The 19th Legislative District’s Republican state lawmakers used their virtual town hall Tuesday to bash Gov. Jay Inslee over his controversial vetoes. The governor came under fire last week from both parties after vetoing key sections of carbon-reduction bills that tied them to a grand bargain, circumventing bipartisan negotiations and allowing the bills to go into effect.
Some Democrats said the move undermines good-faith negotiations in the Legislature, and have promised to sue.
And while Aberdeen’s Rep. Jim Walsh told constituents the move was selfish, he also said it could work in favor of his colleagues. Inslee’s vetoes, he said, “rubbed some of (Inslee’s) own party wrong,” and may convince Democratic lawmakers to join the state GOP’s fight to limit the governor’s executive powers.
The vetoes were “dirty dealing,” Sen. Jeff Wilson, R-Longview, told constituents Tuesday. “This is a situation where the governor and his staff think they’re very clever. But they’re actually betraying their own people.”
Walsh also suggested Inslee’s decision was a way to force climate agenda bills through, and may have been prompted by the governor’s unsuccessful bid for president, in which he was “questioned (on) why he had never been able to get his signature policies through Olympia.”
Rep. Joel McEntire, of Cathlamet, took his critique a step further, arguing that the entire climate agenda is a tactic to “confiscate wealth from the private sector.”
“The climate agenda is a scam through and through. It’s not based in science. Climate catastrophism has been thoroughly debunked,” the freshman lawmaker said.
The legislators spent a bulk of their time Tuesday discussing the prospect of reigning in the governor’s emergency powers — an issue that, despite continued Republican efforts, made little progress this legislative session.
“It’s a partisan issue and it shouldn’t be,” Walsh said, highlighting that only one bill to limit gubernatorial emergency powers received a public hearing during the 2021 legislative session.
McEntire added that as Inslee used his powers to issue emergency declarations and mandates, “one of the worst tragedies is the imbalance of power.”
After an unsuccessful bid to limit the governor’s powers via legislation this session, Walsh told listeners the most promising path forward might be a voter-led initiative.
It’s not a quick solution, he said, “but the slow path — the initiative — is also the strongest path. And that’s the one I’m looking at.”
At the behest of a caller, the three lawmakers also took on the issue of other pandemic-related mandates, as well as the idea of vaccine passports.
Wilson, who championed a “pro-choice” approach to vaccines, told constituents that private businesses are still allowed to make their own rules on things like vaccinations and masks. He encouraged Washingtonains to use their own “good judgement.”
“And that also includes where you’d like to go. If you approach a store or business that mandates masks when the governor would remove that mandate, that’s a clear example of your choice: you can patronize that business or not,” Wilson said.
Walsh, on the other hand, said it was “clever” of Inslee to avoid mandating masks and vaccines through government agencies as cases recede, in an attempt to avoid “illegal discrimination” and try “to transfer this requirement onto employers and to privately owned businesses.”
“I hope nobody falls for this suggested enforcement mechanism. Because no employer or business in its right mind should participate in requiring papers,” he said, referencing proof of vaccination.
Walsh introduced a bill this session — with the intent of pushing it next year — to prohibit so-called “vaccine passports,” and has chastised vaccine-only seating sections as illegal segregation.
On Tuesday, McEntire also argued that vaccine incentives — like a vaccinated seating section — is a “dirty trick of the machines of those who want to control other people’s lives.”
He said he applauds those who resist the incentives and “have the strength to stand on principle.”
Walsh generally reassured listeners that he expects Inslee to keep his promise to reopen the state by June 30. But he said he expected the governor to maintain his declaration of emergency “indefinitely.”
Capital Gains Tax
The Republican lawmakers also took time Tuesday to lambast the state’s new capital gains tax — a 7% tax on capital gains above $250,000 aimed at the wealthiest Washington residents.
The legislators’ condemnation echoed the state GOP’s repeated critique of the tax, claiming it’s an unconstitutional income tax that will creep down to the middle class.
The proof, Walsh argued, is in Inslee’s 2021-23 proposed budget, in which he presented the tax as targeting capital gains over $25,000.
“That little slip-of-the-mask of the governor’s earlier proposed budget shows that their plan is to move the bar down to capital gains of $25,000,” Walsh said. “And when you’re at that level, you’re hitting middle class investors. That’s not the top 1%.”
Wilson pointed to voters’ historical opposition to income taxes.
And McEntire said that while some individuals work nine-to-five jobs, others “make their income — passive income — off the capital they invest. That’s their means of getting by.”
The new capital gains tax is estimated to impact 7,000 wealthy taxpayers.
Lawsuits have already been filed in response to the new law, and most recently, former attorney general Rob McKenna, a Republican, joined a suit to overturn the tax.
“McKenna is a good guy whose judgement in legal matters is very cautious. So if McKenna’s involved in one of the lawsuits challenging this capital gains income tax, you can be certain that it's got problems,” Walsh said. “Cheers to Robert McKenna for getting involved.”
