Charges filed in Inslee recall effort

PASCO — A group seeking to recall Gov. Jay Inslee has filed a petition with the Secretary of State’s office accusing the governor of violating state law and his oath of office in his response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We filed the petition with the Secretary of State, and there are five charges,” said Pete Serrano, an attorney and member of the Pasco City Council. “We believe that each one of the five could move forward successfully in the court system, but it’s up to the courts to decide.”

Serrano said the group, Recall Inslee, is accusing the governor of infringing on First Amendment rights to freedom of religion by imposing special restrictions on houses of worship, denied people the right to assemble by restricting local governing bodies to online meetings only, and lacked the ability to declare a state of emergency because of the pandemic.

“There are four conditions for a state of emergency — disorder, disaster, riots and energy emergency. COVID-19 is none of those,” he said.

Serrano said disorder has been traditionally defined as people behaving badly, but not to the extent of a riot — something COVID-19 simply does not cause.

The charges, which are required under Washington state law to prompt a recall vote, were delivered to the Secretary of State’s office Monday afternoon.

The Secretary of State’s office will transmit the charges to Attorney General Bob Ferguson, who has 15 days to write a 200-word synopsis of the charges, which must then go before a superior court judge in Thurston County, Serrano said.

That judge will then have no more than 15 days to rule on the language and sufficiency of the charges.

Serrano said however the superior court rules, any decision could and would likely be appealed directly to the State Supreme Court.

“If we won even one of the charges, I wouldn’t seek to appeal,” he said. “But if the attorney general loses one charge, they will likely appeal.”

Serrano, who authored the two charges dealing with the state of emergency, said he took this matter on because he believes Inslee violated state law and his oath of office in declaring an emergency in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I believe wholeheartedly he violated the law. I argued very specific and very narrow issues,” he said. “I could be wrong and the courts will tell me if I am.”