State Rep. Jim Walsh, R-Aberdeen
Representative Jim Walsh, R-Aberdeen held a two-hour telephone town hall on Monday afternoon in which he addressed concerns and answered questions from citizens — which was dominated by topics regarding returning daily life back to normal and the after-effects on the economy and small businesses.
“Now we’re at the point in the lifecycle of this viral outbreak where we are starting to say ‘what do we do now to get back to normal? What do we do now to return to work, to return to school, to return to commerce and industry as we know it and get to a place where people are able to live their lives as they are accustomed to living them?’ ” Walsh said. “We’re working across the political spectrum, across the Capitol — the House and the Senate — we’re working together with the governor and we’re trying to put together the best plan for getting back to normal.”
Walsh spoke about the economic impact that the state and the rest of the country will likely feel after the stay at home orders are lifted. A tax revenue forecast report for the state will be available in about the third week of June which will provide a better idea of the economic impact in Washington, Walsh said.
“There will probably have to be some sort of special legislative session which is frankly not as unusual as we may wish. They’ll probably have to be one in the summer where we will probably have to do some budget adjustments — I hope without adding new taxes or hardships on the people of the state,” said Walsh.
One topic that was brought up during the telephone town hall was Gov. Jay Inslee’s reopening plans and if he has overstepped his boundaries in extending the stay at home order.
“The governor has not sought legislative approval to extend the ‘stay home, stay healthy’ order because his position is that he doesn’t need to ask… This has a lot of people upset and I agree with them,” Walsh said.
Walsh’s said he would like time limits on the governor’s “stay home, stay healthy” proclamation to be clearer and more well defined as well as having active legislative support for proclamations in place longer than 30 days.
“If anybody is watching the press conferences the data the governor is looking at is often King County data only and he’s defended this in a couple of ways. I really look at that mortality number. To me, the bottom line is how many COVID-related deaths have there been…. A one-size-fits-all approach does not work and what we would like to see is a more regional approach — a county-focused approach to this viral outbreak and in (Inslee’s) speech on Friday he sort of opened the door to doing this,” said Walsh.
Walsh explained how this variance, which the governor has described, will work. Each county’s health department will have to speak with the state’s health department and work out approval for the variance.
“Counties simply want to know that if they meet a certain threshold of having a low number of cases that they can simply claim the variance and waive out of the ‘stay home, stay healthy order’ and at the judgment of their county commissioners can make a decision on whether to open or stay closed. I actually encourage that outcome and I am working with a number of counties in the state to see if we can make it a little more proactive like that,” said Walsh.
A caller asked Walsh if he felt it was appropriate to protest at the capital during a global pandemic and go against the governor’s orders.
In response, Walsh emphasized that the mortality numbers are coming in way lower than what was originally estimated and the rally that was held at the capital was in the spirit of the first amendment and he felt it was effective.
