Yes­ter­day, the Wash­ing­ton State House Repub­li­can lead­er­ship belat­ed­ly took action against their for­mer cau­cus chair Matt Shea, a mil­i­tant extrem­ist who House inves­ti­ga­tors have con­firmed is a domes­tic ter­ror­ist involved in plan­ning and pro­mot­ing polit­i­cal vio­lence. Evi­dence of Shea’s trea­so­nous activ­i­ties and his pro­cliv­i­ty for vio­lence was already in the pub­lic domain, but it took the release of a report pre­pared by for­mer FBI agents to spur House Repub­li­cans to final­ly act.

“Based on evi­dence obtained in this inves­ti­ga­tion, it is more prob­a­ble than not that Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Shea is like­ly to plan, direct, and engage in addi­tion­al future con­flicts that could car­ry with them sig­nif­i­cant risk of blood­shed and loss of life. It is the pro­fes­sion­al opin­ion of the Inves­ti­ga­tors, that on a more prob­a­ble than not basis, Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Shea presents a present and grow­ing threat of risk to oth­ers through polit­i­cal vio­lence,” the report declares. (Empha­sis is mine.)

“Mem­bers of our cau­cus received the report regard­ing Rep. Shea a short while ago,” Speak­er-des­ig­nate Lau­rie Jink­ins said Thurs­day after­noon. “In its one hun­dred and thir­ty year his­to­ry, I am unaware of House mem­bers ever hav­ing received such a com­pre­hen­sive and dis­turb­ing inves­ti­ga­to­ry report about anoth­er mem­ber. It is impor­tant we review the full report pri­or to deter­min­ing what action the House may take, and are still need­ing time to read and digest the findings.”

“We under­stand the House Repub­li­cans have start­ed steps to take action, and we will con­tin­ue to work with them as we explore all options avail­able to the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives. Because of the seri­ous­ness of the find­ings, the Chief Clerk’s Office has for­ward­ed the report to the U.S. Attorney’s office and the FBI.”

“We respect Shea’s right to free speech and his per­son­al beliefs, but those ideals are not what this is about. This is about a state law­mak­er who, accord­ing to the inves­tiga­tive find­ings, engaged in an act of domes­tic ter­ror­ism rather than choos­ing polit­i­cal or legal avenues to change laws and poli­cies he dis­agrees with.”

“This is why we believe for­mal action needs to be tak­en that sends a clear mes­sage uphold­ing the val­ues of a free and demo­c­ra­t­ic soci­ety, and sup­ports the safe­ty of all Wash­ing­to­ni­ans,” Jink­ins’ state­ment concluded.

“Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Matt Shea has been sus­pend­ed from any role in the House Repub­li­can Cau­cus. He should resign. He can­not use House Repub­li­can staff, he can­not meet with the cau­cus, his office will be moved,” House Repub­li­can Leader J.T. Wilcox declared in a tweet post­ed at 4:18 PM Pacif­ic Time yes­ter­day.

Hours lat­er, Shea made it abun­dant­ly clear he has no inten­tion of resigning.

“Like we are see­ing with our Pres­i­dent this is a sham inves­ti­ga­tion meant to silence those of us who stand up against attempts to dis­arm and destroy our great coun­try. I will not back down, I will not give in, I will not resign,” Shea wrote in a Face­book post. “Stand strong fel­low Patri­ots. Thank you to every­one for the mas­sive out­pour­ing of sup­port prayers! I will con­tin­ue to defend the con­sti­tu­tion against tyran­ny and fight to pro­tect our God giv­en unalien­able rights to life, lib­er­ty, prop­er­ty, and the abil­i­ty to defend the same.”

Shea’s response is not sur­pris­ing. Since he will not resign, it’s very impor­tant that he be expelled from the Wash­ing­ton State House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives. His expul­sion would cre­ate a vacan­cy that would then need to be filled, which would hope­ful­ly result in the appoint­ment of a Repub­li­can who does­n’t share Shea’s mil­i­tant fun­da­men­tal­ist ide­ol­o­gy and vio­lent proclivities.

Arti­cle II, Sec­tion 9 of the Wash­ing­ton State Con­sti­tu­tion provides:

SECTION 9 RULES OF PROCEDURE. Each house may deter­mine the rules of its own pro­ceed­ings, pun­ish for con­tempt and dis­or­der­ly behav­ior, and, with the con­cur­rence of two-thirds of all the mem­bers elect­ed, expel a mem­ber, but no mem­ber shall be expelled a sec­ond time for the same offense.

The thresh­old for expul­sion is a two-thirds vote. The House Democ­rats could the­o­ret­i­cal­ly sup­ply fifty-sev­en of the six­ty-six votes need­ed to expel Shea, but they would need at least nine House Repub­li­cans to join them.

The ball is thus in J.T. Wilcox’s court. He has now belat­ed­ly sus­pend­ed Shea from the cau­cus and called for Shea’s res­ig­na­tion, but that’s not good enough.

Wilcox now needs to sup­ply the votes to enable Shea’s expulsion.

Shea should not be in the House, peri­od. A man who plots against his own coun­try should not serve in elect­ed office at any lev­el. Shea belongs in prison, not in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives. If Shea is expelled and replaced, it will decrease the like­li­hood of his win­ning anoth­er term in the Leg­is­la­ture next year because the posi­tion he cur­rent­ly occu­pies would go to some­one else.

If Shea is not expelled and does not resign, he would remain an incum­bent through the 2020 pres­i­den­tial elec­tion in Wash­ing­ton’s 4th Leg­isla­tive District.

An expul­sion — which would require a bipar­ti­san vote of the House — would send a need­ed and appro­pri­ate mes­sage that polit­i­cal vio­lence and threats of vio­lence will not be tol­er­at­ed in the great State of Wash­ing­ton. A fail­ure to expel Shea, on the oth­er hand, would send the oppo­site mes­sage, giv­en what’s known about him.

Pub­lic radio’s Austin Jenk­ins has authored per­haps the most com­pre­hen­sive take on the release of the House-com­mis­sioned report on Shea’s activ­i­ties. It’s worth read­ing because it con­cise­ly sum­ma­rizes a lot of infor­ma­tion and presents it coher­ent­ly. Read it to ful­ly appre­ci­ate the dan­ger that Shea represents.

If you’d like to read the full one hun­dred and eight page report com­mis­sioned and released by the House, it is below. It is a long read and con­tains a sig­nif­i­cant num­ber of ref­er­ences. The report was pre­pared by Kathy and Paul Leodler, Senior Inves­ti­ga­tors with the Ram­part Group. Shea refused to par­tic­i­pate in the inves­ti­ga­tion, but a sig­nif­i­cant num­ber of peo­ple who have first­hand knowl­edge of his activ­i­ties did par­tic­i­pate and were inter­viewed by the investigators.