JXIndivisible

The real world consequences of a scurrilous claim by the leader of the Republican Party

The proper response is full-on laughter and derision to an elderly, addled, angry bully asserting to an audience of 67 million viewers that immigrants in Springfield, Ohio are killing and eating their white neighbors’ cats and dogs. Since last Tuesday’s debate social media has been awash with memes mocking the bully’s statement; his declared source, “They’re saying it on TV”; and his continued claims, against many official denials, that pets are being killed and eaten by immigrants. Trump doubled-down even after the woman in Springfield who wrote the Facebook post admitted it had no basis in fact.To an increasing number of American voters Trump reminds them of their elderly, crazy uncle raving on at a family gathering. 

Worse, on the Friday following the debate, Trump’s weird running mate, JD Vance, expanded on the elderly uncle’s xenophobic rhetoric:

Without citing evidence, Vance wrote on X: “In Springfield, Ohio, there has been a massive rise in communicable diseases, rent prices, car insurance rates, and crime. This is what happens when you drop 20,000 people into a small community.”

Vance went on to charge that the Democratic presidential nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, “aims to do this to every town in our country.”

A spokesman for Vance told the Washington Post that he would provide evidence for the senator’s claims but did not say when.

Meanwhile, as ridicule is heaped on Trump’s nationally televised statement, there are real life consequences:

The rhetoric has escalated, and numerous buildings in Springfield – including its City Hall and an elementary school – were evacuated Thursday due to a bomb threat that included “hateful language” about the city’s immigrant population.

On Friday, two elementary schools were evacuated based on information received by the Springfield Police Division, the Columbus Dispatch reported. The Springfield City School District did not immediately return a voice message seeking comment. 

The best and most thorough discussion of the fallout from the Republican statement is Robert Hubbell’s Substack post from September 13, “Why Springfield, Ohio matters.” (Click the underlined title and, if you’re not already a subscriber, you will see a page where you can either enter your email address to receive his near-daily email missives or click “No thanks” to take you directly to the post.) 

Historian Heather Cox Richardson’s Substack post on September 13 (a great read), provides more detail on the build-up of the lie. It started with JD Vance’s increasing focus on Springfield back in July. His words spurred white supremacist groups to gather in Springfield. The whole ugly lie expanded following the hearsay Facebook post in late August (since withdrawn, see above). The whole build-up led to Trump’s ludicrous debate assertion that “They’re eating the pets.”

Senator Vance (R-OH) evidently couldn’t care less about the effects of his words on the well-being of the people of Springfield, Ohio, including his own constituents. Heather Cox Richardson points out that, at least for Vance, this whole episode is fundamentally about political power, the little people hurt in the process be damned: 

The widespread ridicule of Trump’s statement has obscured that this attack on Ohio’s immigrants is part of an attempt to regain control of the Senate. Convincing Ohio voters that the immigrants in their midst are subhuman could help Republicans defeat popular Democratic incumbent senator Sherrod Brown, who has held his seat since 2007. Brown and Montana’s Jon Tester, both Democrats in states that supported Trump in 2020, are key to controlling the Senate. 

Two Republican super PACs, one of which is linked to Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), have booked more than $82 million of ad space in Ohio between Labor Day and the election and are focusing on immigration. 

The outcome of these two U.S. Senate races might determine the course of the federal government for the next four years. If Republicans in the November election can capture a U.S. Senate majority—even by one vote—they will use that toe-hold to block nominations to federal judgeships, block any efforts to provide an enforceable code of ethics for the Supreme Court, stymie voting legislation, and, finally, blame the administration for “not getting anything done.” Recognize further that this would prolong the “tyranny by the minority” that is inherent in the composition of the U.S. Senate, where, in 2020, Republicans held half the seats while representing only 43.5% of the population of the nation. The stakes are high for continuation of their minority rule—and JD Vance and Trump don’t care who they hurt in pursuing it.

One hopes that the unfounded rumor, “They’re eating the pets”, to which Trump exposed the nation last Tuesday will result in continued ridicule by highlighting the dangerous, racist, dehumanizing, xenophobic, white supremacist rhetoric on which the Republican Party has pegged its brand. 

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry

P.S. Heather Cox Richardson, in her closing paragraphs, drew a sickening political parallel to the “They’re eating the pets” rumor, a political parallel that underscores the real-world consequences of spreading lies and rumors in pursuit of power:

In 1890, Republicans faced a similar problem. They had lost the popular vote in 1888, although they installed Republican president Benjamin Harrison in office through the Electoral College, and knew the Democrats would soon far outnumber their own voters. So they set out to guarantee that they could never lose the Senate, which should enable them to kill popular Democratic legislation. 

But they misjudged the electorate, and in the 1890 midterm election, voters gave control of the House to the Democrats by a margin of two to one, and control of the Senate came down to a single seat, that of a senator from South Dakota. In those days, state legislatures chose their state’s senators, and shortly after it became clear that control of the Senate was going to depend on that South Dakota seat, U.S. Army troops went to South Dakota to rally voters by putting down an “Indian uprising” in which no people had died and no property had been damaged. 

Fueled on false stories of “savages” who were attacking white settlers, the inexperienced soldiers were the ones who pulled the triggers to kill more than 250 Lakotas on December 29, but the Wounded Knee Massacre started in Washington, D.C.  

Of course, there is a stark difference. In the late nineteenth century statements and rumors spread at a snail’s pace via telegraph, newspapers, and word of mouth over months. Fact-checking was equally slow. Today, in contrast, Trump makes his incendiary claim to 67 million people, social media explodes, and fact-checking (via the debate moderator) is nearly immediate. 

Fitness for Office

Last Tuesday evening we learned, from his own words, what the former president considers a proper “fact” check. It was a stunning—and disqualifying—admission offered to a national audience. Below is the relevant part of the debate transcript published by ABC News (the bold is mine):

DAVID MUIR: Let me just ask, though, why did you try to kill that bill and successfully so? That would have put thousands of additional agents and officers on the border.

FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: First let me respond as to the rallies. She said people start leaving. People don’t go to her rallies. There’s no reason to go. And the people that do go, she’s busing them in and paying them to be there. And then showing them in a different light. So, she can’t talk about that. People don’t leave my rallies. We have the biggest rallies, the most incredible rallies in the history of politics. That’s because people want to take their country back. Our country is being lost. We’re a failing nation. And it happened three and a half years ago. And what, what’s going on here, you’re going to end up in World War 3, just to go into another subject. What they have done to our country by allowing these millions and millions of people to come into our country. And look at what’s happening to the towns all over the United States. And a lot of towns don’t want to talk — not going to be Aurora or Springfield. A lot of towns don’t want to talk about it because they’re so embarrassed by it. In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs. The people that came in. They’re eating the cats. They’re eating — they’re eating the pets of the people that live there. And this is what’s happening in our country. And it’s a shame. As far as rallies are concerned, as far — the reason they go is they like what I say. They want to bring our country back. They want to make America great again. It’s a very simple phrase. Make America great again. She’s destroying this country. And if she becomes president, this country doesn’t have a chance of success. Not only success. We’ll end up being Venezuela on steroids.

DAVID MUIR: I just want to clarify here, you bring up Springfield, Ohio. And ABC News did reach out to the city manager there. He told us there have been no credible reports of specific claims of pets being harmed, injured or abused by individuals within the immigrant community —

FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Well, I’ve seen people on television

DAVID MUIR: Let me just say here this …

FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: The people on television say my dog was taken and used for food. So maybe he said that and maybe that’s a good thing to say for a city manager.

DAVID MUIR: I’m not taking this from television. I’m taking it from the city manager.

FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: But the people on television say their dog was eaten by the people that went there.

DAVID MUIR: Again, the Springfield city manager says there’s no evidence of that.

FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: We’ll find out

First note that, as is so usual, he totally ignored the question asked. Then, in an unforced extra he riffed about immigrants (“people who went there”) killing and eating people’s pets in Springfield, Ohio. (Elsewhere he and his running mate, JD Vance spoke of “Haitian immigrants”.) This racist, dehumanizing, xenophobic, unfounded rumor emerged from several sketchy Alt-Right posts in various social media. The original Far Right posts were researched by reporters Sarah Ellison and Jeremy B. Merrill of the Washington Post entitled, “Anatomy of a racist smear: How false claims of pet-eating immigrants caught on.” It’s a good read but I am unable to figure out how to “gift” it, and it lives behind the WaPo paywall. Importantly, the Springfield, Ohio, “police issued a statement ‘to clarify that there have been no credible reports or specific claims of pets being harmed, injured or abused by individuals within the immigrant community.’” In pre-Trump/Vance, pre-social media times the police disclaimer would have been sufficient to quash the rumor, but for Trump/Vance and Republican law makers like Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), Rep. Marjorie Taylor-Greene (R-Ga.), and Arizona’s conservative firebrand and Senate candidate Kari Lake it was too tempting to resist their confirmation bias in re-posting on social media. Then Trump broadcast the unfounded divisive, racist rumor to an audience estimated at 67 million people watching the debate. 

Trump’s they’re-killing-and-eating-cats comment in Tuesday’s debate stoked the sort of divisive tension that is Trump’s stock in trade. The WaPo also reported that Thursday “The mayor of Springfield, Ohio, said a bomb threat Thursday that led to the evacuation of City Hall and numerous buildings ‘used hateful language towards immigrants and Haitians in our community.’” 

Trump’s stoking of racism is not in doubt, nor is there any equivocation about his plan to round up and deport ten million or more undocumented aliens from the United States. 

The Greater Admission

What should send a shiver down the spine of every voter is Trump’s admission, in all seriousness, of his source for the story: “Well, I’ve seen people on television.” A man who collects and acts on rumors generated on social media (by actors of unknown intent and trustworthiness) and cites what he sees on television without verification, accepts them as his truth, is a gullible twit who ought to be disqualified from service as local dogcatcher, much less returned to the White House and entrusted with the nuclear codes. 

And then, of course, to round out the cat theme from the title we must touch on the weird ideas of the VP candidate:

In a 2021 interview with Fox News host Tucker Carlson, then-Senate-candidate Vance complained that the U.S. was being run by Democrats, corporate oligarchs and “a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too.”

I hardly think Taylor Swift, when she signed off her Instagram endorsement of Kamal Harris, as “Taylor Swift, Childless Cat Lady” was miserable. JD Vance has been branded (rightly) as a weird misogynist for his “Childless Cat Lady” remarks. Trump’s “Immigrants are killing and eating their neighbors’ cats” and Vance’s “miserable childless cat ladies” [my constructions-paraphrases, not direct quotes] capture these two perfectly. 

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry

P.S. NPR offers a fascinating article titled “JD Vance went viral for ‘cat lady’ comments. The centuries-old trope has a long tail.” As always, click the underlined words (a “hyperlink”) to jump to the article.

Taylor Swift

Like many of you, no doubt, I watched the debate last night. I was impressed to say the least. From the handshake she initiated at the very beginning, Kamala Harris took the lead. 

Taylor Swift was watching the debate along with the rest of us. Shortly afterward she posted to Instagram. By 9PM the post already had 3,158,305 likes [the bold is mine]:

Like many of you, I watched the debate tonight. If you haven’t already, now is a great time to do your research on the issues at hand and the stances these candidates take on the topics that matter to you the most. As a voter, I make sure to watch and read everything I can about their proposed policies and plans for this country.

Recently I was made aware that AI of ‘me’ falsely endorsing Donald Trump’s presidential run was posted to his site. It really conjured up my fears around AI, and the dangers of spreading misinformation. It brought me to the conclusion that I need to be very transparent about my actual plans for this election as a voter. The simplest way to combat misinformation is with the truth.

I will be casting my vote for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz in the 2024 Presidential Election. I’m voting for @kamalaharrisbecause she fights for the rights and causes I believe need a warrior to champion them. I think she is a steady-handed, gifted leader and I believe we can accomplish so much more in this country if we are led by calm and not chaos. I was so heartened and impressed by her selection of running mate @timwalz, who has been standing up for LGBTQ+ rights, IVF, and a woman’s right to her own body for decades.

I’ve done my research, and I’ve made my choice. Your research is all yours to do, and the choice is yours to make. I also want to say, especially to first time voters: Remember that in order to vote, you have to be registered! I also find it’s much easier to vote early. I’ll link where to register and find early voting dates and info in my story.

With love and hope,

Taylor Swift
Childless Cat Lady

If you feel and little disconnected from the modern music scene and wonder why Taylor Swift’s Instagram post is important check out my post I Think I’m Becoming a Swift. She has the power to inspire young people to vote.

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry

P.S. In case you missed The Chicks’ (formerly the Dixie Chicks) rendition of the Star Spangled Banner at the Democratic National Convention last month, click here. It gave me chills.

Riling the base

When the original results from the top-two August 6 Primary race for Washington State Commissioner of Public Lands came out, there was a virtual tie for second place. Dave Upthegrove (Prefers Democratic Party) was ahead of Sue Kuehl Pederson (Prefers Republican Party) by a mere 51 votes; 396,300 for Upthegrove and 396,249 for Kuehl Pederson. By Washington State law (specifically RCW 29A.64.021) such a close margin triggers a mandatory manual (by hand, not machine) recount. To put this in perspective a total of 1,903,073 votes were cast among all seven candidates [plus write-ins] in the race. Jamie Herrera Beutler took first place with 419,297 votes, a slim 1.21% lead on Upthegrove.) 

In what should be a resounding confirmation of the accuracy of Washington State’s ballot tabulator system, the statewide mandatory manual recount of the votes for Upthegrove and Kuehl Pederson revealed four additional votes for Upthegrove and six additional votes for Kuehl Pederson. Upthegrove retained a winning margin of 49 votes. The determination of the net additional votes for each candidate was made by a small army of trained recount workers in each of the thirty-nine county auditor’s election offices. 

In Spokane County each batch of ballots (typically two hundred or less) originally run through the tabulator were brought out, visually inspected, and separated into ten piles, one each for each of the seven candidates, one for write-ins, one for over-votes, and one for under-votes. Two workers, working in silence and blinded to the other’s work, then count and tally each pile. If the two tallies were not in full agreement, each member of the two person team counted again. If the second count did not agree (a rarity) a second team went through the same process with that batch. All of this occurred independent of knowing the machine tabulator’s original count of that batch. 

Once the team’s count was finalized for a batch, the count was compared back to the tabulator’s original count. In the Spokane County Elections Office there were 1076 batches totaling just under 145 thousand ballots. The vote counts were unchanged, confirming both the accuracy of the machine tabulators but also the accuracy and consistency of the human assessments of voter intent. 

Spokane County Auditor Vicky Dalton explains that the hardest part of the task arises not in counting the votes but in catching and then discerning what some voters intended by the marks they made on their ballot. Stray marks, incompletely or lightly filled in ovals, over-votes (more than one oval filled in), under-votes (where a particular race is left blank), and scribbled write-in names (sometimes the written-in name of one of the candidates in the same race) all require discernment. Once the ballots in their security envelopes are separated from the mailing envelops in which they arrived, there is no way to get back to the original voter to ask of their intent. Ballots, once freed of their envelopes, are identifiable only down to precinct (which range between 35 and 1500 potential voters), not individual voters. Trained seasonal elections workers in the State of Washington use a statewide guide, Voter Intent (click the underlined to see it), to bring uniformity of judgement to interpreting the sometimes cryptic marks made on some ballots. 

In the first count (not the recount), each ballot is first inspected to confirm that it is machine tabulator readable. If on account of coffee stains or other disfigurement a ballot is judged not machine readable a replacement ballot is constructed to be fed to the tabulator. (The original is kept and linked to the replacement.) The ballots are then fed in batches to the machine tabulators. Modern machine tabulators do a stellar job of picking up irregularities, such as stray marks, light marks, over-votes, and under-votes. A common irregularity looks like an over-vote to the software (two ovals marked) but might actually be a proper correction by the voter, who changed their mind after marking a candidate, drew the proper line through that oval, and marked another oval for a different candidate. The tabulator kicks out the few ballots in a batch that show any of these irregularities for further examination. A team of two people then review each irregularity and must agree on an interpretation per the “Voter Intent” guide. As good as the software is, it is important to note that humans make the final decision.

Here’s a key concept: The manual recount provides an independent reassessment of each original ballot as part of sorting the ballots into (in this case) ten piles. In Spokane County, that the manual recount of every batch of ballots in this race agreed with the first count is a testament to the accuracy of the process of the assessment of voter intent as much as it is also a testament to the accuracy of the count itself. 

Side note: Before 2011 when Washington went to all mail-in voting, ballots were fed into an earlier version of a tabulator by the voter at in-person polling sites, today’s level of irregularity detection was not applied during the original count. The machine tabulators of the time only judged a vote based on the density of the mark in the oval. While they did kick out ballots with irregularities (only undervotes and overvotes) voter had already walked away. Since poll site workers could not interpret the ballot, the marks were counted as under- or over-votes and not as the voter intended.

Spokane County Auditor Vicky Dalton notes that the most challenging irregularity to catch is the illegibly written write-in candidate name that is actually one of the listed candidates above on the ballot with their own oval. Detection of ten such ballots out of 1.9 million may be the explanation for the additional four votes for Upthegrove and six for Kuehl Pederson tallied in the recount.

I am proud of the accuracy and civic diligence of mail-in voting system in the State of Washington. I daresay that I would be just as proud (albeit somewhat disappointed and even more irritated by our “top-two” primary system) had the original vote count and the recount favored Kuehl Pederson. (For more on the history of our primary click here.) 

Election Deniers

The Washington State Republican Party, true to its brand of election denial (disguised as “election integrity”) raised doubts and objections, not by offering evidence, but by “just asking questions” in emulation of Tucker Carlson, the disgraced former talking head of Fox News. You can read the WAGOP’s full statement here, but here is the pertinent paragraph:

Among the questions: Why were some counties able to recount their ballots by hand in a day or two, while others struggled to finish their hand recounts on time? Why did so many county auditors reject cured ballots that they should have accepted? Why were certain ballots initially counted that were upon recount, instead “undervotes” that shouldn’t have been counted at all? Why are some counties using online “apps” to cure ballots when state law clearly says that’s not legal? 

The Washington State Republican Party (WAGOP) intends to find answers to these questions in the coming days.

And then, oh! the threat:

The Party may file lawsuits challenging the certification. It may also file lawsuits challenging specific county recounts.

Will they file? Not likely. Will they win? No. But actually filing or winning a lawsuit is not the point, the point is the publicity attracted by the accusations issued in the form of questions. (Witness the sixty some lawsuits filed by the Trump campaign following the 2020 election.) All of this is in furtherance of sowing doubt in the validity of election results—all for the purpose of keeping the base riled up and suspicious of government. 

Notice also that Jim Walsh, the chairman of the Washington State Republican Party and the likely force behind the election “integrity” statements above, is also a prime mover promoting—and getting the November ballot—the Republican Greed Initiatives. More about that later.

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry

P.S. When visiting the WAGOP website to see their press release concerning the recount I was greeted by a video ad by a young blond woman advertising her appearance on September 13th as a speaker at the Washington State Republican Party’s 47th Annual Dinner in Bellevue. In the video she declares that “It is more important now than ever to be bold, to be courageous, and to be unapologetic in sharing the truth!” So what is her “truth”? She introduces herself as Riley Gaines. At 24 years old her claim to fame is her prowess as a competitive swimmer and her activism as an anti-trans-athlete “Christian” crusader. She has appeared at events sponsored by the “Christian” nationalist Turning Point USA, founded by Charlie Kirk. Ludicrously, she has even worked to prevent trans women from competing in women’s chess. She is a 24 year old one trick pony. One might have thought that the WAGOP could come up with a speaker of more substance. (See Ms. Gaines’ wikipedia article for more detail and links.)

Washington State’s Process

The stimulus for this post is the recall petition filed against Spokane County Commissioner Al French on August 27. Aggrieved citizens from Mr. French’s Commissioner District 5 (see map) gathered under the banner of a newly formed group, The Clean Water Accountability Coalition, to assemble the resources and knowhow to mount a recall and press their case. Their petition accuses Mr. French of failing to reveal well test results obtained in 2017 showing PFAS contamination at Spokane International Airport and then using his political clout to block efforts to investigate the spread of the contamination to private wells. Mr. French’s official actions and inactions resulted in a group of his constituents, their families, their livestock, and garden consuming water poisoned with PFAS from Spokane International Airport for seven years longer than necessary. You can read the whole official “Statement of Recall Charges” here. (My commentary of last Wednesday is here if you missed it.)

Here’s an excerpt from page 18 of the “Recall Charges”:

By concealing the presence and source of dangerous cancer-causing “forever chemicals”, County Commissioner French acted recklessly with regard to the health and safety of his constituents and the integrity of his office. Because he owed a political and financial duty to the Airport Board and S3R3, he deprioritized the duties he owed to the people of Spokane County as County Commissioner. This glaring conflict of interest violates his commitment to the County, to his office as County Commissioner, and to his constituents.

On August 27 a news conference announcing the delivery of the Recall Petition to the Spokane County Auditor was held on the lawn in front of the County Courthouse—and gained extremely varied coverage in local media. In the August 28th Spokesman, for instance, the short article was buried on the lower righthand corner of fourth page of the Northwest Section following the Opinion Page and below an article on archeological discoveries in Boise, Idaho. It appeared without the photograph that you see in the online presentation (see above underlined link). The Spokesman editor couldn’t have made the news more obscure if he had ordered the print version buried in the garden.

In contrast, Nate Sanford wrote a comprehensive article published in the online version of The Inlander on August 27. (I did not see that week’s paper version of the Inlander.) Sanford’s article, “Spokane County Commissioner Al French faces recall attempt over PFAS controversy” is free and it’s an engaging read (click on the underlined title to access the article). 

A Little Civics

A recall petition/election is, in some ways, the people-powered version of impeachment and trial. Both processes result in removal from office and, at least in that sense, both are fundamentally political rather than judicial processes. The main distinction between these two forms of bringing a government official to account is that the recall process is initiated by an aggrieved citizen or group of citizens, whereas an impeachment and trial occurs at the level of a legislative body.

Like so many aspects of government(s) in our country that make learning civics challenging, each state that provides for impeachment and/or recall seems to have developed its own rules. For example, in every state but Oregon there are rules that allow the state legislature to impeach the state’s governor. 

Nineteen states have recall rules allowing for the recall of state level officials. Thirty-nine states have provisions for the recall of local level officials. Understand, though, that the specific rules for recalls vary wildly from state to state as to grounds for recall, petition signatures, votes required to remove, etc., etc. Ballotpedia.org has a great article and table that explores some of the variations (as always, click the underlined text to bring up the article).

(Note: It appears that neither the people nor any state legislature has the power to remove a federal level official from office either by recall or impeachment.)

We in Washington State are among those states that offer a process of impeachment and of recall. The Washington State Constitution in Article V offers the state legislature the power of impeachment over state level officials, while Article I, Section 33, offers a process for citizen-generated recall of “every elected public official” in the state (except “judges of courts of record”). 

As citizens in Washington State we have the right to petition for a recall election of any elected official, statewide or local—but the State Constitution and the Revised Code of Washington (RCW 29A.56.110-270) don’t make the process easy—or cheap. Here are the steps as they might apply to the Al French Recall Petition:

1. RCW 29A.56.110 requires that a “legal voter” of the political subdivision (in this case Spokane County Commissioner District 5 [map]) that elected the subject of the recall prepare “a typewritten charge”. That’s the 114 page document duly presented to the Vicky Dalton, Spokane County Auditor, on August 27th (RCW 29A.56.120). Ms. Dalton is then required to “promptly” serve a copy of the charge to Mr. French and “certify and transmit the charge to the preparer of the ballot synopsis” who, in this case, is Spokane County Prosecutor Larry Haskell. We might imagine that happened last week, on, say, August 29.
2. Mr. Haskell (or, one presumes, someone in the Prosecutor’s office) must then, within 15 days “formulate a ballot synopsis of the charge of not more than two hundred words.” (RCW 29A.56.130). Fifteen days would take us to September 13 (assuming that one gets to count holidays and weekends). Mr. Haskell then certifies and transmits an exact copy of the ballot synopsis he has prepared to the filers of the charge and to the subject of the charge, Mr. French. Then Mr. Haskell also “petitions” the Spokane Superior Court to “approve the synopsis and to determine the sufficiency of the charges.”
3. Within the next fifteen days (that moves us up to September 28 at least) “the superior court” (presumably whichever Spokane Superior Court judge is assigned the task) holds a hearing on: a) the sufficiency of the charges (i.e. if the charges meet the State Constitutional standard of “misfeasance, malfeasance, or violation of the oath of office”) and b.) the “adequacy” of the ballot synopsis. The superior court judge’s ruling on the “adequacy” of the ballot synopsis is final, BUT either of the parties may appeal the “sufficiency of the charges” ruling to the Washington State Supreme Court. I don’t know the statistics but some recall petitions in the State of Washington fail at the superior court level when a judge decides that the charges lack “sufficiency”. That said, these charges in the Al French Recall Charge certainly look sufficient to me. (Note: The court [the superior court judge] shall not consider the truth of the charges, but only their sufficiency.) RCW 29A.56.140
4. If the charges pass muster with the judge and Mr. French does not file an appeal to the Supreme Court of the sufficiency of charges, the group filing the recall petition can begin gathering signatures “on the sixteenth day following the decision of the superior court.” That would be roughly October 14th, three weeks before the ballot turn-in deadline for the November 5th General Election.

Here we should pause for a minute and make a prediction. Mr. French is the quintessential politician—and he is no stranger to litigation. In the manner of a certain presidential candidate in the upcoming election, using the legal system to delay the progress of the recall (regardless of whether he actually thinks he can win on appeal) would, in this case with an election looming, likely be irresistible to Mr. French, especially since our tax dollars through Spokane County will be paying for the appeal, not he. Mr. French will not want signature gatherers out on the streets spreading this story before the November election. On the other hand, filing a appeal might be a bit of a gamble, since the filing of an appeal itself would likely generate some negative news coverage. 

6. If Mr. French does appeal to the Washington State Supreme Court, by law (RCW 29A.56.270) the appeal must be “heard and determined within thirty days after the decision of the superior court.” Remember the deadline for Superior Court’s ruling is September 27, so, if appealed, the decision should come down from the Supremes by October 27, still nine days before the November 5 General Election. If Mr. French loses that election to his challenger, Molly Marshall, the recall would be suddenly moot, the case would melt away, and taxpayers would not be on the hook to defend Mr. French.
7. Here RCW 29A.56.150 compensates for the time lost in an appeal: signature gathers may commence the day following a favorable decision on appeal. No waiting sixteen days as one is required to do after a not-appealed favorable decision by the Superior Court. Filing an appeal, therefore, would, technically, only postpone the beginning of signature gathering from the October 14 to October 28. (That said, there is a fair amount of gearing up for a signature campaign that might be left with just a few days of gathering before November 5.)
8. Once commenced, this particular recall would require 11,535 (per Nate Sanford’s calculation) verified signatures of “citizens and legal voters” registered to vote in District 5 (map). Supporters of the petition would have 180 days to gather signatures. RCW 29A.56.200 specifies the details for verification of signatures and RCW 29A.56.210 specifies how the date for the special election is set. It seems likely that, if Mr. French wins in November, and if all of these hoops are properly jumped through, the recall election would be held some time in the spring of 2025.

Regardless the progress of this recall charge (unless it is summarily swatted down by a Spokane County Superior Court Judge) these recall charges need publicity. If that publicity can be concentrated before the November 5th election it may help save all of us a lot of trouble. Familiarize yourself with the arguments, share with friends, neighbors, and acquaintances. 

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry

Constituents file a Petition to Recall Commissioner French

Tuesday, August 27, a week ago yesterday, a group of aggrieved citizens filed a petition with the county auditor seeking to recall their representative to Spokane County government, Spokane County Commissioner Al French (District 5, see P.S. below). The petition, a legal document of one hundred and fourteen pages, details the evidence that Mr. French, serving in a number of official capacities, knew seven years ago that Spokane International Airport (SIA) was likely a major source of PFAS contamination on the West Plains. Once the source of PFAS at SIA became known, Mr. French quietly worked to block efforts to investigate and quantify the extent of the poison that had leached into the groundwater from the Airport. As a result, for seven years more than necessary many of Mr. French’s constituents drank PFAS-contaminated water and provided that water to their children, their guests, their livestock, and their gardens. 

Let’s stop here for a minute and contemplate what could have been were it not for Mr. French’s efforts to duck the issue. Per- and PolyFluoroAlkyl Substances (PFAS), aka “forever chemicals,” were invented in the late 1930s and have been manufactured and used in a whole slew of products since the late 1940s, including Teflon, Scotchgard, a variety of waterproofing products, and, crucially, aqueous fire-fighting films (AFFF) used for decades both for practice and in actually fighting fuel fires at airports and military bases. Meanwhile, the risks to human health of these chemicals have only gradually become clear. (For details of how that clarity came about stream the movie “Dark Waters” [available on Netflix] and/or read here.)

In the face of mounting evidence, in 2017 Fairchild Air Force Base (FAFB) disclosed that test wells on the Base showed high concentrations of PFAS chemicals, presumably from decades of practice and use of PFAS-containing Aqueous Fire-Fighting Films. FAFB offered testing of wells in the area and made efforts to provide water to those whose wells were found to be contaminated. Considering the hydrogeology of the area, FAFB offered well testing only to private well owners west of Hayford Rd. When it became clear that the residents of Airway Heights had been drinking water, probably for decades, from municipal wells that contained high levels of PFAS, the whole issue made news. Airway Heights quickly arranged to obtain purer water via City of Spokane wells that draw from a different water source.

Meanwhile, at least some concerned private well owners drawing water from wells east of Hayford Rd inquired of Spokane International Airport (SIA) if SIA might also be leaching PFAS. Quietly, test wells were drilled at SIA and high concentrations of PFAS were detected in three of four of them—but the results were kept quiet.

In a Parallel Universe

Now imagine for a moment what would have happened if Commissioner French had honestly and openly sought to bring SIA’s PFAS contamination to the attention of the Health District, the Washington State Department of Ecology, and/or the federal EPA. At the time Mr. French sat on the County Commission, the Airport Board, the board of the Spokane Regional Health District, and S3R3, a cryptically-named, private/public development group. What if, given all those connections, the news from FAFB, and awareness of the SIA test well results, Mr. French had not only made broadly public the finding of contaminated test wells, but had also sought funding for private well testing, and began working with other government agencies to find and provide uncontaminated water to his constituents? In this parallel universe it is fair to assume that Mr. French would not be blamed (as he is now) either for the existence of the contamination or for the seven years of ongoing poisoning of his constituents. Constituents who had been drinking water contaminated with PFAS leaching from SIA would not have been happy campers, and, certainly, those constituents would have sought compensation, but Mr. French could not have been blamed. He would have been seen as doing the right thing: seeking to protect the lives and health of his constituents.

It’s no secret that Mr. French is deeply involved in plans to further develop tracts of property on the plains west of the City of Spokane (some of which land is within City of Spokane boundaries). As the elected Spokane County representative (and sometimes as chairman) on the board of SIA and his (and Krauter’s) seat(s) on the board of the private/public development group, S3R3, French has been deeply invested in West Plains development for years. Disclosure of SIA as a potentially major source of PFAS contamination had to be seen by French and friends as a threat to their development goals and to the value of all that land—a factor that must have figured large in their evident hope that the whole PFAS issue would just blow over—or at least that they could duck and let Fairchild Air Force Base shoulder all the blame.

But what does it take to sacrifice the health and well-being of your constituents to the dogged pursuit of business development and financial gain? Here I postulate that rather than believing they were actually putting constituents at risk, Mr. French and his ally, Larry Krauter, the CEO of SIA, simply doubted (or denied) the mounting scientific evidence that “forever chemicals” are a risk to human health. From an excellent investigative piece in RANGE by Aaron Hedge [the bold is mine]:

After a regulatory change by the Washington Department of Ecology (DoE) in 2021 requiring the disclosure of PFAS contamination, Krauter and SIA still didn’t disclose the West Plains contamination — even to Ecology itself. DoE only learned about the airport’s contamination after a private citizen requested the records and sent them to the state agency. 

And while Krauter and his colleagues weren’t disclosing the contamination to the public, they also weren’t ignoring forever chemicals. In fact, PFAS was a top priority for airport officials.

They were actively lobbying to keep using them. 

Internal emails obtained by RANGE through a public records request show that in 2020, SIA concentrated its efforts on keeping the state of Washington from regulating the chemicals at airports. Airport officials sent letters threatening legal action to the Legislature, which was considering legislation that would ban PFAS in AFFF at airports, and in 2020 even flew to Washington, D.C., in part to meet with the FAA’s top lawyer about that proposed legislation.

It is hard to imagine that Mr. Krauter and Mr. French did not discuss this lobbying effort. 

Insofar as a person’s individual stock picks speak of their beliefs, Al French’s stock picks may be illustrative. He holds stock in Chemours, DuPont and Corteva, three of four chemical companies (3M is the fourth) that have reached billion dollar agreements to settle claims concerning PFAS contamination. Mr. French also owns Dow Chemical stock, another flagship of the chemical industry. These four companies comprise nearly a third of his individual stock portfolio. (Nearly another third are fossil fuel companies.)

If Mr. French, as I suspect, privately believes that the health risks of drinking PFAS-laden water are overblown, it would not be the first time he has quietly substituted his personal judgement for scientific evidence and engaged in political efforts to thwart the science. Mr. French’s stated position that “climate change is a politically driven agenda” (See Al French vs. 170 years of Science) and his efforts to block legislation to curtail additional natural gas infrastructure are one example. His carefully-plotted, very-political, mostly behind the scenes efforts to fire Dr. Bob Lutz from his position with the Spokane Regional Health District during the Covid pandemic in 2020 is another. 

Still, imperiling the health of his constituents, is a new low—and now Mr. French may well face a recall election fueled by a hornet’s nest of angry voters worried about their health, their children, their livestock, and their property values.

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry

P.S. Mr. French represents Commissioner District 5 (click for map), west and southwest Spokane County including Cheney, Airway Heights, Medical Lake and some western parts of the City of Spokane.

And the long weekend off

I accidentally published last Wednesday’s post, “A Straw Man and “Free” Market Economics,” at 5PM instead of AM. If you missed it and would like to read it, simply click the title (the underlined bit above) and you should be able to read it on Substack rather than hunting for it in your email. It generated more than the usual number of positive “Reply” emails from among those who did see it.

Notes:

RFK Jr. joining the Trump/Vance campaign is just one more addition to the Trump version of the Star Wars’ “Creature Cantina.” (Credit for that image goes to Steve Schmidt of The Warning.)

I cannot quite remember where I read this contrast, but I thought it was worth thinking about and sharing: The whole Republican National Convention (and several incidents since, like the Arlington National Cemetery incident on Monday, were exercises in the toxic masculinity of the Trump/Vance/Hulk Hogan team. The DNC, as exemplified in particular by VP Candidate, teacher, family man, hunter, and veteran Tim Walz was an exercise in tonicmasculinity. 

I plan to skip posting on Labor Day. I should be back on Wednesday, September 2nd. Have a great last holiday weekend of summer and be sure to 

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry