Washington’s state lawmakers have pushed the boundaries of the Public Information Act for years, however the newest effort by the House of Representatives is a power grab straight out of the palms of the individuals they’re alleged to serve.
The Home public data officer despatched an inside electronic mail in late July to the chamber’s legislators outlining a restart of a 30-day electronic mail auto-deletion system and a information on find out how to do away with “transitory” emails even sooner.
As background, a 2019 Washington State Supreme Court ruling discovered particular person lawmakers are topic to the PRA however left a query mark about how the chambers themselves should behave. Led by Home Speaker Laurie Jinkins, D-Tacoma, the Home has poked at that weak spot ever since.
This isn’t only a Home subject. The Legislature’s tendency towards secrecy has steadily grown, regardless of lawsuits, the 2019 courtroom ruling and an enormous public outcry. After that courtroom ruling, lawmakers determined they’d a proper to cover data from the general public below the guise of “legislative privilege,” extra appropriately known as “secrecy privilege.”
The Washington Coalition for Open Authorities is preventing that declare in courtroom, and arguments earlier than a state Court docket of Appeals are anticipated this fall.
Eight lawmakers (of 147), together with now-deceased former Democratic Home Speaker Frank Chopp, pledged at WashCOG’s request that they won’t use the secrecy privilege. Every week earlier than he died in March, Chopp spoke at our annual Sunshine Breakfast, the place we thanked him for standing up for transparency. He left us with these phrases:
“This subject may be very easy. It’s important to battle again and win on this subject as a result of the individuals are with you.”
As we proceed to battle, this newest Home motion would make it simpler and extra computerized to destroy emails — no privilege required. Lawmakers can merely deem them “transitory” and dump them, hiding what they need. That’s extra energy than the individuals of Washington ever meant.
Left sitting at nighttime, all voters have are unanswered questions. How will we all know which candidate is working for us or if an incumbent must be changed? We gained’t.
In the meantime, WashCOG is dismayed on the lack of concern from lawmakers who perceive that these energy grabs aren’t within the individuals’s greatest curiosity. Transparency must be a nonpartisan subject, with equal-opportunity anger over any makes an attempt to steal and nullify the individuals’s energy. Silence is acceptance, at a minimal, particularly when the individuals and courts of this state have been clear that open data and entry are important to how this democratic republic ought to function.
“It’s exhausting to imagine that after the Washington Supreme Court docket and the individuals of Washington clearly advised the Legislature to obey the Public Information Act, Home management continues to assume up methods to withhold government-produced paperwork requested by residents,” mentioned George Erb, WashCOG secretary.
The highly effective public outcry state residents made in 2018 after lawmakers tried to exempt themselves from the Public Information Act led then-Gov. Jay Inslee to veto their invoice. Regardless of the Supreme Court docket ruling the following 12 months that lawmakers are topic to the PRA, the Home has been on a mission to push the boundaries.
As secrecy reigns, WashCOG wish to level out that the brand new coverage has a minimum of two main flaws:
1) The phrase “transitory” creates a gaping loophole that may solidify the course we’re heading, the place lawmakers frequently take away extra written data from public view. That may go away us with solely formal, completed legal guidelines and insurance policies. That’s not what voters needed once they pushed in 1972 for what grew to become the Public Information Act.
2) It says the prime sponsor of a invoice is the one one who should retain emails associated to that invoice, ignoring that the phrases and interactions from non-sponsors may additionally matter in how a measure was fashioned and located assist.
That is proof that the slide away from transparency continues. WashCOG studied the state of the Public Information Act and issued a report in 2024 and a 2025 update that concluded the individuals’s proper to know was eroding, and the Legislature was the main trigger.
We’re preventing for transparency, nevertheless it appears lawmakers are doubling down. It seems the unhealthy actors gained’t again off till the voters and courts demand openness.
That’s the place you are available. We hope the individuals will be a part of us in letting their legislators know that this should not stand. We reject the idea that they solely owe us the completed product once they make legal guidelines or do the individuals’s work. As academics typically require at school, you need to present your work to show you probably did it the proper method.
They’re alleged to work for us. Don’t be afraid to talk up and remind them.
