from beginning to end," said
Sen. Mark Miloscia, R-Fed-
eral Way, who was one of the
seven state senators to vote
against SB 6617. He called
the bill's quick turnaround a
"world record in my book."
The last-minute introduc-
tion of the law and the rush to
enact it comes after a January
ruling by Thurston County
Superior Court Judge Chris
Lanese, who determined that
the Legislature is subject to
public records laws.
The decree was prompted
by a lawsuit brought by the
Associated Press, the Wash-
ington Newspaper Publish-
ers Association (WNPA) and
other regional papers against
lawmakers who denied a re-
cords request that journalists
made last year for lawmakers'
internal communications and
information on incidents of
sexual harassment.
The Shelton-Mason County
Journal is a paying member
of the WNPA.
Lawmakers have appealed
the ruling to the state Su-
trol over the backlash. Since tive
their vote on Friday, legisla-
tors who supported the bill
began issuing press releases
and statements on Facebook
and other platforms defend-
ing their vote, fram-
ing the legislation as
a win for both con-
stituent privacy and
government transpar-
ency.
Mason County's
three elected legisla-
tors from the 35th
District -- state Reps.
Dan Griffey and Drew Sheldon
MacEwen, and Sen.
Tim Sheldon -- all
voted in favor of the
bill.
Sheldon, MacEwen
and Griffey touched
on similar points
when asked to com-
ment on the bill.
Sheldon, D-Pot- Griffey
latch, said in an in-
terview with the
Shelton-Mason Coun-
ty Journal that he
voted in favor of the
SB 6617 because of
his constituents. He
said many of them
have very personal is-
sues, such as marital,
domestic violence and
health issues that
they're dealing with.
"If a constituent doesn't
feel that their meeting or let-
MacEwen
process and ultimately
cost taxpayers more," he wrote.
In a Feb. 23 statement,
Sen. Manka Dhingra, D-Kirk-
land, said that the bill balanc-
es the privacy of constituents
with transparency, "I
am happy that we are
moving in the direc-
tion of more transpar-
ency," she wrote.
The . same day,
Rep. Sharon Wylie,
D-Vancouver, pub-
lished a statement on
her website in which
she slammed media
coverage on the issue:
"Media reports that
claim this is a way
of avoiding transpar-
ency and bypassing a
court decision are in-
correct," she wrote.
Rep. Gael Tarleton,
D-Ballard, argued in a
Sunday blog post that
while the process by
which the bill passed
was "flawed," she
thought it was nec-
essary to counteract
Judge Lanese's Janu-
ary ruling. She wrote
that the ruling would
impose "obscene" fi-
nancial costs to leg-
islators to administer
records requests and
"paralyze the ability of legis-
lators to properly represent
their constituents."
Additionally, several House
members circulated a defense
of the bill authored by Sen.
Pedersen, with largely word-
for-word similarity. Pedersen
said that he had shared his
message -- which was origi-
nally published in The Stand
-- with the Senate Democrats
communications staff, who
then passed it over to House
Democrats' staffers, who dis-
tributed it among their mem-
bers. In the essay, Pedersen
said that the bill has been
"widely misunderstood."
"There's no real attempt
to have any. balance in the
reporting," said Pedersen
of media coverage on the is-
sue in a phone interview. He
also characterized the nu-
merous newspaper editorials
as an "unprecedented use of
resources by the plaintiffs in
the lawsuit to try and stir up
opposition to the bill."
The press and open govern-
ment advocates were quick to
fact-check the messaging from
lawmakers. Seattle Times Ed-
itorial Board member Melissa
Santos argued Monday on
Twitter that health informa-
tion and many personal de-
tails are already exempt from
disclosure under the Public
Records Act, contrasting with
claims from lawmakers that
SB 6617 is needed to protect
constituent privacy.
Sean Robinson, a reporter
for the Tacoma News Tri-
bune, slammed legislators'
characterizations of both the
bill and media coverage of it
on Twitter: "The media cov-
ered it truthfully. You guys
ran a deceitful, abusive pro--
cess that prevented scrutiny,
cut out public hearings and
denied your own members the
chance to speak in dissent.
Own it and be honest," he
wrote on Feb. 24.
"For the most part, what
we're hearing the legislators
saying is not true," said Mi-
chele Earl-Hubbard, the at-
torney representing the media
organizations in the lawsuit.
In response to criticisms
of the bill's rushed passage,
Pedersen claimed in his es-
say that the bill needed to be
pushed through at the end
of the legislative session be-
cause Judge Lanese's ruling
came in late January and he
"refused" to suspend his or-
der until the case had gone
through the appeals process.
"If the ruling had come in Oc-
tober, we could have done this
differently," he wrote.
Earl-Hubbard countered
that lawmakers never re-
quested a stay from Lanese.
"It's not true that they asked
him to stay his order and he
turned them down. They nev-
er asked him," she said.
Following the January
ruling, attorneys represent-
ing the legislators filed for a
stay with state Supreme
Court, but the court has yet to
rule on the request, according
to Earl-Hubbard.
Miloscia said that the bill
was rushed to passage within
three days due to its strong
support among lawmakers
and the likelihood that it
would garner public opposi-
tion.
"When there is complete
and utter agreement among
a vast number of legislators
on a bill that people will get
upset over, those bills go ex-
tremely fast, as fast you can
make it, and that's exactly
what happened," he said.
Miloscia said that the bill
"basically says the politicians
decide what the people have
the right to know," and leg-
islators "knew exactly what
they were voting for."
As of Tuesday afternoon,
the bill sat before Inslee, who
could choose to sign the bill,
let it pass without his signa-
ture, or veto it. He had until
today to make a decision.
During a Tuesday appear-
ance on MSNBC, Inslee said
that, while he thinks the bill
is a "bad idea," he can't veto
the legislation because law-
makers passed the bill with a
"veto-proof majority." He add-
ed that he doesn't "have con-
trol ov " over the legislation.
When asked if the governor
would veto the legislation, In-
slee spokesperson Tara Lee
wrote in an email that the of-
fice is "reviewing it."
The governor has vetoed
legislation that has received
super majorities in the Leg-
islature before. Last year,
Inslee vetoed an across-the-
board manufacturing tax
cut that was passed by both
chambers.
Journal Editor-in-Chief
Adam Rudnick contributed to
this story.
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