Senate Republicans trip all over themselves trying to explain Lynn Peterson’s ouster

In the wake of yes­ter­day’s sur­prise vote to remove Lynn Peter­son as Wash­ing­ton Sec­re­tary of Trans­porta­tion, Sen­ate Repub­li­cans have been asked, again and again, by their Demo­c­ra­t­ic col­leagues as well as by reporters: Why are you doing this?

Dif­fer­ent Repub­li­can sen­a­tors have been giv­ing dif­fer­ent answers, espe­cial­ly in one-on-one inter­views with the press.… even con­tra­dict­ing each oth­er, with some mak­ing inflam­ma­to­ry com­ments. One thing, at least, is quite clear: Repub­li­cans are hav­ing a hard time keep­ing their sto­ry straight. 

Maybe it’s because they can’t agree among them­selves why they did it, or they did­n’t have time to rehearse an agreed-upon nar­ra­tive together.

Or maybe it’s because what they did was an out­ra­geous mis­use of their polit­i­cal pow­er, and they real­ize that, but don’t want to admit it.

You can judge for your­self. Let’s start with top Repub­li­can Mark Schoesler:

Sen­ate Major­i­ty Leader Mark Schoesler, R‑Ritzville, came to the press table after the vote to show reporters a let­ter that was sent by the state Civ­il Rights Coali­tion to the speak­er of the House express­ing con­cern that the Depart­ment of Trans­porta­tion did­n’t treat the minor­i­ty small busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty fairly.

[Jaime] Smith, the gov­er­nor’s spokes­woman, was stand­ing at the press table and chal­lenged Schoesler on why no one had any indi­ca­tion of the Sen­ate’s plans until moments before it started.

Schoesler ignored her and con­tin­ued talk­ing about the let­ter from the coali­tion that crit­i­cized Peter­son, and he end­ed the con­ver­sa­tion by say­ing “she’s racist,” as he walked away, caus­ing vocal out­rage from Demo­c­ra­t­ic sen­a­tors and gov­er­nor’s staff who had gath­ered nearby.

“I think that right there says every­thing you need to know,” Smith said.

Empha­sis is mine. Schoesler lame­ly tried to retract his com­ment lat­er, say­ing “I regret my remark in the heat of the scrum at the press table.” Schoesler also told the Asso­ci­at­ed Press that he “spoke things that I prob­a­bly didn’t want to say.” 

Schoesler may real­ly regret his “remark” in the weeks to come. Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee made it plain that Schoesler’s slan­der against Peter­son infu­ri­at­ed him.

It appears Schoesler has poi­soned his work­ing rela­tion­ship with the gov­er­nor and the gov­er­nor’s staff… not a smart thing for a major­i­ty “leader” to do.

In con­trast to Schoesler, my own sen­a­tor, Repub­li­can Andy Hill (R‑45th Dis­trict), said Peter­son­’s dis­missal was noth­ing per­son­al:

“This is not per­son­al. I like Lynn Peter­son. I think she is a good per­son, but I look at results,” Hill said.

Hill, and his col­leagues cit­ed a range of prob­lems on Wash­ing­ton roads, such as tolling on State Route 520, and the express toll lanes on I‑405. Hill said that, at times, the Good-to-Go sys­tem that man­ages tolling is “cus­tomer hos­tile,” and that I‑405’s new tolling sys­tem is “a night­mare.” Oth­ers men­tioned the “deba­cle” of Bertha that, admit­ted­ly, Peter­son inherited.

“My biggest con­cern is the imple­men­ta­tion (of I‑405). It has absolute­ly been abysmal,” Hill said. “(WSDOT) thinks every­thing is going great. And I’m sor­ry — there is no account­abil­i­ty there.”

Hill has some nerve talk­ing about “results” and “account­abil­i­ty” when he and his col­leagues are in con­tempt of court for fail­ing to ful­ly fund our pub­lic schools.

As the Sen­ate’s chief bud­get writer, Hill has come up with some tru­ly awful, unwork­able bud­get pro­pos­als that relied heav­i­ly on gim­micks, account­ing tricks, and phan­tom mar­i­jua­na tax pro­ceeds to bal­ance the books.

Hill & Co. aren’t deliv­er­ing for our kids, and yet here they are, mak­ing a scape­goat out of Sec­re­tary Lynn Peter­son for every­thing that’s wrong with WSDOT.

If the prob­lems with the I‑405 HOT lanes were good enough rea­son to get rid of Lynn Peter­son, then Sen­ate Repub­li­cans’ repeat­ed refusal to work with House Democ­rats to raise the rev­enue that our schools need should be grounds for all of them to lose their jobs. Sen­ate Repub­li­cans are very good at grand­stand­ing and polit­i­cal the­ater, but very bad at get­ting results.

Though Hill insist­ed Lynn Peter­son­’s ouster was about “results” and “account­abil­i­ty”, his col­league Repub­li­can Judy War­nick admit­ted to Yaki­ma Her­ald reporter Mike Faulk that fir­ing Peter­son was about stick­ing it to Inslee:

Asked Sen. War­nick if Peter­son vote was about per­for­mance or just a stick in @GovInslee’s eye: “Maybe a bit of both.” #waleg

Mean­while, Repub­li­can Ann Rivers was say­ing it was­n’t:

No, it’s not pol­i­tics against the Gov­er­nor. This is… uh, I’m sure you’ve seen the media sur­round­ing, uh, the Depart­ment of Trans­porta­tion, from the HOT lanes, to CRC [Colum­bia Riv­er Cross­ing], to bridge col­laps­es… I mean, the list goes on and on.

Bridge col­laps­es!? Peter­son is to blame for the col­lapsed bridges that the Leg­is­la­ture did­n’t have the courage or fore­sight to replace years ago? Wow. Just… wow.

Heck, Peter­son­’s response to the Skag­it Riv­er bridge col­lapse and the Oso mud­slide has won her praise from may­ors in Arling­ton and Mount Ver­non, who sent emails to Sen­ate Repub­li­cans yes­ter­day urg­ing them to keep Peter­son on the job, as Repub­li­cans were on the verge of vot­ing to remove her. May­ors in Puyallup and Ren­ton made sim­i­lar requests. But they were ignored.

Around the same time Rivers and Hill were going around insist­ing it was­n’t pol­i­tics, Repub­li­can Michael Baum­gart­ner, one of the more extreme mem­bers of the cau­cus, was busy taunt­ing the Inslee admin­is­tra­tion on Twit­ter:

Note to oth­er Inslee Appointees: Shape up, Do your job. Serve the peo­ple w account­abil­i­ty. Or more heads are going to roll. #waleg

Asked by The Seat­tle Times why he turned on Peter­son, Trans­porta­tion Chair Cur­tis King ini­tial­ly said it was because she mis­man­aged the I‑405 HOT lanes rollout.

Sen­ate Trans­porta­tion Com­mit­tee Chair­man Cur­tis King, R‑Yakima, was accused by Democ­rats of flip-flop­ping. King had told Peter­son in com­mit­tee last year: “I want to thank you for the job you have done over the past two and half years, and I can’t say thank you enough to the staff that you have behind you.”

King says his view shift­ed last fall when WSDOT staffers sound­ed blasé about com­plaints dur­ing the I‑405 toll start­up. “It’s like, ‘We’re han­dling things real­ly well, things are going fine,’ yet there are sig­na­tures from 22,000 peo­ple say­ing this is garbage,” he said in a phone inter­view while dri­ving home via White Pass.

But then he piv­ot­ed and said Peter­son was­n’t enough of a road warrior.

He also said Peter­son is mak­ing it too cheap for Sound Tran­sit to acquire right of way along state roads.

“She’s very par­tial to tran­sit, very par­tial to bike and pedes­tri­an paths, all those things,” King said. “We need to pro­tect the cit­i­zens that want to trav­el on our roads. That’s why we’re there. We need to pro­tect the abil­i­ty of peo­ple to use our roads, use their cars. From the get-go, she was about mov­ing peo­ple on tran­sit, mov­ing peo­ple on light rail.”

King’s account of why he changed his mind about Peter­son does­n’t make sense.

If, “from the get-go”, Peter­son­’s par­tial­i­ty to tran­sit was a prob­lem for King, why did­n’t King object to Peter­son­’s con­fir­ma­tion last year when it was in com­mit­tee? Peter­son had already been on the job for two years at that point. Last June, King seem­ing­ly had noth­ing but praise and appre­ci­a­tion for Peter­son, while Con­nect­ing Wash­ing­ton was being nego­ti­at­ed. Now he’s unload­ing on her.

And what’s wrong with mov­ing peo­ple on tran­sit and light rail? It’s a good thing when we reduce con­ges­tion by pro­vid­ing com­muters with reli­able tran­sit options.

We no longer have a Depart­ment of High­ways. We have a Depart­ment of Trans­porta­tion. Fer­ries, freight mobil­i­ty, and pas­sen­ger rail are all with­in the purview of WSDOT — as are mul­ti­modal projects that give Wash­ing­to­ni­ans choic­es, so they’re not forced to dri­ve to get where they need to go.

That said, WSDOT is still def­i­nite­ly a high­ways-cen­tric agency. Lynn Peter­son did­n’t change that. But appar­ent­ly not high­way-cen­tric enough for Cur­tis King.

We have to won­der: who’s going to want the job of lead­ing the Wash­ing­ton State Depart­ment of Trans­porta­tion now that Sen­ate Repub­li­cans have fired Lynn Peter­son with­out giv­ing her an oppor­tu­ni­ty to defend her­self, and with­out any notice to Sen­ate Democ­rats, Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee, WSDOT, or the public?

Giv­en what hap­pened to Peter­son, how is Inslee sup­posed to recruit a high-cal­iber replace­ment to lead WSDOT? Who’s going to want to come here to deal with the row­dy, reck­less, torch and pitch­fork-wield­ing Sen­ate Repub­li­cans? Who’s going to want to be pro­mot­ed from within?

Even after Sen­ate Democ­rats repeat­ed­ly warned them of the dam­age their rash, reck­less actions would inflict on the Sen­ate floor, Sen­ate Repub­li­cans went ahead and got rid of Peter­son any­way. That real­ly says something.

The Sen­ate Repub­li­cans have proved time and again that they are more inter­est­ed in win­ning elec­tions and increas­ing their polit­i­cal pow­er than governing.

They have their sights set on win­ning a major­i­ty in the House this fall (in addi­tion to keep­ing their slim Sen­ate major­i­ty), and it’s evi­dent they’re try­ing to build an anti-Inslee nar­ra­tive for their can­di­dates. They don’t care if they hurt the state in the process. And amaz­ing­ly, they don’t even seem to care about hav­ing a coher­ent, defen­si­ble jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for their actions, as their com­ments yes­ter­day demonstrate.