Does Our Legislature Even Care What the People Want Anymore?

Source: ShiftWA.org

In light of the latest occurrence of poor management by Democrat officials which allowed criminals to access the private financial accounts of Washington residents, we thought we would go back to an interview Shift conducted last June, with Representative Matt Boehnke (R – Kennewick), who has 30 years of experience in military and commercial cyber security.  Many of the items Rep. Boehnke discussed regarding the breach in security at Governor Jay Inslee’s Employment Security Department last Spring are also applicable to the latest hacking of state files at the Washington Auditor’s office.  In describing how the state should protect private data, Rep. Boehnke said, “I have learned and continue to teach a defense-in-depth strategy.  This strategy is a layered approach that, like a castle back in the days of King Arthur, an organization has a series of defensive mechanisms to mitigate and prevent such an attack.  This defense-in-depth strategy is a system of a systems approach with a mix of integrated hardware and software including but not limited to the capabilities of firewalls, access controls, filtering, anti-virus, anti-malware, monitoring data analysis, and authentication.”  If Democrat State Auditor Pat McCarthy were a subscriber to Shift, she could have learned from reading this interview, and perhaps prevented 1.6 million Washington state residents who suffered from unemployment last year now having to be worried that their financial information is available to criminals.  (Shift, News Tribune, and Seattle Times)

Over the weekend, both the Seattle Times and the News Tribune joined many other newspapers in Washington by writing editorials supporting legislation that would limit the governor’s emergency powers and allow legislators to be more involved in managing the state during a crisis.  The News Tribune supports HB 1020, which would limit the governor’s emergency authority to 30 days, unless extended by the legislature (or by unanimous consent of the four caucus leaders).  Democrat Representative Steve Kirby has signed onto the bill and said, “Contrary to the governor’s slogan, we’re not all in this together. It’s really easy for people with six-figure incomes (Ed. Note: such as career government employees) who are still working to impose restrictions on those who aren’t so fortunate.” The Seattle Times supports SB 5196, which would establish permanent rules to allow the legislature to bring itself back into special session. As the editorial states, this bill would allow the Legislature to “call itself into a special session with the two-thirds vote the Constitution requires. They could say to a governor who prefers to go it alone during a crisis, ‘Um, no. The people’s representatives will have a voice in how Washington responds to this emergency.’” Despite many Washington State newspapers, and an overwhelming majority of Washington residents, calling for reforms to limit the governor’s desire for “one-man” rule, Democrat legislative leaders are not even allowing public hearings on these emergency powers reform bills (yet Democrat priorities do include public hearings on naming a state dinosaur). (News Tribune, Seattle Times, Washington Legislature Bill Summary, and Jason Mercier email)

In a Washington Policy Center forum today with a few members of the Washington State Legislature, Representative Mike Chapman (D – Port Angeles) demonstrated again that he was willing to break from the lockstep conformity of most Democrats in the Legislature.  Rep. Chapman said he has lost faith in Governor Inslee’s ability to safely re-open the state’s economy and that he was frustrated by the governor’s random “Roadmap to Recovery” plan.  He said there needs to be even more public pressure on legislators to change the emergency orders laws that have enabled the governor to impose his one-man rule on Washington residents. (WPC Facebook Live)

The Republican members of the Washington State congressional delegation sent a letter to President Joe Biden asking that he not reward the incompetency of former Washington State Employment Security Department (ESD) Commissioner Suzi LeVine with a position in the U.S. Department of Labor. Representatives Jaime Herrera Beutler, Cathy McMorris Rodgers, and Dan Newhouse highlighted for the President LeVine’s poor management of the ESD, in which she made security decisions that resulted in more than $600 million being stolen from the department’s accounts.  The letter concludes, “With thousands of our constituents affected by the ineffectiveness of Ms. LeVine’s leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic, we are deeply concerned that her appointment will have a negative impact on the millions of people who rely on the services of the Employment and Training Administration. We urge you to reconsider this appointment.” It is interesting that no Democrat delegation member has signed on to the letter. Apparently, Senator Murray, Senator Cantwell, Representative Jayapal, and the rest are more interested in having LeVine continue to raise money for Democrat campaigns than in having competent management in important federal positions. (Letter from Representatives Herrera Beutler, McMorris Rodgers, and Newhouse) 

One more bad policy decision, in an administration filled with them, has meant almost no attention in the media, for Governor Inslee’s veto of COVID-19 relief for builders in the name of being “green.”   Early in the pandemic, some of the more extreme elements of Inslee’s “green” agenda were put on hold because of their negative impact during COVID. An example of that was the emergency extension, granted by the State Building Code Council, of building regulations that were adopted in 2018. These anti-jobs regulations were set to begin last summer, but were delayed by the Council, and Governor Inslee, until February 1, 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.  The council early last month extended the implementation of the regulations to begin on July 1, 2021, since the economic impacts of the pandemic have hardly passed.  Despite the governor extending many other programs and orders until after the pandemic has subsided, he has chosen not to listen to the concerns of the State Building Code Council, and has demanded his “green” regulations be implemented starting yesterday, February 1^st.  The Building Industry Association of Washington has estimated these regulations will add $15,000 – $20,000 to the cost of homes.  Once again Governor Inslee’s leadership during the pandemic is inconsistent in that he applies one set of rules (i.e. favors) for those who support his campaigns, and another set of rules (i.e. punishments) for those who do not. (BIAW email)

The Washington Policy Center’s Jason Mercier highlighted the latest good news from the Washington State Economic and Revenue Forecast Council, showing an expected 4.7% and 3.0% annual increases in state revenues over the next two years, and then contrasted that revenue growth with all of the taxes which Democrats are attempting to impose on Washington residents.  According to Mercier, the Democrats have thus far proposed a “9% income tax on capital gains, Seattle-styled statewide employer compensation tax, wealth tax, statewide soda tax, business tax preferences repeal, wireless devices tax, new 40% top rate for death tax, carbon tax/Low Carbon Fuel Standard, and gas tax/vehicle fees.” So, while state employees are given pay raises and there have been no cuts to government programs, Democrats want to impose even more taxes on Washington citizens, many of whom are still suffering from Governor Inslee’s random and unscientific “emergency” orders.  The Democrats want to increase taxes despite the fact that current revenue forecasts show there will be more money to spend in the next state budget than in the current one to pay for government functions. (WPC Center for Government Reform Facebook)