Manweller replacement to be chosen Jan. 14

MOSES LAKE — County commissioners from Grant, Kittitas, Lincoln and Yakima counties are tentatively planning to select the replacement for Rep. Matt Manweller, R-Cle Elum, on Jan. 14, the first day of the legislative session.

Manweller tendered his letter of resignation to Gov. Jay Inslee on Dec. 19, but his resignation is not effective until Jan. 14. The move came after a series of sexual misconduct scandals and calls by state House Republican leadership for Manweller to resign.

The process for filling a vacancy in the legislature is laid out in the state Constitution, and any potential replacement must be from the same district and political party as the vacating legislator. Three possible replacements were nominated in October by Republican Precinct Committee Officers from the four counties.

The county PCOs’ first choice was Danny Stone, a wheat farmer, former chair of the Grant County Republicans, and former high school softball and cross country coach.

The second choice was Alex Ybarra, who is the Quincy School Board Director, Vice President of the Washington State School Board Association, and a reliability and compliance auditor with the Grant County Public Utility District. Ybarra has also previously been employed as a rocket scientist working on cruise missiles, space shuttle hardware and Mars landers.

The third choice was Ian Elliot, who served as a state legislator from the Puget Sound area from 1995-96 and who has been a resident of Kittitas County since 2004. He has served on a number of state and county agencies and previously ran unsuccessfully for election to the state Senate.

Next, the state Constitution requires commissioners from counties with territory inside the 13th Legislative District, which Manweller currently represents, to appoint the replacement from among the three nominees. There are four counties within the 13th, including Grant, Kittitas, Lincoln and Yakima, each with three commissioners.

Setting up a meeting between the 12 commissioners to pick a replacement had been complicated by a lack of communication between Manweller and commissioners regarding when the legislator intended to resign.

“We heard he wasn’t going to resign until after the session started, he was going to resign right before the session started, he wasn’t going to resign until after the first of the year,” said Lincoln County Commissioner Rob Coffman earlier in December. “So I’ve been waiting for somebody to tell me how to proceed.”

While there is no legal requirement for the commissioners to wait until after Manweller’s resignation to name his replacement, according to staff with the Chief Clerk of the state House of Representatives, commissioners had hoped to speed through the appointment process shortly after the representative resigned.

“I think everybody senses the urgency of getting a replacement as soon as possible,” Coffman said.

Manweller did not legally have to wait until the beginning of the legislative session, according to staff with the Chief Clerk of the state House of Representatives.

His replacement will miss the first day of the legislative session, as they will be selected by county commissioners in Ephrata on Jan. 14. The appointee will also need to find housing in Olympia quickly. Though that may mean the 13th District is down one representative for a few committee-level votes, the first few weeks of session usually has few if any floor-level votes.

Other than the challenges of finding housing, state House minority leader Rep. J.T. Wilcox, R-Yelm, said that the new legislator should have little trouble getting settled into the legislature and already have an office and committee seats saved for them.

“The institution is really set up for bringing new people along, and it’s not at all uncommon,” Wilcox said.