Bob Ferguson has done it again! Judge blocks plot to sell National Archives’ Seattle campus

Wash­ing­ton State Attor­ney Gen­er­al Bob Fer­gu­son and his out­stand­ing legal team have once again tri­umphed over bureau­crat­ic stu­pid­i­ty and shortsightedness.

Today, U.S. Dis­trict Court Judge John Coughenour ver­bal­ly signed off on a pre­lim­i­nary injunc­tion to block the fed­er­al gov­ern­men­t’s scheme to sur­plus the land and build­ings that house the Nation­al Archives’ Seat­tle cam­pus on Sand Point Way, like­ly putting an end to the fast-mov­ing effort to dis­man­tle the facility.

“Today’s legal vic­to­ry blocks the fed­er­al government’s unlaw­ful plan to sell the Archives and scat­ter the DNA of our region thou­sands of miles away,” Fer­gu­son said in a state­ment hail­ing Coughenour’s deci­sion. (A writ­ten injunc­tion will be issued next week direct­ing the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment to stop its ille­gal plans.)

“This vic­to­ry pre­serves our abil­i­ty to phys­i­cal­ly con­nect to our his­to­ry by vis­it­ing the Archives and access­ing the un-dig­i­tized records that are deeply per­son­al to so many. The fed­er­al gov­ern­ment cal­lous­ly ignored deep con­cerns raised by the deci­sion to ship these records to Cal­i­for­nia and Mis­souri, includ­ing issues relat­ed to racial equi­ty, trib­al rela­tions, con­ser­va­tion, good gov­ern­ment, and the rule of law. The judge just did what these fed­er­al agen­cies should have done – con­sid­er the facility’s impor­tance to our region and apply the law.”

“Today a fed­er­al judge grant­ed our motion for a pre­lim­i­nary injunc­tion to halt the sale of the Nation­al Archives build­ing in Seat­tle!” said Ore­gon Attor­ney Gen­er­al Ellen Rosen­blum. “The sale would cause irrepara­ble harm to Oregon’s tribes, pub­lic uni­ver­si­ties, and our com­mu­ni­ties. What a great end to the week!”

“Thank you, Attor­ney Gen­er­al Bob Fer­gu­son, for work­ing dili­gent­ly to pro­tect access to our regions’ his­to­ry and archives,” tweet­ed Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee.

U.S. Sen­a­tor Maria Cantwell also wel­comed the decision.

“This injunc­tion is good news and a vic­to­ry for those who rely on the valu­able local his­tor­i­cal records stored at the Archives,” said Cantwell.

“Despite today’s vic­to­ry, the fight is not over,” Cantwell noted.

“Tribes and oth­er mem­bers of our com­mu­ni­ty were not con­sult­ed, and I will con­tin­ue to work with the Biden admin­is­tra­tion and my col­leagues to ensure these pre­cious records stay in the Pacif­ic Northwest.”

We at NPI agree.

We thank Attor­ney Gen­er­al Bob Fer­gu­son and his out­stand­ing legal team, our tribes, U.S. Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Prami­la Jaya­pal, U.S. Sen­a­tors Maria Cantwell and Pat­ty Mur­ray, Sec­re­tary of State Kim Wyman, and Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee for all of their fine work to oppose the sale of the Nation­al Archives Seattle.

Once again, the peo­ple of the State of Wash­ing­ton, through their well pre­pared legal coun­sel, have skill­ful­ly inter­vened to stop our fed­er­al gov­ern­ment from mak­ing a bad move that would have jeop­ar­dized our region’s well being.

The Nation­al Archives’ Seat­tle cam­pus is an impor­tant, irre­place­able resource for our region. We are a wealthy nation and can eas­i­ly afford to build new facil­i­ties to safe­guard our region’s his­to­ry. The Nation­al Archives’ plan to send 800,000 cubic feet of records to Mis­souri and Cal­i­for­nia is unacceptable.

It is impor­tant to note that records that were once housed in Alas­ka had already been moved to Seat­tle in the not so dis­tant past. Seat­tle is a long plane ride from Anchor­age and Juneau; mov­ing those records again would have made them even less acces­si­ble to the peo­ple of the State of Alaska.

With Pres­i­dent Joe Biden and Vice Pres­i­dent Kamala Har­ris now in charge of our nation’s exec­u­tive branch, our team at NPI hopes legal chal­lenges like this will no longer have to be fre­quent­ly brought to pro­tect our val­ues and interests.

NPI, which was found­ed in 2003, has a strong inter­est in data preservation.

NPI main­tains its own grow­ing dig­i­tal archive of doc­u­ments, orig­i­nal pho­tographs, audio record­ings, and video record­ings doc­u­ment­ing polit­i­cal his­to­ry in the Pacif­ic North­west from 2002 until the present. The col­lec­tion includes over one mil­lion items. Among the events doc­u­ment­ed in the col­lec­tion are in the 2008, 2012, and 2016 Demo­c­ra­t­ic Nation­al Con­ven­tions, the 2009 inau­gu­ra­tion of Barack Oba­ma, sev­er­al guber­na­to­r­i­al inau­gu­ra­tions, dozens of state and coun­ty polit­i­cal par­ty con­ven­tions, and the swear­ing-in cer­e­monies of trail­blaz­ing lead­ers in Wash­ing­ton State pol­i­tics, like State Sen­a­tor Man­ka Dhin­gra, State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive My-Linh Thai, State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Debra Lekanoff, and Speak­er Lau­rie Jinkins.