Spin Control: Legislative expulsion is rare in Northwest and involves actual criminal acts

When big news happens in another state’s legislature, it’s not long before someone calls or writes to ask, “Did that ever happen here?”

So it was when the Tennessee House of Representatives expelled two members, officially for a lack of decorum but more specifically for joining a loud protest demanding action on gun control while on the House floor. In that case, the alleged lack of decorum involved going to the well of the House without official recognition shortly before a recess was called, and using a bullhorn to help lead chants from people in the gallery. Since both Legislators are Black and a white Democrat avoided expulsion, the issue has stirred particular controversy.

While legislative expulsions have happened in our region, they’ve been different in nature.

No member of the Washington, Idaho or Oregon Legislature has been ousted from his or her seat for a lack of decorum, although there’s no record of anyone bringing a bullhorn to the floor and joining in chants. Legislators frequently join protests outside the chambers, on the Capitol steps or on nearby grassy areas on a wide range of controversial topics such as abortion, guns and taxes, and no one blinks.

Expulsion of members has been rare in the Pacific Northwest. It has only happened once in each state, although it has been discussed a few other times.

The only time a Washington legislator was expelled was in 1933. Newly elected Democrat Nelson Robinson was expelled from the House after narrowly winning a seat in a Seattle district.

Late in the campaign, Robinson had been charged with sexual assault of an underage girl. They had met in a local bar where he was handing out campaign literature. They spent time driving around the city, and when he brought her home to some irate relatives, she accused him of “having his way with her.” He confessed but later recanted, claiming nothing improper happened and she’d told him she was 18, but he’d done so to avoid a confrontation with the girl’s uncle who was brandishing a gun.

He was in jail on Election Day, won by about 100 votes and went on trial in December. A jury believed most of the girl’s story – although they didn’t believe her claim of being 12 years old – and after a day of deliberations found him guilty of inappropriate sexual contact with a minor who was at least 15. He was sentenced to prison, but an hour later was pardoned by then-Gov. Roland Hartley after the girl’s mother and her doctor provided sworn statements that no such assault had occurred.

Robinson was seated with the new wave of incoming Democratic freshman, but a few days later some members of the King County delegation began pushing for his expulsion because of his conviction on a crime involving “moral turpitude.” The House set up special investigating committee, which heard from Robinson, the girl’s mother and his attorney, but still recommended expulsion. He was ousted on a 93-5 vote.

That’s the only expulsion from the Washington Legislature. The Senate refused to seat Lenus Westman, who had been elected in November 1940, when the new session started in 1941 because he’d once been a member of the Communist Party. Westman said he quit two years earlier; a majority of the senators didn’t care.

Two powerful Washington Democrats, Rep. John Bagnariol and Sen. Gordon Walgren, might have been expelled after being indicted in 1980 on federal racketeering charges as a part of an FBI sting into efforts to expand gambling in the state, but the timing wasn’t right. The 1980 session ended on March 13 and the indictment wasn’t handed down until April 2.

Both had plans to run for higher office, but decided to run for re-election after the indictment. Bagnariol didn’t make it through the primary, and Walgren lost in the general, saving the legislators any decisions about whether to block or unseat them as they awaited trial, at which both were convicted.

In 2020, House Democrats circulated a letter calling for the expulsion of Rep. Matt Shea, a Spokane Valley Republican who was the subject of a special House investigation into allegations he was involved in planning political violence.

Shea, who denied the allegations and said he wanted to cross-examine any witnesses who made them, had been kicked out of the House Republican Caucus and lost his committee assignments, but Republican colleagues refused to sign the letter calling for his expulsion. Some said it wasn’t right to override the choice of the voters of Shea’s district.

Expulsion requires a two-thirds majority, and even with all 56 of their members other than the speaker signing the letter, Democrats were nine votes short. The proposal died and wasn’t revived the next year because Shea didn’t seek re-election.

The Shea resolution did reveal how rare expulsion is, because legislators said the procedure isn’t written down anywhere.

Also in 2020, Rep. John Green, a Post Falls Republican, was expelled from the Idaho House of Representatives after he was convicted of conspiracy to defraud the federal government in a tax case. He maintained his innocence and said he planned to appeal and keep his House seat. The next day, the House, in a unanimous vote and without debate, voted to expel him.

At the time, Betsy Russell, the long-time Idaho Capitol reporter, said it was the first expulsion in the Idaho Legislature.

In 2021, Rep. Aaron von Ehlinger came close. He’d been censured and suspended for conduct unbecoming a member after being accused of sexually assaulting a 19-year-old intern. The House Ethics Committee recommended expulsion, but von Ehlinger resigned instead.

That same year, Rep. Mike Nearman of Independence, Oregon, became the first person to be expelled from that state’s House of Representatives for helping plan an armed incursion into the Capitol Building in Salem on Dec. 21, 2020. That resolution passed 59-1, with only Nearman voting no.

He eventually pleaded guilty to official misconduct, a misdemeanor, for letting armed protesters into the building. He said he didn’t know what they planned to do and didn’t agree with what they did once they got in. He later contended he pleaded guilty because of mounting legal bills and claimed he hadn’t done anything wrong.

So unlike the Tennessee expulsion cases, which arguably involved relatively minor infractions of legislative rules, the three cases of actual expulsion in the Northwest involved real criminal charges or convictions.

A veto-proof Republican majority in Tennessee expelled Democrats Justin Pearson and Justin Jones, who are both Black, on a party-line vote, while Rep. Gloria Johnson, a white legislator who joined in the protest, kept her seat by one vote.

There were no racial or partisan overtones to any of the Northwest cases. All of those ousted members were expelled on bipartisan votes, and in the case of Robinson and Green, when their party was in control of the chamber.