He has only himself to blame. Senseless, irrational, and transparently political decisions have undermined the integrity of Governor Jay Inslee’s “stay at home” order.
Protests and defiance are building. A protest against his order is set for this Sunday, April 19, 1-2 p.m. at the Capitol in Olympia. It has drawn regional and national attention and the numbers of those indicating they will participate is growing.
The protest in Lansing, Michigan that drew tens of thousands is sparking similar protests around the country. The Michigan protest was fueled by perhaps the worst abuses of a governor’s powers, starting with an order prohibiting physicians and hospitals from deciding which treatment would be best for COVID-19 patients to banning the sale of vegetable seeds but not other products.
Facebook groups dedicated to reopening Washington and fighting Inslee’s continued lock-down have in the past 48 hours drawn thousands of new members. The discussions range from traditional petitioning of government to outright collective violation of Inslee’s order.
Inslee enjoyed widespread support and trust at the start of his exercise of extraordinary emergency powers. But his obvious political favoritism, and his relentless insistence that there is no limit to his powers and that he can extend his lock down order indefinitely, and unilaterally, has eroded that support.
We have previously reported how Inslee has ignored statutory limits on his powers and has favored political allies, particularly unions, in defining the “essential” entities and activities that may continue. Inslee’s imposition of an order suited for I-5 counties on the rest of the state, despite dramatic differences in infection rates and economic and social circumstances, has generated growing contempt across much of Washington.
Some of the reaction is reasoned and principled. Opponents rightly point to obvious unconstitutional implications of Inslee’s order, and the senselessness of his ban on residential construction while permitting large-scale, unionized construction projects, and publicly financed projects to continue. The ban on fishing has also made it easy for people to take their first step in ridiculing Inslee’s order.
Inslee’s refusal to relent, and make his order dependent on safe practices rather than his subjective decision as to what is “essential,” threatens to trigger widespread defiance and, worse, casual disregard for health measures necessary to end to the pandemic in Washington.
The contempt Inslee has bred is now leading to people rejecting the need for social distancing. We are seeing more people asserting their right to ignore the one aspect of Inslee’s order that is based on unarguable medical science. Inslee has lost his ability to talk to these people. Instead, he is reverting to the old Inslee. Rather than thoughtfully address problems he created, he is eager for battle and is belittling those speaking against his unchecked powers.
This will lead only to a greater defiance, and a greater erosion of Inslee’s authority. The more Inslee looks, speaks and acts like a dictator, the more people will rise up against him.
Sunday’s protest in Olympia will not be the last. Inslee needs to change his approach, now, and start treating Washingtonians fairly, with respect, and correct the favoritism and senselessness of the aspects of his order that are feeding contempt.
Stop telling people they are not essential. We are all essential, Mr. Inslee. Every job that puts food on a family’s table and pays rent and bills is essential. Nobody is going to accept being told that what they do to keep a roof over their head is not essential. They are going to hate you for it.
You are dividing Washington, Governor. End the essential/non-essential made-up list. Accept that everyone is essential. Then focus on what can be done safely and how every worker in this state can get back to their jobs, and every business can reopen, while observing the same practices you have concluded were adequate for the businesses and operations you have allowed to continue since the inception of your “stay at home” order. End the favoritism, end the irrationality.
Faced with the worst economic and social crisis in generations the Port Townsend City Council met to work on a recovery plan that would slash the costs of doing business and creating jobs, cut taxes to make housing more affordable for those getting by on less, and other bold, but necessary measures to reduce government’s footprint on industry, commerce and consumers.
If only.
No, the PT City Council spent its weekly meeting discussing CO2 emissions and raising taxes.
City Councilor Amy Howard wants to raise taxes on “the ownership class.” Other city councilors echoed her call, because it would give the city funds to turn around and spend “creatively” on new programs to help people whose taxes they just raised.
CUTTING CO2
Council spent the first half of its April 13, 2020 workshop hearing from the Climate Action Committee on how Port Townsend and Jefferson County are doing in reducing CO2 emissions. More than a decade ago local leaders set a target of reducing county-wide CO2 emissions to less than 80% of 1990 levels. (Whether those goals were set arbitrarily and on the basis of theories and computer models which have been shown to be wrong is a subject for another article. I have written previously about Jefferson County’s fake climate emergency, here, here and here).
Councilors were told that Jefferson County is nearly halfway there, thanks mostly to technological innovations and substantial expenditures by the Port Townsend Paper Company and the transition by PUD to hydroelectric power from coal-generated electricity.
But Council and the Climate Action Committee expressed concern that people are driving more, and with more people driving more, CO2 emissions from transportation have increased. They are also concerned with what Jefferson County residents buy. The Climate Action Committee counts in the Jefferson County CO2 assessment the greenhouse gases it estimates were emitted in producing everything we purchase and consume.
So, if a Jefferson County resident buys a Tesla, they count the greenhouse gas emissions generated by unregulated cobalt mining in the Congo and rare earths in Third World nations, shipping the ore to China and Europe where it is smelted and processed, the emissions generated in shipping raw materials to a Tesla factory by boat, truck and rail, the CO2 emissions that were generated in building that factory and the CO2 emitted in manufacturing plastics, glass, steel, copper, rubber, vinyl and chrome–all the CO2 emissions it takes to turn raw materials into a shiny $100,000 Tesla (and maybe the CO2 emissions generated in earning that hundred grand). They then estimate the greenhouse gas emissions behind the parking lot built for the Tesla employees and what they emit commuting to and from work, the greenhouse gas emissions emitted by Elon Musk as he travels the world in private jets attending global warming conferences, lobbying for government subsidies and mandates and meeting with Chinese officials in Shanghai office buildings powered by massive coal pollution in rooms with furniture built in Chinese factories powered by coal pollution…..
Or something like that. They have software and models, you know. The result is that the Climate Action Committee and City Council are concerned you are buying and using things they want you to stop buying and using because, wherever and however it was produced, it adds some numbers to their CO2 tally. We will be called upon, or compelled, to change and sacrifice even though it won’t make one bit of difference to global climate because, during Elon Musk’s meting in Shanghai, China opened three new coal-fired electricity generating plants.
The Climate Action Committee wants to add forestry to its calculus. But they did not discuss factoring in the extent to which the already miniscule CO2 emissions in Jefferson County feed and nourish the sprawling forests around us, and how much CO2 those trees soak up.
This was the discussion in a week where one of the city’s legacy businesses collapsed, other businesses are gasping for air, unemployment is soaring, despair is rising, tourism is dead, and tax revenue is shrinking.
RAISING TAXES TO SPUR RECOVERY
Council then used the second half of its workshop on an agenda item entitled “Annexation Banked Capacity Discussion.” Few people would have guessed this meant, “Raising Property Taxes, Again.”
City Manager John Mauro and Mayor Michelle Sandoval revealed internal discussions about raising taxes so city leaders could accumulate a pot of money which they could then use “creatively” to address social and economic impacts of Governor Inslee’s lock down order.
Raising general and regressive taxes during an economic downturn is a very creative idea. It is the opposite of what governments must do to keep economic recessions from turning into depressions. Keynesian stimulus calls for loosening of government controls and injecting liquidity into the economy, not sucking it out through taxes, wringing it through inefficient, time-consuming procedures, deliberations and regulations, and coming out the other end with less than went in.
Deputy Mayor David Faber was the only one who spoke clearly against raising taxes. The rest of the Council was either supportive of raising taxes (Howard, who has it in for people who own their homes), telegraphed interest (Sandoval, who wants to unleash her creative juices–see, e.g., The Cherry Street Project) or signaled at least a willingness to consider the idea. Raising property taxes will be discussed more in coming months. Hopefully the agenda will not again camouflage the issue under discussion.
Video of Council’s April 13, 2020, may be viewed here.
We face great dangers to life and liberty, not just from a novel virus, but also from political leaders who too quickly embrace the role of dictator and abuse their power. That’s how it goes with dictators. And that’s how it’s going with Jay Inslee.
On one hand, Inslee has done some things right, though his delay in responding to the COVID-19 crisis and his administration’s lack of preparation cost lives and allowed the virus to spread. An in-depth review of events by the Seattle Times shows that Inslee’s initial steps were grave missteps.
Inslee’s decision to order a statewide emergency, and trigger his emergency powers, had the desired impact. He got the state’s undivided attention which had been missing, in part due to Inslee’s own downplaying of the threat from the virus, as the Seattle Times reports.
Finally, on March 23, Governor Inslee issued his stay-at-home order, accompanied by his list of businesses he deemed essential, with the consequence that all those that did not make his list had to cease operations.
Dictator For How Long?
Inslee has begun unilaterally to expand his emergency powers beyond those permitted by state law, RCW-43.06.220.
His order extending the statewide stay-at-home order to May 4 goes beyond the thirty days voters approved when they agreed to subject themselves to a temporary dictatorship during a state of emergency. Inslee has said he might give himself an even a longer term as dictator. The law required consultation and consent of legislative leaders to any extension of time. By claiming the extension unilaterally he has put legislative leaders into a position where they either acquiesce or are forced to take action to preserve the rule of law. The Legislature and courts are in Democrat control. Inslee likely faces no serious challenge to ruling by fiat. Especially, since as is next discussed, Inslee has been using his powers to favor Democrat interests and constituencies while harming those that fall into the Republican camp.
Inslee has also ordered all public and private schools to close for the remainder of the school year, another action extending dictatorial powers beyond the time period to which voters consented.
Playing Favorites
A close analysis of Inslee’s essential business designations shows he’s been playing political favorites. Because his list produces ludicrous results, we should ask hard questions about what is going on.
Under Inslee’s decree, you can build a pot shop, but not a house. Because Inslee has decreed that marijuana retail is an essential activity–but not residential housing construction–remodeling, or expansion of a pot shop is permitted.
The state gets huge tax revenues from marijuana farming and retail, and the marijuana lobby is a well-funded, influential lobby solidly in Inslee’s column.
You can organize unions. You cannot oppose them.
Inslee has deemed unions and “worker advocacy organizations,” and everything they do, as essential activities. Union organizers can continue to organize and play politics. But employers and their lawyers, even workers who don’t want to be unionized, can’t come out of their houses. Inslee has shut them down. Along the same lines, a union can hold meetings of members, but a church congregation cannot gather to sing songs outside in a parking lot, even if everyone stood twenty feet apart.
Surgical abortions may continue, but many cancer patients have been told their procedures are canceled indefinitely. So the cancers inside these patients continue to grow, and they and their families are left to worry and pray. Limited and strained resources that could be used save lives, Inslee has permitted to be used instead to end lives.
You are likely already providing the explanation yourself: Inslee and the Democrat Party are pro-abortion and strongly supported by abortion activists and businesses that make money killing unwanted human beings. Those powerful interests contribute heavily to Inslee and Democrats, directly and through their own political action committees.
Realtors can show and sell houses and earn real estate commissions, but new houses can’t be built. Realtors can meet with clients, title companies, prospective purchasers, conduct home showings and closings. But carpenters can’t work at opposite ends of a new house, a plumber can’t work alone under the house, a painter can’t be on a ladder outside. Multi-million dollar homes and condos can be bought and sold, but a low income family cannot buy a new manufactured home, because those are not sold by realtors. But they can buy a used one, as long as a realtor is in the deal getting a commission. FSBOs are non-essential under Inslee’s central planning.
Realtors spend tons of money on politicians, mostly Democrats. They have powerful political action committees, and trade organizations with lobbyists who know their way around Olympia and have the phone number for the Governor and his chief of staff.
Inslee has hit rural counties disproportionately hard. Some of these counties were already suffering Applachia levels of despair and unemployment. They have seen very few, even no COVID-19 cases or deaths. Inslee has hammered their struggling communities by making them subject to the same restrictions needed in King County.
Rural Washington did not put Inslee in the Governor’s mansion and he’s not counting on rural Washington to keep him there.
Some of this nonsense can be attributed to central planners who just aren’t very good at what they’re doing. But some of these bizarre situations are no doubt due to political favoritism.
Projects Inslee supports go forward. Those he doesn’t care or know about are stopped dead. People working on the Key Arena construction, Sound Transit projects and government funded housing can keep working. He sees these things. He doesn’t see the small businesspeople who work alone, or with family members or the small teams of people who build much of the affordable housing in this state. If workers on publicly financed housing can continue without spreading the virus, why can’t they? The answer won’t be found in science or medicine. The answer lies in politics because nothing else makes sense.
Inslee has also benefitted himself politically by shutting down his opposition.
It is impossible to follow the news and not see Inslee’s daily press conferences, sometimes more than one appearance on camera per day. Inslee has been out and about, doing photo ops, delivering speeches, cutting ribbons and being seen with health care workers, business leaders, and other political figures. Much of it is plain old campaigning. There’s no reason for Inslee to be there, except to get his face on television. Having declared himself, his staff and all he does as “essential,” he can dominate the evening news every night. He can monopolize media attention. And he can work on his campaign for re-election.
The people seeking to replace him this election year? Non-essential according to Inslee. He is all Washington needs. All those other guys have to stay home.
We need a Smarter Stay-At-Home Order. Gov. Jay Inslee’s current version is causing avoidable collateral damage.
We get it. Flatten the curve, maintain social distance, wash your hands, don’t touch your face and wipe down frequently touched surfaces.
Sure, some people don’t get it and the hunker inside order was necessary. Canceling mass gatherings, getting people out of crowded bars, not requiring people to work in close proximity–an overall throttling back was a good move.
But Jay Inslee has shown that in exercising unprecedented emergency powers he is a very poor central planner.
Let me correct that: he has shown he is just like all other central planners who believe they can run entire economies by deciding what is and is not essential and who should win and lose.
Governor Inslee needs to start getting more of Washington back to work even as he extends his stay-at-home order to May 4. A sick, sputtering economy that devastates businesses and lives for years is looming before us because he has made some quite bad decisions.
In extending his order Governor Insleee did not modify the list of essential businesses, or take any steps toward permitting closed businesses to start resuming or preparing to resume operations. That was a huge mistake. Businesses cannot turn themselves on with the flip of a switch on May 5 and return to the level where they were. They need to start gearing up now.
Anybody who has run a business would know this. Jay Inslee has never run a business, created jobs or steered a business through rocky times.
Take, for instance, construction, one of the most significant sectors of the economy. It has an enormous multiplier effect, positive when doing well, severely negative for everybody in a downturn. And this is not a downturn: it is a suicidal government-mandated nosedive. It’s like Japanese generals chaining pilots to the steering wheels of kamikaze planes. Inslee is the Japanese general; many of the rest of us are chained in our seats on a plane he has ordered to crash.
Governor Inslee could have modified his ban on almost all construction activity by permitting crews limited in size to perform tasks to preserve the job site and work already completed, and prepare for rapid resumption of full activities. Some work can be performed by small teams who need not be in close proximity. Much construction work is done outdoors, where the risk of spreading the virus is much lower than in office settings or Amazon warehouses and pot shops where he is permitting some businesses to continue to operate.
We’ve heard from Inslee that we have a dire housing emergency. But he has shut down all residential construction. Only residential construction funded by government may continue. How does that make sense when the driving rationale is supposed to be stopping the spread of the virus? How is a publicly funded housing project more sterile than one funded by a future homemowner or a bank? Workers do the same tasks, Governor Inslee. But workers on projects he perhaps supports more than others get to continue working.
As projects sit idle, the consequences cascade and multiply. Weather and the turn of seasons are not obeying a huddle-in-place order. “Make hay while the sun shines,” a common sense principle, has been made a criminal violation by Jay Inslee, but not for publicly funded construction work. Or hockey arenas. (You think the Key Arena construction project might have a little more political clout than hopeful homeowners and small contractors?)
Time is money, both in terms of financing and in construction projects’ critical paths, which have now been thrown off course. Skilled labor can be lost if it is not used. Heavy equipment rented for now idled projects can be moved to places where work continues.
Inslee has taken a sledgehammer to construction work. He is imposing maximum damage that use of a scalpel could have avoided.
And it makes no sense.
A person working a piece of heavy equipment is not cheek-to-jowl with another worker. They are alone and isolated in their excavators and cranes and bulldozers. There is no reason for them to be sitting at home while their employer faces bankruptcy.
A man digging a trench is no threat to anyone.
A carpernter on a roof is no threat to anyone.
A plumber crawling under a house is no threat to anyone.
But an economic shutdown that will inflict lasting damage is a threat to everyone.
Look, the Governor is allowing realtors to show properties as long as the house is empty and they are taking only one person at a time. If a couple wants to view the home, one stays outside while the other goes in with the realtor, then they switch. (Realtors and their associations, hmm, who do they support with their vast political contributions?)
Jay Inslee says that buying and selling existing homes, and earning real estate commissions, is an essential activity. But building new homes and apartments is not–unless he’s paying for it.
If Governor Inslee can work out a solution for those buying and selling houses, he can do the same for what is actually a far more critical sector of our economy, one that creates wealth by creating housing from sticks and bricks.
It is easy to take shots at industries and activities the Governor has not shut down, to argue they are not really all that essential, or that they are somehow being favored by the Governor. It is easy because Inslee has made it easy. The point is not to shut them down. If their business can be safely conducted, and they can stay up and running and keep people employed–great, no questions asked.
But I am asking questions about other shutdowns that make no sense, and there are plenty. Inslee’s errors in judgment are hurting people and will continue to do so for long after he lifts his order.
U.S. Represenative Derek Kilmer is sponsoring legislation that would have prevented President Trump from banning travel from China and Europe to slow the spread of the COVID-19 virus and would have overturned bans on travel from Iran and other nations the President deemed a danger to the United States.
Kilmer’s proposed legislation is known as the “No Ban Act.” It would have set up a series of procedural hurdles and an indefinite time line before the President could have enacted a ban on travel from virus hotspots. It would have required additonal action by the State and Homeland Security Departments to intentionally prevent quick action by the President and Congressional hearings before and again within 48 hours after the ban was imposed. It would also have required immediate dissolution of any ban if Congress felt it had not been received sufficient information.
Kilmer’s act would also have held up travel bans in endless litigation. It would have created a legally enforceable presumption against any ban and given lawyers the right to challenge a travel ban, even if deemed critical to the nation’s security and welfare by the President, the Secretary State and the Department of Homeland Security. Litigation could be brought in the name of individuals or as class actions. Those lawsuits could have resulted in temporary restraining orders against travels bans while the litigation was pending, thus effectively nullifying any emergency action by the President to protect the American people from spread of the disease.
Kilmer’s legislation, if enacted, would have overturned all travel bans ordered by President Trump, from those imposed to protect the nation from terrorism as well as to protect it from spread of the coronavirus.
Kilmer’s legislation was advancing through the House, and the coronavirus threat was growing, while the Congress was occupied with impeachment proceedings. The Administration, though, was ramping up its efforts to fight virus. The coronavirus outbreak in China had become an international health and security issue by late December 2019 (the CDC had organized its COVID-19 Incident Management system by January 7, 2020 and was working toward vaccines and cures). As impeachment proceedings consumed the House and Senate, the White House organized its own task force on January 27, chaired by the President at the same time as he defended himself against removal from office. On January 31, the President declared a national health emergency and banned travel from China. That ban brought charges of racism and xenophobia from Democrats such as the Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden and Kilmer’s fellow sponsors of the “No Ban Act.” Kilmer did not dissent from those attacks on the China travel ban.
During this time, it has recently been reported that President Trump had been holding regular COVID-19 discussions with some legislators, such as Sen. Tom Cotton, who had to leave impeachment proceedings to work on the emerging coronavirus threat.
The Democrat controlled House did not address the coronavirus pandemic until after the President’s acquittal by the Senate. On February 5 the House Subcommittee on Foreign Affairs finally took up the issue. None of the committees on which Kilmer sits took any action on the pandemic until weeks later, though his “No Ban Act” was moving forward to full consideration by three committees.
Kilmer ignored the COVID-19 pandemic until February 4, 2020, when he joined in a letter requesting the CDC to distribute rapid diagnostic tests to states with confirmed COVID-19 cases. The letter cited the need to contain the spread of the virus and complimented the CDC for its leadership and success thus far. One of the actions of containment supported by the CDC and deemed critical to containing the virus was the very ban on travel from China and Iran that Kilmer was seeking to overturn.
As late as March 5, Kilmer’s effort to overturn the President’s travel bans was seeing action in the House of Representatives and moving through committees.
His “No Ban Act” has suddenly, and quietly, slid off the radar since it became clear that travel bans have been necessary to slow the spread of the virus and dozens of nations have enacted them to protect their citizens. Kilmer and his cosponsors, however, have not withdrawn the bill and it may be resurrected at any time.
Kilmer has not responded to our questions on whether he has reconsidered his legislation to overturn the President’s travel bans.
Kilmer was urged to support the legislation by, among other groups, the Jefferson County Immigrants Rights Advocates. On September 23, 2019, they held a protest in Port Townsend against the President’s travel bans and urged Rep. Kilmer to sign onto the legislation. He subsequently agreed to be a cosponsor. The Jefferson County Immigrants Rights Advocates have not responded to questions on whether they continue to seek a reversal of the President’s restrictions on travel into the country and whether, in light of the need to slow and contain the current global pandemic, they continue to support the “No Ban Act.”
