Government transparency? Here’s what leading candidates for governor say about their records

Earlier this month, the Seattle Times’ editorial board endorsed current Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson over his likely opponent, former King County Sheriff Dave Reichert, in the 2024 race for governor.

But one issue raised in that endorsement was transparency.

While current three-term Gov. Jay Inslee has refused to use executive privilege to exempt the state’s highest office from disclosing certain public records, Ferguson and Reichert are split on their potential use of the exemption. Both candidates for governor also have had their share of scrutiny over issues of transparency as leaders.

Bob Ferguson

Ferguson, a Democrat, was first elected as the state Attorney General in 2012 after serving on the King County Council from 2004 to 2013.

In 2016, Ferguson took responsibility for the AG’s office failure to preserve emails related to the 2014 Oso landslide that killed 43 people, making it the deadliest landslide in U.S. history. In that case, attorneys for the landslide victims referred to it as a “‘shocking’ cover-up to hide evidence that showed the experts changed their opinions to protect the state’s interest,” according to reporting by the Northwest News Network.

Additionally, in 2023, the AG’s Office and the Department of Health and Social Services were sanctioned $200,000 for withholding more than 11,000 documents in a case against a disabled woman who sued the state for failing to provide adequate case management and failing to investigate allegations of abuse and neglect. Later it was found that an additional 100,000 documents had been withheld in that case.

Ferguson’s campaign staff said those issues have since been addressed.

“It is never acceptable to miss discovery deadlines, but Bob has addressed this by creating a new Discovery Division in his office to prevent deadlines from being missed in the future,” said Ferguson’s campaign staff in a statement to McClatchy. “In contrast, anti-choice Republican Dave Reichert continues to run the least transparent, most disingenuous gubernatorial campaign in Washington state history.”

In its endorsement of Ferguson, the Times editorial board noted that the AG’s Office under Ferguson “has been indolent on several issues of government transparency,” according to a February report from the Washington Coalition for Open Government.

“WashCOG faults the agency for closing requests without adequate notice, and for public records advice that skews more toward government protection than transparency,” the endorsement said.

Still, Ferguson told McClatchy that as governor he will not invoke executive privilege, and according to his campaign page, the gubernatorial hopeful says he has laid out plans for increasing public safety, economic growth, behavioral health and the state’s ferry system.

Dave Reichert

Dave Reichert, a Republican, is Ferguson’s leading competitor for the governor’s seat. From 1997 to 2005, he was the elected Sheriff for King County, and from 2005 to 2019 he served as a Republican in Congress representing Washington’s 8th Congressional District.

In 2006, the King County Sheriff’s Department was fined more than $26,000 for violating the state’s Public Records Act. Reichert was not Sheriff at the time the lawsuit took place, he was in office when the plaintiff in the case tried unsuccessfully to request records related to her sexual assault investigation and records regarding her concealed pistol license (CPL) application. The complaint noted that “the Sheriff’s Office delayed for months” and “refused to provide documents and tapes that the Sheriff’s Office admitted existed.” The court noted in the findings that the plaintiff finally received her CPL records 351 days late.

Reichert’s transparency also has come into question in other ways, with allegations that he has said one thing to the public but then another behind closed doors, according to reporting by The Stranger.

An example: Although the former Washington Congressman said in a statement to the news outlet that he would “not take any steps as Governor to restrict same-sex marriage” and that “every individual has the right to decide who they choose to marry,” the gubernatorial candidate also told a crowd of Pierce County Republicans in February, prior to those statements, that he believed “marriage is between a man and a woman.” During that event Reichert also espoused anti-trans sentiments. He also voted to maintain “don’t ask, don’t tell” in the military during his time in Congress.

The Times editorial board noted that while he told the board he doesn’t plan to push his personal beliefs on other people in regards to abortion, reporting from KUOW showed that Reichert talked of plans of “unraveling” state laws when asked about abortions and surgery for transgender individuals at an event with Firmly Planted Action, a nonprofit opposed to abortion.

In a statement to McClatchy Tuesday, Reichert said that he has “long been a champion of making government more open and transparent while being responsible stewards of taxpayer dollars” and that he believed “Olympia needs a champion of those values today.”

Reichert noted the $1.17 billion in questionable spending by the state recently outlined in a report by Cascade PBS.

“While my likely Democrat opponent, Bob Ferguson, represents the status quo, I will bring the change needed to hold our state government accountable as Washington’s next governor,” he said.

In the statement, however, Reichert did not reject the possibility that he might use executive privilege during his time as governor.

“Executive privilege exists for a reason, but I plan to use it as sparingly as possible as governor to prevent simply cherry picking what information is disclosed to the public, as we have recently seen in Olympia,” he said.

According to Reichert’s campaign page, he would tackle issues such as public safety, the cost of living, the economy and education as governor if elected.

Election basics

While 28 other candidates are running for the governor’s seat as well in the upcoming primary election, the closest hopefuls include current state Sen. Mark Mullet, an Issaquah Democrat, and former Richland School Board member Misipati “Semi” Bird, a Republican, who are polling in the low single digits.

The primary election in Washington is Aug. 6. The two candidates receiving the most votes, regardless of party, will advance to the Nov. 6 general election.