Washington Secretary of Transportation Lynn Peterson forced out by Senate Republicans

After three years on the job, Wash­ing­ton State Sec­re­tary of Trans­porta­tion Lynn Peter­son­’s employ­ment has been abrupt­ly ter­mi­nat­ed — though not by Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee, the chief exec­u­tive who hired her and who she reports to by law.

Instead, in a stun­ning turn of events, Peter­son is being forced to pack her bags by the vin­dic­tive, games-play­ing Sen­ate Repub­li­can cau­cus, who failed to hold a time­ly vote on Peter­son­’s con­fir­ma­tion fol­low­ing her appoint­ment three years ago, but have now sud­den­ly decid­ed to deny her con­fir­ma­tion to score polit­i­cal points.

By vot­ing not to con­firm Peter­son, the Repub­li­cans  have forced her out. She won’t be able to con­tin­ue in her duties as WSDOT’s chief exec­u­tive, nor will she be able to con­tin­ue her ser­vice on Sound Tran­sit’s Board of Directors.

Repub­li­cans tried to jus­ti­fy their out­ra­geous move by claim­ing that WSDOT needs new lead­er­ship. But that isn’t what they were say­ing back in 2015, when Peter­son was unan­i­mous­ly rec­om­mend­ed for con­fir­ma­tion in com­mit­tee.

In fact, on June 24th, 2015, when Peter­son appeared before the Repub­li­can-con­trolled Sen­ate Trans­porta­tion Com­mit­tee at the time Democ­rats and Repub­li­cans were nego­ti­at­ing the Con­nect­ing Wash­ing­ton trans­porta­tion pack­age, this is what Repub­li­can Chair­man Cur­tis King of Yaki­ma said to her:

I want to thank you for the job that you’ve done over the last two – two and a half years, what­ev­er that num­ber is. And I can’t say thank you enough to the staff that you have behind you. I think I have met and talked with every one of them. They are a ded­i­cat­ed group of peo­ple who I believ­er are here to do the right things for the cit­i­zens of the State of Wash­ing­ton, and I think they have shown that exam­ple on numer­ous occa­sions. So thank you for that.

Con­sid­er­ing what King and his col­leagues were say­ing about Peter­son just a few months ago, today’s vote to deny Peter­son con­fir­ma­tion — which Sen­ate Democ­rats fought valiant­ly to stop — seems like a betrayal.

It cer­tain­ly amount­ed to unpro­fes­sion­al, shame­ful con­duct. Sen­ate Repub­li­cans gave Peter­son no oppor­tu­ni­ty to defend her­self or answer the charges they laid at her door. They did not move a no con­fi­dence rec­om­men­da­tion against Peter­son through com­mit­tee, did not pro­vide advance warn­ing to their Demo­c­ra­t­ic coun­ter­parts or to Gov­er­nor Inslee, and did not allow mem­bers of the pub­lic to weigh in.

Instead, they plot­ted in back rooms to oust Peter­son and then pro­ceed­ed to to car­ry out their plan on the floor of the Senate.

After­wards, they ran away from reporters instead of answer­ing for their actions.

Democ­rats were furious.

“Sen­ate Repub­li­cans today took an action whol­ly unfit­ting of the expec­ta­tions of the peo­ple of this state,” said an out­raged Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee. “They engaged in a polit­i­cal­ly-moti­vat­ed attack on an emi­nent­ly qual­i­fied woman.”

“As dis­ap­point­ing as this dis­play of par­ti­san pol­i­tics is to me, I am even more deeply and per­son­al­ly offend­ed by Sen­a­tor Schoesler’s unfound­ed, scur­rilous and out­ra­geous out­burst that Sec­re­tary Peter­son is a racist,” Inslee added.

“This per­son­al insult, uttered in the Sen­ate cham­bers, is sim­ply inex­cus­able and not wor­thy of his posi­tion as a leader in the Senate.”

“Lynn Peter­son has led the most suc­cess­ful effort in years to pro­mote oppor­tu­ni­ties for women and minor­i­ty-owned busi­ness­es by push­ing hard to make sure that women- and minor­i­ty-owned busi­ness­es get a fair chance to com­pete for trans­porta­tion projects. We can only won­der what the Sen­ate Repub­li­cans’ next polit­i­cal­ly moti­vat­ed attack will be.”

“I’m sit­ting on the Sen­ate floor in shock and dis­be­lief that Repub­li­cans are going to sack WSDOT Sec­re­tary Lynn Peter­son for pure­ly polit­i­cal rea­sons,” wrote Sen­a­tor Marko Liias (D‑21st Dis­trict) in a Face­book post­ing dur­ing the min­utes lead­ing up to the vote. “Such a grave injus­tice for an amaz­ing leader.”

House Trans­porta­tion Chair Judy Clib­born also voiced her dismay.

“This move comes after strong lead­er­ship from Sec­re­tary Peter­son under very chal­leng­ing cir­cum­stances,” Clib­born said. “It comes after the Sen­ate Trans­porta­tion Com­mit­tee unan­i­mous­ly approved her nom­i­na­tion. It comes after decades of lat­i­tude grant­ed to Gov­er­nors of both par­ties to select the lead­ers of their agencies.

“If there was any doubt remain­ing, it should be clear now – hard­line, D.C.-style grid­lock has arrived in our Wash­ing­ton. After reach­ing a bipar­ti­san agree­ment to invest $16 bil­lion in our trans­porta­tion sys­tem just a ses­sion ago, it is shock­ing and deeply trou­bling to see Sen­ate Repub­li­cans under­mine that work by remov­ing the head of agency respon­si­ble for car­ry­ing it out.”

“Crit­i­cal traf­fic relief, thou­sands of Wash­ing­ton jobs, and the health and well­be­ing of our econ­o­my are being put at risk for motives that can only be described as par­ti­san. Sen­ate Repub­li­cans have put their polit­i­cal frus­tra­tions above the needs of the peo­ple of Wash­ing­ton. Lynn Peter­son is the scape­goat for their inabil­i­ty to dic­tate pol­i­cy to the rest of our divid­ed gov­ern­ment, and the busi­ness­es and com­muters of Wash­ing­ton will suf­fer because of their actions.”

“This shame­ful act impedes the state’s abil­i­ty to do the peo­ple’s busi­ness and keep peo­ple safe,” agreed State Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty Chair Jax­on Ravens. “Less than a year after Democ­rats and Repub­li­cans came togeth­er to pass a $15 bil­lion trans­porta­tion pack­age, this polit­i­cal maneu­ver only under­mines the abil­i­ty to deliv­er these much-need­ed trans­porta­tion projects on-time and on-budget.”

The roll call vote to deny Lynn Peter­son­’s con­fir­ma­tion was as follows:

SGA 9137
LYNN PETERSON
Sen­ate vote on confirmation
2/5/2016

Yeas: 21; Nays: 25; Excused: 3

Vot­ing Yea: Sen­a­tors Car­lyle, Chase, Cleve­land, Con­way, Darneille, Fras­er, Frockt, Habib, Har­grove, Hasegawa, Hobbs, Jaya­pal, Keis­er, Liias, McAu­li­ffe, McCoy, Mul­let, Nel­son, Ped­er­sen, Rolfes, Takko

Vot­ing Nay: Sen­a­tors Angel, Bai­ley, Baum­gart­ner, Beck­er, Ben­ton, Braun, Brown, Dammeier, Dansel, Erick­sen, Fain, Hewitt, Hill, Hon­ey­ford, King, Lit­zow, Milos­cia, O’Ban, Pad­den, Par­lette, Pear­son, Rivers, Schoesler, Shel­don, Warnick

Excused: Sen­a­tors Bil­lig, Ranker, Roach

We join Gov­er­nor Inslee in strong­ly con­demn­ing today’s dis­grace­ful action by Sen­ate Repub­li­cans. Lynn Peter­son was a devot­ed pub­lic ser­vant who had the dif­fi­cult, unen­vi­able task of try­ing to run and improve the Wash­ing­ton State Depart­ment of Trans­porta­tion. WSDOT has issues, but Peter­son was a com­pe­tent, qual­i­fied admin­is­tra­tor… by Sen­ate Repub­li­cans’ own admission.

Peter­son sim­ply does­n’t deserve the bile that was lobbed at her today. Sen­ate Repub­li­cans should be ashamed of the way they have treat­ed her.

We wish her the best in her efforts to land on her feet. We’ll miss her.