The legislative session is in full swing it appears, and despite a significant deficit due to a wild spending spree and new taxes from last session, it appears more taxes and spending are on the way.
This seems like the main issue of the session, yet we already see lawmakers in Olympia wasting time on issues unrelated to the state’s dire financial position — which continues because of overspending.
The phrase “a solution looking for a problem” fits well with what is happening.
Most notable so far is the idea that a duly-elected sheriff can be removed by some body of bureaucrats that want a county’s top law enforcement officer to be removed.
What brought this on? And shouldn’t we be able to apply the same logic to all state or local elected officials?
Like immunity. If cops don’t have limited liability for making a decision required in an instant, why shouldn’t a judge or elected official who makes a serious mistake that injures someone be held to that same standard?
After all, in most cases, judges and elected legislators get weeks to make a decision and sometimes get it wrong. Or maybe worse, they make a decision that solves nothing or, often in the case of judges, some innocent person gets hurt.
For instance, how about the judges who repeatedly released the guy who eventually struck an older woman in Seattle and cost her an eye?
Where is the accountability for that?
Now, I read where they are bent on reducing some serious crimes such as sex offenses, but they are jailing people without tabs?
There’s a stupid and expensive idea thought up by someone with too much free time.
Want to reduce crime? Keep violent offenders in jail longer. It’s a pity the $30 license tabs were ignored by Olympia and raised back up to hundreds of dollars, so people are apparently ignoring them.
But violators are not hurting anyone,
Back to the solution looking for a problem: allowing an elected sheriff to be removed by an unelected board or — worse — liberal bureaucrats. Exactly what brought this up, anyway?
Olympia cannot control sheriffs like a state patrol chief or chief of police, and they shouldn’t be able to.
Pierce County Sheriff Keith Swank testified about the legislation allowing for the removal of an elected sheriff from office, and it was strongly worded testimony. I guess he hurt their feelings, which some are upset about.
I’m not.
I know they and their ally in sometimes foolish legislation, the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs (WASPC), did not like what he said. But that is exactly why the office of sheriff is so important. No police chief could have said anything against his city's position on any subject subject to termination. And, sometimes, what needs to be said and considered is hard to hear.
But as of yet, I haven’t heard what the problem is that these legislators seem to think needs to be solved? And as for WASPC, sheriffs are outnumbered by hundreds by police chiefs who can’t tell the legislators what they should hear without permission of their city.
WASPC used to be made up of an entirely different type of membership, but as woke policies have taken over, so has the kind of person cities want for a chief.
Just look at Seattle these days. There aren't a lot of members of WASPC left who know why it was formed in the first place, but part of it was to give a voice to chiefs who couldn’t speak without permission while we sheriffs could.
Voters get to pick their sheriff, and they can recall one if necessary, too. Unelected bureaucrats should not have a say — especially the ones in Olympia. But if they are bent on doing it, add legislators to the same law so we can dump them by committee, too.
Oh, and if those poor legislators feel threatened by Sheriff Swank's comments? They have been threatening and bullying local boards and offices for years — so get over it.
Maybe their first priority should be balancing the budget without new taxes? Looking for waste and fraud and cutting services we can’t afford?
Then they can dink around in nonsense and waste time if they want to. But finish the hard work first.
The sheriffs are doing just fine as it is.
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John McCroskey was Lewis County sheriff from 1995 to 2005. He lives outside Chehalis and can be contacted at musingsonthemiddlefork@gmail.com.
