Sunny Jay went out the way he came in: mostly sunny. Though with some scattered shade.
“I wish I lived in Jay Inslee’s version of Washington, full of puppies and rainbows,” quipped Republican state Rep. Drew Stokesbary, of Auburn, after listening to Inslee’s farewell State of the State speech Tuesday.
Of course Republicans were never going to cheer a Jay Inslee speech. Except maybe because it was the last one.
Stokesbary’s review was, on the surface, mostly on the mark. Inslee, at 12 years tied for the longest governorship in state history with the late Dan Evans, went out Tuesday sticking to the bright side.
Which means that he rolled out a greatest hits list of legitimate Democratic policy wins that happened on his watch — on climate, taxes, abortion rights, gun control, COVID-19 disease management and more. And also that he didn’t mention the very real setbacks — soaring homelessness, higher crime rates, slipping student test scores.
Do we expect politicians to be honest and self-reflective about what went wrong, along with all that went well? We do not. It’s sad — it probably makes for worse governance — that politics just doesn’t do humility anymore.
Hopefully the new governor, who speaks Wednesday, will talk more unflinchingly about the severe problems in the state as well.
But I said up top that not all was shiny and bright in Inslee’s farewell, so let’s turn to that.
Most surprising was that he seemed to implicitly rebuke the incoming governor, fellow Democrat Bob Ferguson, because of plans Ferguson unveiled last week for broad budget cuts. Ferguson was sitting right there.
Inslee recalled what it was like back in the Great Recession when the state made $11 billion in cuts, including tossing 40,000 low-income families off health care and deeply slashing support to the state universities.
“Abstract numerical cuts actually mean concrete personal pain,” Inslee said. “Deep budget cuts always, always fall hardest on the people who can’t afford them.”
“My budget in December proposed $2 billion in budget cuts,” he said. “But pruning significantly more than that I would consider a slide back to those dark days.”
It wasn’t just drama-starved reporters who saw this as a shot at Ferguson.
“It feels like it’s aimed at just one audience member — Gov.-elect Bob Ferguson, sitting about 5 feet from the rostrum,” state Rep. Julia Reed, D-Seattle, remarked on social media during Inslee’s speech.
Sliding back to the dark days: That’s probably not the motto Ferguson was hoping Inslee would hang on him on the way out the door. I guess Sunny can throw shade, too.
I said up above that Republicans didn’t care for Inslee’s presentation, and that’s an understatement. A handful of them stormed out about three-fourths of the way through.
What could prompt such a fit during a speech that was supposedly rainbows and puppies? You know what.
Inslee mentioned the Los Angeles fires, as well as climate change and the challenges sometimes of working with the feds. Then he said: “Look: Our state will work with anyone on policies that are positive for Washington. But we will not bend the knee to a would-be authoritarian’s worst impulses.”
That’s all it took, and off they went.
“You know, it takes one to know one, Mr. Inslee,” retorted GOP party Chairman Jim Walsh, one of the officials to leave the speech.
Walsh is still sore at how Inslee ruled over the COVID era. Inslee though was likely recalling a front-row seat he had to a uniquely petty, narcissistic and damaging show four years ago.
The L.A. fires have raised the issue of disaster declarations. It was after Washington’s last very bad fire when then-President Donald Trump petulantly delayed aid to the tiny Eastern Washington town of Malden for more than four months.
He did it “over a feud,” The Spokesman-Review reported. “Trump is blocking aid to Malden, Pine City fire victims over beef with Inslee,” the paper said, citing Republican aides in Congress.
Trump never granted that aid, even though the town was 80% destroyed in the 2020 fires. The victims had to wait until Joe Biden became president, nearly five months later — the longest it’s ever taken for a presidential disaster request, a Politico investigation later found.
“It really was an outrageous abuse of power,” Inslee told Politico last fall. U.S. Sen. Patty Murray said “Trump’s treatment of the town of Malden was a complete disgrace.”
But guess what also happened? Democracy. Four years later, that same town of Malden, south of Spokane, gave 70% of its votes to reelect Trump.
This little tale is like a metaphor of America. We voted for it, and then we got it good and hard — as H.L. Mencken famously said we would. But even after learning that, we’ve now voted for it again.
“Congratulations, Bob, good luck,” Inslee said about 15 seconds after he’d brought up Trump and the GOPers had stormed off.
More shade? Maybe. Or maybe a warning that no matter how iffy the forecast is for politics around here, way off to the east there are some mighty familiar-looking storm clouds forming.
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