The way Washington lawmakers are refusing to share the content of their own emails, texts and memos – despite a state law requiring their disclosure – is not a new concept. When questioned about their use of a legislative privilege – which has not yet been granted to them by the courts or in state law – House and Senate leaders go back in history to a centuries-old practice from England. Legislative privilege is a concept in at least 43 other states, they say, and it is grounded in the Washington Constitution’s Freedom of Debate clause.
But legislative leaders aren’t telling the whole story. Grab a beverage of your choosing and get comfortable. This is a complicated tale.
Legislative privilege – which has been cited in the past year to redact communications about the capital-gains tax, a collective bargaining proposal and a bill controversial among House Democrats to establish a new Chinese American history month – isn’t new for them. And it isn’t new for the Washington Supreme Court.
Next: What’s in the redacted records hidden by WA Democrats?
More than 15 years ago, the Legislature unsuccessfully tried to get the state Supreme Court’s blessing for a legislative privilege to shield documents from the public, according to a former attorney for the Washington Senate. That effort bore no fruit and afterward, lawmakers refused to release documents to the public for many years by claiming that a state transparency law didn’t apply to them – until the state Supreme Court...
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