House Republican Leader J.T. Wilcox discusses his frustrations over Governor Jay Inslee’s failure to include legislators on the important decisions that are impacting every Washington resident now, and will impact the state’s resources for the next decade.  Even though Wilcox is not one of the plaintiffs in a recent lawsuit filed against Inslee by several legislators, he does support their efforts. Wilcox also discusses how the lockdown is having a negative impact on people’s physical and mental health, from not being able to have elective procedures or receive preventative care, to depression caused by isolation, to not being able to attend 12-step meetings. (Shift’s Newsmaker Interview)

This week’s Newsmaker Interview is with Pierce County Executive Bruce Dammeier.  The former Puyallup school board member, state representative and state senator is often listed as one of the top GOP prospects for statewide office.  Among the topics Executive Dammeier discusses with Shift is how Republican leadership has better prepared Pierce County for the coronavirus outbreak than his more liberal neighboring counties, why Republicans have strong support in his county, and about leading the fight to defeat the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency’s 57 cents a gallon carbon tax. (Shift)

Governor Inslee’s announcement of his “Pay to Play” advisory groups demonstrates again that he chooses partisan politics over bringing our state together during a time of crisis.  Nearly every member of Inslee’s Safe Start advisory groups is a campaign contributor, from a liberal special interest group, or a government employee.  By choosing to ignore the concerns and ideas of those who are not supporters of his campaigns, or who work in the private sector, Inslee has missed a great opportunity to bring our state together. Inslee has not done what true leaders do, instead he does what self-serving politicians do.  (Shift)

From Shift’s “Zoomer” correspondent comes this article on how liberal protesters and advocates allow their emotions to control their actions. While emotions do play a role in our political discourse, we should not expect our elected officials to base their decisions on the emotional outbursts of citizens. (Shift)

As Governor Jay Inslee continues to rely on political factors, like major campaign donors, to guide his Covid-19 decisions (while not revealing the mysterious “data” he is using), he has failed to provide rational leadership to Washington residents about the path the state will take to recover economically from our current crisis.  Workers, small business owners, and consumers have had to bear the brunt of Inslee’s illogical decisions thus far and have little sense as to what lays ahead.  It’s almost enough to make you yearn for him talking about the secret sauce that makes us special. (Shift)

The Democrats are selfishly using the misfortune of Americans in an irresponsible attempt to dramatically change the country’s election laws.  The Democrats want Congress to spend $500,000,000 to force all states to switch to a vote-by-mail process for the 2020 elections. Currently only 5 states are vote-by-mail. Thus, in just six months, the Democrats irresponsibly want 45 other states (and nearly 3,000 county elections departments) to dramatically alter their voting methods (and pass legislation and budgets approving the change) when all levels of government are working from home and have far more immediate needs to address. (Shift)

Frustration among Washington residents continues to grow as Governor Inslee once again failed to provide to the public the data or “science” he is using to determine when to lift restrictions and allow Washington residents to safely return to work.  Following the release last Wednesday of his meaningless “dashboard” of dials (which provided no data or “scientific” explanation as to why arrows were pointed at certain spots on the dials), Governor Inslee released another chart on Friday explaining what will happen at different “phases.”  Problem again is… the governor failed to allow the public to see what specific data he is using to determine each phase.  Not only do Washington residents want to know the data for what needs to be accomplished in each phase, they would also like to know how Colorado’s data points are so much different as to allow his fellow Western States Pact member, Governor Jared Polis, to safely re-open his state and how Colorado data is different than Washington State’s numbers.

The public is growing increasingly concerned that Inslee is allowing partisan politics, and not “science”, to guide his decisions.  While his political supporters in the state employee unions continue to draw paychecks, the private sector is experiencing nearly 30% unemployment – 1 out of every 5 Washington workers had filed for unemployment by last week.  While it seems like Democrat Governors of other states (in the Western States Pact) are helping determine how and when Washington returns to work, Washington State Republican legislators are left in the dark.  While government construction projects were allowed to continue, commercial and private construction sites were closed.  While marijuana shops were deemed essential, other retailers are forced to lay-off employees due to the Inslee’s orders.  While all gatherings are banned in the state, Inslee’s political contributors at the tribal casinos are saying they plan to re-open next week.

Many conservative and moderate commentators (including us at Shift) allowed the governor free reign during the initial stages of this crisis.  Decisions needed to be made quickly and we respected the governor’s emergency authority.  Yet, we now have time for honest discussion on the best approach to safely re-open our state.  Governor Inslee is dramatically failing to lead our state. He fails to let the public see the information, or “science” or “data”, which he says he is using to determine our next steps and he allows Democrat leaders of other states to have considerably more say on our economic future than Washington State’s own elected leaders.  (Risk Assessment Dashboard and Phased Approach Chart)

Get outside and have fun isolating in the beautiful weather!