Months ago, Washington state leaders (and voters) planned for disaster. Just not the one we got

If you’re like me, marking the slow drip of time nearly a week into Gov. Jay Inslee’s “Stay Home, Stay Healthy” order, and with no end in sight, a bitter irony has sunk in:

While life has largely lurched to a halt for a state full of shut-ins, coronavirus is striking with the mercenary speed of a Brinks truck heist. Nearly 5,000 Washington cases have been confirmed since the first in the state (and nation) was reported Jan. 21; nearly 200 Washingtonians have died since the first death in the state (and nation) was reported Feb. 29.

For hundreds of folks in our state, the pandemic has stolen the good health, even the last breath, of themselves or their loved ones. For millions of fortunate others like me, it’s merely hijacked daily freedoms we took for granted, cracked our economic foundation and exposed our sense of individual self-reliance as a collective illusion.

Our faith in government to defend us against enemies both foreign and domestic? That’s also taken a hit, undermined by an enemy so stealthy it attacks through respiratory droplets.

But I’ll say this for our Washington state elected leaders: They weren’t ignorant about Mother Nature’s ability to wreak havoc here. They weren’t passive about it, either. They’ve been preparing for a big natural disaster to knock us flat on our backs.

Just not the big one we got.

Last year they acted to expand the powers of our state executive and legislative branches to ensure continuity of government in the event of a large-scale emergency.

In fact, dear Washington voters, you helped them do it. Remember?

It was less than five months ago. With an unequivocal 65-percent “yes” vote on the Nov. 5 ballot, you amended Article II, Section 42 of the Washington Constitution. The change means lawmakers can now take necessary measures to keep the government running “in periods of emergency resulting from a catastrophic incident or enemy attack.”

The amendment makes sense, as the old language only mentioned “enemy attack” — an artifact of the Cold War era. It’s just that the most likely “catastrophic incident” anticipated by lawmakers and state emergency planners was geological, not biological.

Sen. Hans Zeiger, R-Puyallup, told me Friday that the need to plan for a major Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake was the impetus for the constitutional change he helped sponsor.

“I was thinking about the threat of a massive earthquake or a volcanic eruption,” Zeiger said via email. “I had not considered the possibility of a pandemic such as we are now seeing.”

Five months ago, few of us had seriously considered it, had we?

As it turns out, the constitutional change gives lawmakers extra powers that might be useful in a pandemic, if state or local governments were shut down in a worst-case scenario.

Moving the state capital or a county seat is very earthquake-specific. But giving lawmakers authority to pass emergency bills without a quorum, or to fill urgent vacancies in state or county offices, could be necessary if leaders suddenly became ill.

The Legislature also now has power to fill an open governor’s seat if everyone in the line of succession were unavailable. (Granted, that’s highly unlikely, since the governor and seven other statewide officials would have to be incapacitated.)

Amending the constitution wasn’t the only step taken last year to strengthen state emergency powers. Zeiger also sponsored a measure expanding the governor’s authority to waive certain laws and regulations during a crisis. But it included a new check against potential abuses: The governor’s orders end in 30 days unless extended by the Legislature. The bill easily passed both chambers and was signed into law by Inslee.

“I believe that it is important for our state executive to have flexibility to act in the event of an emergency, “ Zeiger said, “but I also believe that it is important for the legislature to have an active role in deciding whether to prolong certain actions by the governor.”

He’ll get no argument from me, especially at a time when Inslee has been rolling out a series of progressively more stringent orders to “pound down” the spread of COVID-19, culminating in his stay-home edict last week.

It begs the question: Have Washington public officials been granted too much power to restrict our constitutional rights — to temporarily limit assembly, movement, the ability to earn an honest living and other fundamental pursuits of happiness?

First Amendment purists might answer “yes.” But I’ll defer to Hippocrates, the ancient Greek father of medicine. “Desperate times call for desperate measures,” Hippocrates is credited with saying — an axiom that seems to fit Washington’s coronavirus outbreak. He was speaking of the need for extreme actions to confront extreme diseases.

We can debate the merits of government emergency measures all we want — they go too far, or they don’t go far enough. Heaven knows we have plenty of time for that right now.

Either way, we should pray such desperation isn’t called for again in our lifetimes.

Reach News Tribune editorial page editor Matt Misterek at matt.misterek@thenewstribune.com or (253) 597-8472.

This story was originally published March 30, 2020 at 9:45 AM.