Last week, we at The Chronicle expressed support for an effort to challenge freeholder sub-districts created by the Lewis County Board of Commissioners — one of the board’s few tasks as part of a voter-initiated home rule charter process.
If the sub-districts aren’t legal, we argued, then there will conceivably be a legal challenge hanging over the charter process until it is resolved, threatening its potential for positive change in the county.
However, we also expressed concern that successfully removing from November’s ballot measures to elect freeholders and allowing them to draft a charter could cause the movement to lose momentum. The push for a home rule charter is still fresh in residents’ minds — will it be at the next general election?
A week later and the charter is in an even stickier situation.
On Thursday morning, Thurston County Superior Court Judge Carol Murphy ruled it was simply too late to make any ruling on the merits of the freeholder subdistricts, or to order the county to make changes to the ballots — scheduled to be mailed today to military and overseas voters.
Murphy ruled that the election will go forward as planned and set the next hearing in the case for Nov. 1 — five days before the general election. She has an interesting predicament to consider in the meantime.
One Lewis County, the political action committee formed by the Centralia-Chehalis Chamber of Commerce, jump started a home rule charter process last year. It allows residents to vote to reshape their local government by electing “freeholders” to write a new county charter.
The county commission is tasked by the state constitution with deciding whether freeholders will be elected through legislative districts or commission districts — whichever makes more sense. They chose a third option, splitting the three commission districts five times further for 15 sort-of equal districts.
One Lewis County filed a lawsuit last week challenging those subdistricts, which its attorneys argued were unconstitutional. Attorneys for the county argue that the constitution doesn’t prohibit the subdistricts, and that the commissioners were within their rights.
It’s unclear whether Murphy will make a ruling on Nov. 1 or if we’ll have to wait until voting is long over to find out.
So while legal minds ponder the issue, Lewis County’s voters have their own question — “Does my vote even count?”
Well, it might. Then again, it might not.
If voters approve the charter and elect freeholders, and the judge upholds the sub-districts, those freeholders will be able to start their work. Murphy could also rule the sub-districts are not legal, effectively undoing that affirmative vote, as we understand it.
But if voters don’t approve the charter, it doesn’t matter what the judge says — everything has to start over.
If Lewis County votes “no” because residents don’t want the charter to go forward, we understand. That’s the democratic process.
But it would truly be a shame for the charter vote to fail because of the cloud of legal uncertainty created by an extremely poor decision made by our county commissioners.
Do you want our advice? Vote like it counts. We can’t control the commissioners or the judge, but we can still make our voices heard.
