WA Gov. Jay Inslee has too much power over COVID. Lawmakers must fix the law | Editorial

Too many members of the Washington state legislature seem to have forgotten their role as a check on the executive branch.

Either that or they are simply willing to ignore that the balance of governmental authority during the COVID pandemic has been shamefully out of whack. If that’s the case, perhaps they need a refresher civics course on the importance of the separation of powers.

We are closing in on the one year anniversary of Gov. Jay Inslee’s emergency proclamation regarding COVID-19. Since Feb. 29, 2020, Inslee has unilaterally made all the decisions regarding how the state manages the pandemic.

He alone has controlled people’s lives and livelihoods for nearly a year while legislators were essentially kicked to the sidelines, unable to offer meaningful help to their constituents.

Lawmakers need to take the opportunity during the current legislative session to reclaim their rightful place in our state’s democratic system. And they should get started as soon as possible because the cutoff for bills to be passed out of committee is Feb. 15.

Under current Washington state law, the governor is given sweeping authority in times of crisis, which makes sense because emergency situations shouldn’t be handled by committee.

But when that law was approved, people were thinking more along the lines of a natural disaster or a major power outage. No one considered what would happen if a lethal disease lingered for months on end.

There are bills waiting to move in the House and in the Senate that would limit the governor’s powers in an emergency to 30 days before getting legislators involved, but despite support from several lawmakers — including those from our region – these bills don’t appear to be going anywhere. They haven’t even been scheduled for a public hearing. Not one of them.

The holdup is disgraceful.

Legislators should look beyond the pandemic and think what could happen in the future if there happened to be a different long-term emergency situation — and a different governor. The current law is flawed and should be fixed, regardless of Inslee.

Most states around the country set some limits on the executive branch in an emergency situation.

Washington state’s governor has more power than the governors in nearly every other state because Inslee has sole authority to decide when an emergency exists and when it ends. Other states must involve their legislatures at some point.

Throughout the past year, Republican lawmakers and newspaper editorial boards — including this one — urged Inslee to call a special session so legislators could be involved in the process.

Inslee never did.

And now that the official legislative session is here, too many lawmakers have decided to acquiesce to the executive branch.

Right from the start, Democrats reviewed Inslee’s orders and approved a resolution that would extend them until the pandemic emergency is ended or until those orders are rescinded by the governor or the legislature.

It’s a shame this issue was handled by the resolution process. That avoided any public hearing on the issue.

No one knows exactly what the end of the state emergency will look like, but it would be comforting to know that the decision isn’t up to just one person.

In May, we explained that Inslee has the legal authority to handle the pandemic and we have been supportive of his policies, which have saved lives.

But now, it is time to tweak that authority. Reining in the power of the executive branch goes beyond the pandemic, and this session is the chance for lawmakers to set things right.

That the governor has had so much power for nearly a year is a fundamental problem in our system of checks and balances. No one person should have that much control for so long.

Legislators need to do their duty and regain their place in the process.

This story was originally published February 3, 2021 at 12:19 PM.