Governor Inslee rebukes Senate Republicans: Let’s do our jobs, not fight the Supreme Court

Wash­ing­ton Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee had strong words for Sen­ate Repub­li­cans this after­noon after a major­i­ty (but not all) of the cau­cus pub­lished an open let­ter urg­ing the Leg­is­la­ture’s oth­er cau­cus­es to join them in insti­gat­ing a con­sti­tu­tion­al cri­sis by retal­i­at­ing against the state Supreme Court for its recent McCleary order.

“Today I con­vened a call with leg­isla­tive lead­ers of both cau­cus­es in the House and Sen­ate to dis­cuss next steps on the recent Supreme Court McCleary rul­ing,” the gov­er­nor said in a state­ment sent to NPI short­ly before 3 PM. “In that call I asked all four cau­cus­es to appoint mem­bers to work in a bipar­ti­san group to find a solu­tion that ful­ly funds edu­ca­tion, com­plies with the court order, and removes the con­tempt order and sanc­tions that have been imposed upon the state.”

“Not all of the cau­cus­es agreed to do so.”

“At the same time this morn­ing, mem­bers of the Sen­ate Repub­li­can cau­cus issued a lengthy let­ter about the court’s rul­ing. It is unfor­tu­nate that those mem­bers are more focused on a legal­ly dubi­ous the­o­ry that attacks the Court rather than on find­ing a pro­duc­tive solu­tion to our edu­ca­tion chal­lenge. They should not be look­ing for a con­sti­tu­tion­al cri­sis, they should be look­ing for an edu­ca­tion solution.”

The let­ter the gov­er­nor refers to was signed by the most rad­i­cal and extreme mem­bers of the Sen­ate Repub­li­can cau­cus, includ­ing Sen­a­tors Jan Angel, Pam Roach, Don Ben­ton, Michael Baum­gart­ner, and Doug Erick­sen. It goes on at length at how the state Supreme Court is vio­lat­ing the Con­sti­tu­tions of the Ever­green State and the Unit­ed States by hold­ing the Leg­is­la­ture in con­tempt for fail­ing to ful­ly fund Wash­ing­ton’s pub­lic schools in accor­dance with Arti­cle IX, Sec­tion 1.

“The con­sti­tu­tion­al crises that we and the court were warned about is here,” the nine­teen wrote in a six page let­ter addressed to House Democ­rats, House Repub­li­cans, and Sen­ate Democ­rats, who were sent copies by hand.

“We have all tak­en oaths to uphold the state con­sti­tu­tion. We owe to our con­stituents and their chil­dren not only amply-fund­ed schools but a func­tion­ing repub­lic in this state. It is now time for us to explore the range of polit­i­cal, legal, and con­sti­tu­tion­al respons­es that we have at our dis­pos­al. Please let us know at your ear­li­est con­ve­nience how you and your respec­tive cau­cus­es intend to proceed.”

Inslee made clear he does not share Sen­ate Repub­li­cans’ desire to fight the Court, and wants to get back to work instead of esca­lat­ing a con­sti­tu­tion­al showdown.

“I am focused on ful­ly fund­ing edu­ca­tion, pro­vid­ing our stu­dents and edu­ca­tors what they need, and sub­mit­ting a plan that com­plies with the court order. Focus­ing on any­thing else is a polit­i­cal dis­trac­tion. I look for­ward to hear­ing from all the cau­cus­es next week in the hopes that all the cau­cus­es will focus on a solu­tion to this edu­ca­tion­al chal­lenge and con­tempt cita­tion rather than on excus­es for inaction.”

Sen­ate Democ­rats made the same points.

“Guess MCC [what the Sen­ate Repub­li­cans and Tim Shel­don call them­selves] wants to re-lit­i­gate Mar­bury v Madi­son (1803),” tweet­ed Sen­a­tor David Frockt. “Here’s an idea. Let’s get it togeth­er and ful­ly fund education.”

He not­ed Sen­ate Repub­li­cans’ defi­ance was to blame for the con­sti­tu­tion­al cri­sis, not the Court, which has been incred­i­bly patient with the Legislature.

“How can a con­sti­tu­tion­al rul­ing of our state’s high­est court itself be uncon­sti­tu­tion­al?” he won­dered. “Where does it end?”

“I don’t care what Sen­ate Repub­li­cans think of the Court’s order,” declared Sen­ate Demo­c­ra­t­ic Leader Sharon Nel­son (D‑34th Dis­trict; West Seat­tle and Vashon-Mau­ry Island). “Nei­ther do kids who con­tin­ue to move through our K‑12 sys­tem in crum­bling schools. Nei­ther do teach­ers who have to leave the pro­fes­sion they love because they can’t afford to feed their fam­i­lies. Nei­ther do par­ents who send their kids to over­crowd­ed schools and class­rooms year after year. The one and only thing any of us should care about is fix­ing these issues and fix­ing them now.”

If the Wash­ing­ton State Supreme Court was con­trolled by con­ser­v­a­tives, like the U.S. Supreme Court is, Sen­ate Repub­li­cans would be rever­ing and defend­ing it — not attack­ing it. But since it isn’t, and since there aren’t any con­ser­v­a­tive jurists left on its demo­c­ra­t­i­cal­ly-elect­ed bench, Repub­li­cans feel no hes­i­ta­tion in going after the Court as an insti­tu­tion, attempt­ing to under­mine its legitimacy.

“The Wash­ing­ton Supreme Court has gone rogue. It is time for arti­cles of impeach­ment,” tweet­ed Repub­li­can State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Matt Man­weller in the wake of the Supreme Court’s most recent McCleary order.

He fol­lowed that up with: “First WA Supreme Court in his­to­ry to issue a press release BEFORE issu­ing their deci­sion. Nice slick web­site too. Pathetic.”

Quite a few of his tweets since then have been jabs direct­ed at the Supreme Court.

Michael Baum­gart­ner, one of the let­ter’s nine­teen sig­na­to­ries, has also launched rhetor­i­cal attacks on the Court. His response to the McCleary order was this retort: “Break­ing News: Baum­gart­ner fines Supreme Court for civic incom­pe­tence. Orders Judges to write ‘co-equal branch­es’ 100x per day.”

Baum­gart­ner pre­vi­ous­ly intro­duced a bill to shrink the size of the state Supreme Court from nine to five jus­tices — a move no doubt intend­ed to make it eas­i­er for con­ser­v­a­tives to try to take con­trol of the insti­tu­tion in a sub­se­quent set of statewide elec­tions, as they would only need to win three seats. He also filed a sil­ly bill mock­ing the McCleary orders and instruct­ing the Court to take more cas­es.

None of Baum­gart­ner’s inane bills have gone anywhere.

We agree with Gov­er­nor Inslee: Rather than attempt­ing to esca­late a con­sti­tu­tion­al cri­sis with the Supreme Court, Sen­ate Repub­li­cans should focus on get­ting back to work. Repub­li­cans spend way too much time pat­ting them­selves on the back and mak­ing excus­es for medi­oc­rity. We have the nation’s most regres­sive tax sys­tem and we rank close to last in class size. We’re not ade­quate­ly com­pen­sat­ing our teach­ers or pro­vid­ing school dis­tricts with the resources they need.

The Leg­is­la­ture has con­tin­u­al­ly relied on bud­get gim­micks, includ­ing account­ing tricks and fund trans­fers, to make the state’s books bal­ance. The focus has been on treat­ing symp­toms, not address­ing the root cause of our edu­ca­tion fund­ing prob­lems. Every year, Repub­li­cans say it’s not a good time to raise tax­es or work on tax reform. That is why our fund­ing prob­lems won’t go away.

Repub­li­cans are being mis­lead­ing when they try to pit the blame for the lack of progress sole­ly on Democ­rats. For exam­ple, last week Matt Man­weller tweet­ed “Dems were in charge for 20 years and led us to this crisis.”

That’s not true. For much of the 1990s, Repub­li­cans had con­trol of at least one house of the Leg­is­la­ture, and there was a stretch when they had both hous­es. In the ear­ly 2000s, they con­trolled the state Sen­ate by a nar­row major­i­ty. Now they have con­trol of the Sen­ate again. And they’re hun­gry for more power.

Sad­ly, these nine­teen Repub­li­cans have just demon­strat­ed they are more inter­est­ed in scor­ing polit­i­cal points and incit­ing a pow­er strug­gle than help­ing Democ­rats tack­le our school fund­ing cri­sis. Some of them, notably Baum­gart­ner, Erick­sen, Ben­ton, and Roach, are even sup­port­ing Tim Eyman’s I‑1366, which would wipe out $8 bil­lion (with a b) in sales tax rev­enue over the next six years. That’s beyond irre­spon­si­ble and beyond shame­ful — it’s unconscionable.

There are, thank­ful­ly, Repub­li­cans who are stand­ing up against the pol­i­tics of hostage-tak­ing; the Main­stream Repub­li­cans have tak­en a posi­tion oppos­ing Eyman’s I‑1366. But sad­ly, there aren’t many Repub­li­cans left who seem inter­est­ed in tru­ly defend­ing repub­li­can­ism and uphold­ing Wash­ing­ton’s values.