Sen. Mike Chapman honored for stand against legislative secrecy
Clyde Ballard and Alan Thompson, longtime members of the Washington State Legislature, inspired the Ballard-Thompson Award.
April 3, 2025 — The Washington Coalition for Open Government announced today that it will honor Sen. Mike Chapman for his pledge this week to refrain from withholding information from the public through a bogus dodge to the Public Records Act that legislators are calling “legislative privilege.”
Sen. Mike Chapman, D-Port Angeles
This week Chapman, D-Port Angeles, instructed the Senate Public Records Office not to employ “legislative privilege” on his behalf in responding to PRA requests. He becomes one of just a handful of brave legislators of both parties to do so in response to WashCOG’s request. WashCOG will bestow on Chapman the Ballard-Thompson Award, which honors legislators who make an extraordinary contribution to government transparency.
Background: The Legislature maintained for years that it was not subject to the PRA, but lost in court. Then the Legislature voted in 2018 to exempt itself from the citizen-passed law, only to see nearly 20,000 Washington residents successfully appeal to then-Gov. Jay Inslee to veto that legislation.
Then, in the last few years, the Legislature quietly began withholding documents (or blacking out information on documents) requested by citizens under the PRA. Legislative attorneys claimed that was permissible under a passage in the state constitution that says, “No member of the legislature shall be liable in any civil action or criminal prosecution whatever, for words spoken in debate.”
That passage is obviously about words “spoken in debate.” Not emails and other documents. And it’s about protecting legislators from court actions. Not PRA requests that provide citizens with an unvarnished look at how the Legislature does the public’s business.
WashCOG has challenged the Legislature’s interpretation in court, so far without success. Appeal is underway; the issue will likely be decided by the Washington Supreme Court.
But really, shouldn’t every legislator be willing to commit right now to coming clean with constituents about what’s going on behind the scenes in Olympia? Citizens apparently agree with WashCOG. In a Cascade Public Media/Elway poll released in January 2024, about 80% of Washington residents polled said they opposed legislative privilege.
The longest-serving Washington House Speaker in history, Frank Chopp, who retired from the Legislature last year, delivered a stirring condemnation of “legislative privilege” when he addressed attendees of WashCOG’s annual Sunshine Breakfast in March. His words came just a week before his tragic sudden death. We commend these words to every legislator who has not taken the WashCOG pledge, but especially to current House Speaker Laurie Jinkins, who has led the charge in support of “legislative privilege:”
“This issue is very simple,” Chopp said. “It involves two words, ‘legislative’ and ‘privilege.’ If you ask the general public what they think of each of those two words, they don’t like ‘legislative,’ generally, and they really don’t like ‘privilege.’ You put them together, and they hate it.”
