One less predator in public office? House Republicans ready to dump Matt Manweller

Repub­li­can State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Matt Man­weller, who has been bat­tling a series of alle­ga­tions of sex­u­al harass­ment and inap­pro­pri­ate behav­ior for years, appears to have final­ly lost the con­fi­dence of his col­leagues in the House Repub­li­can cau­cus fol­low­ing the pub­li­ca­tion of a report that he had a sex­u­al rela­tion­ship with a for­mer stu­dent who had not yet turned eigh­teen back in the 1990s.

“I am deeply sad­dened and dis­ap­point­ed by the sto­ry shared in the well doc­u­ment­ed piece from the NW News Net­work. What Matt did was wrong,” said top House Repub­li­can J.T. Wilcox in a state­ment released to the press.

“Our Lead­er­ship team has asked Matt to resign from his posi­tion as state rep­re­sen­ta­tive. Our entire cau­cus will dis­cuss this issue ear­ly next week.”

Pre­vi­ous­ly, Wilcox had declined the oppor­tu­ni­ty to sev­er ties with Man­weller, say­ing in a state­ment issued only a few weeks ago, “Matt was elect­ed to his posi­tion as state rep­re­sen­ta­tive. Vot­ers decide who rep­re­sents them.”

That’s true enough, but real lead­er­ship involves lead­ing peo­ple to new posi­tions, not falling back on state­ments like “Vot­ers decide who rep­re­sent them”.

As the top Repub­li­can in the state House, Wilcox holds the title of Repub­li­can Leader. He has a duty and oblig­a­tion not only to his cau­cus but to the peo­ple of Wash­ing­ton State to take action when one of his mem­bers is accused of wrong­do­ing, as Man­weller has been. It’s unfor­tu­nate that it has tak­en so long for Wilcox and his lead­er­ship team to con­clude that Man­weller should resign.

The House Repub­li­cans have known for a long time about the alle­ga­tions against Man­weller, but have cho­sen not to act. Man­weller’s ex-wife Ora­Lynn Reeve went on the record late last year about her rela­tion­ship, saying: “My truth, my sto­ry, is that I had a man that’s twelve years old­er than me, as a teacher in a posi­tion of pow­er, take advan­tage of me, groom me to be a tro­phy wife and prey on my insecurities.”

Should Man­weller step down, a suc­ces­sor could be appoint­ed with­in a few weeks who would then assume his duties. How­ev­er, that indi­vid­ual would only serve out the remain­der of Man­weller’s cur­rent term, which is almost over. Man­weller’s name will still be on the Novem­ber bal­lot because Wilcox and his cau­cus did­n’t recruit anoth­er Repub­li­can to run for the posi­tion back when they had the chance.

Man­weller was recent­ly fired from Cen­tral Wash­ing­ton Uni­ver­si­ty after the uni­ver­si­ty con­clud­ed that he had a pat­tern of inap­pro­pri­ate behav­ior. Man­weller is now suing the uni­ver­si­ty for wrong­ful ter­mi­na­tion and is seek­ing a $2 mil­lion payout.

In the mean­time, he’s cam­paign­ing for reelec­tion. Last month, he received 63% of the vote in the Top Two elec­tion. He’ll face Demo­c­ra­t­ic chal­lenger Sylvia Ham­mond again in the gen­er­al elec­tion, for which some bal­lots have already been mailed.

Man­weller was first elect­ed to the Wash­ing­ton State House in 2012. He rep­re­sents the heav­i­ly Repub­li­can 13th Dis­trict, which includes Ellens­burg, and was part of the Repub­li­can lead­er­ship team until he took leave from his duties in response to the esca­lat­ing alle­ga­tions against him. Democ­rats have been call­ing on Man­weller to step down for a long time, but Repub­li­cans have resist­ed join­ing in… until today.

As an elect­ed offi­cial, Man­weller has made a name for him­self vocif­er­ous­ly oppos­ing leg­is­la­tion craft­ed to improve the lives of work­ing people.

His dia­tribes against equal pay for equal work and high­er wages have been dubbed exer­cis­es in man­weller­splain­ing, a play on mansplain­ing.

Man­weller’s his­to­ry of dis­turb­ing behav­ior extends beyond propo­si­tion­ing young women. In 2010, he got into a brawl in the park­ing lot of KXLE AM 1240 after sar­cas­ti­cal­ly sug­gest­ing for­mer Kit­ti­tas May­or Fred Huber  con­front him out­side the sta­tion fol­low­ing a tap­ing of his pro­gram, “The Right Opin­ion”. Man­weller had pre­vi­ous­ly insult­ed Huber’s wife on-air and then sparred with Fred when he called in. Man­weller suf­fered a bro­ken hand and an ear bite from the fight.

In our view, Matt Man­weller does­n’t belong in the Wash­ing­ton State House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives or any posi­tion of pub­lic respon­si­bil­i­ty. It’s very dis­ap­point­ing that the Repub­li­can Par­ty has pro­tect­ed him for so long. We hope those days are final­ly com­ing to an end. Wash­ing­to­ni­ans deserve better.