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Tuesday, March 19, 2024
March 19, 2024

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Jayne: Shooting the breeze with the state’s attorney general

By , Columbian Opinion Page Editor
Published:

I should have been a lawyer.

It’s not that I have the smarts or the diligence. It’s not that journalism isn’t rewarding and challenging. It’s just that, during my childhood, I couldn’t count how many times my argumentative nature led somebody to suggest that I should become a lawyer. The irony is that my 11-year-old has inherited that nature — which is both a blessing and curse for his parents — and often is told the same thing. Something about the “sins of the father,” I’m guessing.

Sure, I digress. It’s just that I found myself thinking about all of this — lawyers, lawyering, the law, the ins and outs of legal maneuvering — last week when The Columbian’s Editorial Board met with Bob Ferguson. He is the state’s attorney general, having been elected in 2012.

Ferguson is not up for re-election; he simply was in town and offered to meet with The Columbian. And, to be honest, after dozens of meetings with candidates for various offices, it was a pleasure to have a more informal session with an official, just shooting the breeze and garnering some insight to what’s going on around the state.

You know, things like training for the state’s open-records laws. That’s one thing Ferguson has accomplished, successfully pushing to get a bill through the Legislature that requires public officials to receive such training. Ideally, now when you go down to the courthouse and ask for some public records, officials will have no excuse for failing to comply with a lawful request. Of course, when legislators passed the bill, they exempted themselves from such training. Because, well, because they could, leading Ferguson to say, “That was not our preference, but that is what was required to get it adopted.”

You see, The Columbian tends to think that openness in government is important, and Washington’s open-records law is a crucial part of that. But while we could have filled the entire confab with a discussion about open government, there were other subjects to touch upon.

Among them is the wrangling with voter-approved legalized marijuana. As you likely know, some jurisdictions — such as unincorporated parts of Clark County — have opted to not issue businesses licenses allowing for the growing or selling of marijuana.

Ferguson’s office has ruled that, because the law did not explicitly state that all jurisdictions must allow those activities, then cities and counties can opt out. He notes that the conundrum could have been avoided with one simple sentence in the law, yet it turns out that the loophole is a blessing in disguise. If all cities or counties were forced to allow marijuana-related businesses, those jurisdictions could argue that federal law trumps state law, and that would be a “serious threat to the legalization of marijuana in this state. It doesn’t merely invite the federal-exemption argument, it makes it inevitable.”

The rule of law

Mind you, Ferguson’s job is not to advocate one way or another on such issues. His job is to provide legal services to state agencies, the governor, and the Legislature. But the permutations of such issues can be endlessly fascinating.

Take the McCleary v. Washington ruling from the state Supreme Court, in which the court ruled the Legislature has not adequately funded K-12 public education. After determining that lawmakers still haven’t lived up to their paramount duty, the court last month held the Legislature in contempt but declined to hand out sanctions. The potential constitutional showdown could make Washington look like a Banana Republic.

And, when you think about it, the law is what separates us from a Banana Republic. The mantra is that the United States is a nation of laws, not people, and that idea has served us pretty well for more than 200 years. Sure, we can poke fun at lawyers. We can joke that they are regarded with about the same level of esteem as, well, journalists. But without them, our rule of law would devolve into rule by fiat.

So, yep, sometimes I think I should have been a lawyer. Instead I guess I’ll just argue with my 11-year-old.

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