WA Rep: Too easy for the wealthy to impose COVID restrictions on less fortunate

Republicans have mostly taken issue with the emergency proclamations from Governor Inslee during this pandemic, proclamations with very few limits as they see it. That would change with House Bill 1020, which seeks to limit emergency powers to 30 days unless the Legislature gives it the go-ahead.

The bill currently has the partial support of at least one Democrat, State Rep. Steve Kirby (D-Tacoma), who joined the Jason Rantz Show on KTTH to discuss why he’s behind it.

“I just want to say that I do genuinely appreciate the governor’s desire to keep the people in Washington safe. But my concern from the get-go has been that he and his advisers only have so much cumulative knowledge about how things work within individual business sectors. It looks like to me that he’s been relying on career public sector employees for advice,” Kirby said.

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“I have, from the get-go, thought that we could safely reopen segments of our economy if we do it right. And it’s not unreasonable to have the ability to amend the governor’s emergency powers to include at least some degree of legislative oversight of emergency proclamations,” he added.

While Kirby acknowledges the bill is political in nature, he feels it’s necessary for the sake of transparency with regards to the emergency proclamations and how they impact people’s lives.

“We do need to carefully think through what that oversight would — and, frankly, this bill is political. It is entirely political, but we need to have a vehicle, any vehicle, to have this discussion so that, you know, we can air it out in front of people,” he said.

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“Here’s the thing: I wouldn’t vote for the bill if it came out with its current language. The thing is, I don’t know what the right language should be, but if you do it, what it suggests is if all four corners, as we call it, agree — see, that’s the thing that lends itself to being taken hostage in a political manner,” he said. “So somehow or another, we need to be able to have the ability to have some input. Frankly, I don’t think that input was welcomed.”

Has it been difficult for him politically to support this bill?

“Oh, yeah — it’s the times that we live in. I’ve been there 20 years before. I got elected to my first office 43 years ago, so I’ve seen a lot of stuff,” Kirby said. “Things are not like they used to be. At this point, people are just so heavily entrenched in whatever their position is that they’ll just attack the moment you do something.”

“Contrary to the governor’s favorite slogan, we are not all in this together,” he continued. “It’s really easy for people who are working six figure incomes, who still have their jobs, it’s just too easy for them to get together and impose restrictions on people’s lives, you know, who aren’t so fortunate.”

Listen to the Jason Rantz Show weekday afternoons from 3 – 6 p.m. on KTTH 770 AM (or HD Radio 97.3 FM HD-Channel 3). Subscribe to the podcast here