The following is presented as part of The Columbian’s Opinion content, which offers a point of view in order to provoke thought and debate of civic issues. Opinions represent the viewpoint of the author. Unsigned editorials represent the consensus opinion of The Columbian’s editorial board, which operates independently of the news department.
As Washington nears its 750th day of being under emergency rules for COVID-19, the debate over possible changes to the state’s emergency-powers law is consuming considerable time and energy this legislative session.
Legislators have argued separation of powers and the Federalist Papers, and even made it to “Star Wars.” But each side seems to have ignored a key metric for judging the length and breadth of powers that an executive should have in an emergency.
Gov. Jay Inslee declared an emergency in March 2020 as the virus seemed to single out the state for its U.S. beachhead. Schools and businesses closed, people were told to “Stay Safe, Stay Home,” and those who ventured out to the supermarket were dousing their hands in sanitizer and disinfecting their groceries upon return.
Republicans have had quite enough of Washington as a state of emergency and have proposed legislation to rein in the governor’s power by requiring legislative approval of emergency powers after a few weeks or months. They believe they are being separated from the powers bestowed upon the Legislature by the Constitution and want a way to take some of those powers back.
Democrats are more willing to give Inslee the benefit of the doubt on most of his decisions and have a much less ambitious bill that would require more legislative approval of things the governor prohibits during an emergency, a category of directives that right now is pretty wide open.
The Democratic proposal has made it through the Senate and a necessary House committee, but faces more votes in the final two weeks of the session. A tougher Republican version did not survive, although GOP legislators are trying — so far unsuccessfully — to amend the Democratic version as it moves along.
Republicans are apt to point out they are an equal branch of the government, with expected references to the Founding Fathers and the Federalist Papers.
“We’re becoming a second-class branch of government,” Sen. Mike Padden, R-Spokane Valley, complained during the recent Senate debate over the Democratic bill. Other states with Democratic governors — like Oregon, Nevada and California — have had special sessions during the pandemic emergency, he added, but not Washington.
In arguing for the second of two possible amendments to the bill while it was in the House State Government Committee, Rep. Mike Volz, R-Spokane, said the first amendment may have been too strong, but the bill is too weak, and his proposed changes to the time limits might be just the thing to hit “the sweet spot.” It failed, too.
Democrats have generally argued that the voters did weigh in on Inslee’s handling of the pandemic, re-electing him by a large margin in 2020 after more than six months of emergency rule. Legislative leaders have some power on whether to extend certain orders between sessions, and while lawmakers haven’t come back into special session during the pandemic, they did have a regular session last year and are in the middle of another this year, when they could make changes.
All this, however, seems to be the wrong way for both sides to judge the adequacy of the emergency-powers law. The right way is to put themselves in each other’s shoes.
Republicans aren’t fond of Inslee, but the question they should ask themselves is: What would they like the law to say if a member of their party, one whom they support, were in the governor’s office? What would they be comfortable with if former Attorney General Rob McKenna or former Sen. Dino Rossi, two of their more recent candidates, had won the job?
For Democrats, the question is: What would they want the law to be if they were in the minority and a Republican they not only didn’t like but didn’t trust were governor? They might consider what restrictions they would like if Loren Culp, the pro-Trump firebrand, had won in 2020 and they disagreed with how he was running the show during a disaster.
The sweet spot is where those two lines of thought intersect.
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