Republican Cathy McMorris Rodgers (WA-05) said to be Trump’s Interior Secretary pick

If news reports are to be believed, Don­ald Trump is on the verge of nam­ing Repub­li­can Con­gress­woman Cathy McMor­ris Rodgers as his choice for Sec­re­tary of the Inte­ri­or. McMor­ris Rodgers has rep­re­sent­ed East­ern Wash­ing­ton in Con­gress for near­ly ten years, hav­ing been elect­ed and reelect­ed five times.

Ms. McMor­ris Rodgers, the high­est-rank­ing woman in the House Repub­li­can lead­er­ship, is expect­ed to be announced as Mr. Trump’s sec­re­tary of the inte­ri­or as ear­ly as Fri­day, two peo­ple close to the tran­si­tion efforts said. Ms. McMor­ris Rodgers comes from Wash­ing­ton, a state with large fed­er­al land reserves, and she also had been crit­i­cal of Mr. Trump at var­i­ous points dur­ing the pres­i­den­tial campaign.

Aides to Mr. Trump did not respond to requests for comment.

McMor­ris Rodgers would suc­ceed fel­low Wash­ing­ton­ian Sal­ly Jew­ell in that posi­tion if nom­i­nat­ed and con­firmed by the Unit­ed States Sen­ate. She would also have to give up her seat in Con­gress, trig­ger­ing a spe­cial elec­tion this year in WA-05.

The law on spe­cial elec­tions for U.S. Rep­re­sen­ta­tive is as fol­lows:

1. When­ev­er a vacan­cy occurs in the Unit­ed States house of rep­re­sen­ta­tives or the Unit­ed States sen­ate from this state, the gov­er­nor shall order a spe­cial elec­tion to fill the vacancy.
2. With­in ten days of such vacan­cy occur­ring, he or she shall issue a writ of elec­tion fix­ing a date for the [Top Two] at least sev­en­ty days after issuance of the writ, and fix­ing a date for the elec­tion at least sev­en­ty days after the date of the [Top Two]. If the vacan­cy is in the office of Unit­ed States rep­re­sen­ta­tive, the writ of elec­tion shall spec­i­fy the con­gres­sion­al dis­trict that is vacant.
3. If the vacan­cy occurs less than eight months before a gen­er­al elec­tion and before the close of the fil­ing peri­od for that gen­er­al elec­tion, the spe­cial [Top Two] and spe­cial vacan­cy elec­tion must be held in con­cert with the state [Top Two] and gen­er­al elec­tion in that year.
4. If the vacan­cy occurs on or after the first day for fil­ing under RCW 29A.24.050 and on or before the close of the fil­ing peri­od, a spe­cial fil­ing peri­od of three nor­mal busi­ness days shall be fixed and notice there­of giv­en to all media, includ­ing press, radio, and tele­vi­sion with­in the area in which the vacan­cy elec­tion is to be held, to the end that, inso­far as pos­si­ble, all inter­est­ed per­sons will be aware of such fil­ing period.
5. If the vacan­cy occurs lat­er than the close of the fil­ing peri­od, a spe­cial [Top Two] and vacan­cy elec­tion to fill the posi­tion shall be held after the next gen­er­al elec­tion but, in any event, no lat­er than the nineti­eth day fol­low­ing the gen­er­al election.

If McMor­ris Rodgers wait­ed until after March 7th to resign, the spe­cial elec­tion to fill her seat would be held con­cur­rent­ly with this year’s local elec­tions (the August Top Two and Novem­ber gen­er­al). There will be two spe­cial elec­tion win­dows in the first half of 2017, with one being in Feb­ru­ary and the oth­er in April.

Any spe­cial elec­tion held out­side of those already-des­ig­nat­ed win­dows would require extra plan­ning on the part of elec­tions officials.

State elec­tions direc­tor Lori Aug­i­no offered this addi­tion­al back­ground in an email sent to reporters a few moments ago:

There are 427,853 reg­is­tered vot­ers in the 5th Con­gres­sion­al Dis­trict. The coun­ties locat­ed with­in the Dis­trict are as follows:

• Asotin
• Colum­bia
• Fer­ry
• Garfield
• Lin­coln
• Pend Oreille
• Spokane
• Stevens
• Wal­la Wal­la (par­tial county)
• Whit­man

If a mem­ber of Con­gress resigns, the vacan­cy would occur upon the effec­tive date of a res­ig­na­tion sub­mit­ted by the incum­bent to the Governor.

If a vacan­cy occurs on or before March 7: The Gov­er­nor may select a date to hold the Spe­cial Pri­ma­ry and Gen­er­al Elec­tion. He must set those dates with­in ten days of the vacan­cy occurring.

The Spe­cial [Top Two] must be at least 70 days from the date of set­ting the elec­tion. And, the Spe­cial Gen­er­al Elec­tion must be at least 70 days after the Spe­cial [Top Two] .

If a vacan­cy occurs after March 7 and before May 19: If the vacan­cy occurs less than eight months before a gen­er­al elec­tion and before the close of the fil­ing peri­od for that gen­er­al elec­tion, the spe­cial [Top Two] and spe­cial vacan­cy elec­tion must be held in con­cert  with the state [Top Two] and gen­er­al elec­tion in that year. The 2017 Gen­er­al Elec­tion will be held on Novem­ber 7. For this pro­vi­sion to be in effect, the vacan­cy must occur after March 7.

The reg­u­lar fil­ing peri­od runs from May 15 through May 19, 2017.

If a dif­fer­ent elec­tion sched­ule is set by the gov­er­nor, Sec­re­tary Wyman will set the fil­ing peri­od and cer­ti­fy can­di­dates to the Spe­cial [Top Two] Election.

Democ­rats already have at least one declared can­di­date for McMor­ris Rodgers’ seat as of this morn­ing: Spokane City Coun­cil Pres­i­dent Ben Stuckart.

“The peo­ple of East­ern Wash­ing­ton are tired of a Con­gress that does noth­ing but cre­ate obstruc­tion­ism and fod­der for polit­i­cal pun­dits,” said Stuckart in a state­ment announc­ing his run. “The peo­ple of East­ern Wash­ing­ton are look­ing for a rep­re­sen­ta­tive with laser focus ready to grow our econ­o­my, pro­tect Medicare and Social Secu­ri­ty, tack­le our out-of-con­trol nation­al debt, pay more than lip ser­vice to our vet­er­ans, ensure our farm­ers and job cre­ators can get their goods to mar­ket, and val­ue each per­son for the free­dom, dig­ni­ty and respect they’re afford­ed under the Con­sti­tu­tion. This is what East­ern Wash­ing­ton values.”

Stuckart has been Pres­i­dent of Spokane’s City Coun­cil since 2012. He is well known in the Lilac City and around the Inland Empire.

While McMor­ris Rodgers would like­ly pur­sue awful poli­cies if she becomes Sec­re­tary of the Inte­ri­or, she’ll at least be from around here, so when Sen­a­tor Cantwell and oth­er mem­bers of our state’s con­gres­sion­al del­e­ga­tion need to lodge com­plaints and protests, they’ll be speak­ing to some­one they know.