Spin Control: Recent news stories have a feeling of déjà vu

When a reporter has been on the job for a long time or reaches a certain age – or both – some news takes on a feeling of déjà vu.

To be sure, it’s the colloquial déjà vu of Yogi Berra suggesting one is seeing something “all over again,” not the technical psychological déjà vu of seeing something that’s actually new but seems to have previously occurred.

I’d be tempted to call this déjà news, although that’s already been used as a name for a Rachel Maddow podcast.

The front page of the Saturday, Aug. 19 Spokesman-Review with photographer Colin Mulvany’s photo of the Medical Lake fire consuming trees and houses generated a flashback to the October 1991 firestorm and a photo by the late Kit King of a firefighter diving over a fence with grass and forest in the background.

It was given an additional boost by reporter Emma Epperly’s Friday story about Mary Kaneko, who escaped firestorm in 1991 and had her home under construction in Silver Lake reduced to ash last weekend.

Gov. Jay Inslee’s visit to Spokane as the fires still burned brought to mind then-Gov. Booth Gardner’s visit the day after firestorm to view some of the worst damage from the air and dropping into burned-out neighborhoods by National Guard helicopter.

Déjà vu also hit when reading that a judge rejected a challenge to the anti-homeless camping initiative proposed for the Spokane city ballot in November. If an idea is controversial enough to become a proposed ballot measure, it’s almost certain to have strong opinions on the opposing side. But whether it’s conservatives trying to block liberal measures or vice versa, courts hardly ever agree to knock measures off the ballot if they qualify.

If a measure fails, there’s no reason to weigh in. If it passes, there’s time enough to determine whether it meets constitutional or statutory muster.

The release of a new round of previously denied legislative records that had been sought by various news agencies and government watchdogs seemed to be a summer rerun of the previous showdown when lawmakers were holding back records claiming an exemption from the state Public Records Act. In truth, it’s not a rerun but a sequel – sort of Open-Government Nose-Thumbing 2.0, with a yet-untested theory that they have a constitutional privilege to withhold certain records that are part of the “deliberative process.”

Nose-Thumbing 1.0 was generated by a legal challenge mounted by the Associated Press, The Spokesman-Review and other news organizations. It resulted in the state Supreme Court telling legislators they are not exempt from the Public Records Act and have to comply with records requests. That prompted some lawmakers to complain about the burden or argue that the justices don’t understand the law. The former no doubt caused every local government forced to meet the law since 1973 to guffaw; the latter was a somewhat difficult position to defend in a system where the job of interpreting the law falls to folks in black robes sitting behind benches, not people in business attire sitting at rows of desks.

A recent ruling from the Supreme Court prompted a flashback to the aftermath of the 2020 gubernatorial election in which GOP candidate Loren Culp lost to Inslee by 545,000 votes, yet claimed to have won because Inslee benefited from some form of massive vote fraud.

In a lawsuit filed about a month after the election by his attorney Stephen Pidgeon, Culp claimed that thousands of ballots were cast by voters who were dead or no longer state residents; that some ballot-counting machines “were owned or controlled by foreign entity,” and demanding an audit in which all ballots would be recounted by hand.

Four weeks later, under the threat of legal sanctions for filing a meritless lawsuit, Pidgeon dropped the claim. But that wasn’t the end of it.

The state Democratic Party filed a complaint against Pidgeon with the state Bar Association for filing a baseless lawsuit, which suspended his license last year. This month, the Supreme Court recently upheld the decision to suspend his license for a year.

Pidgeon, who had been a go-to legal counselor for many far-right clients and causes, voluntarily resigned from the Washington bar last year and has no plans to practice law in the state anymore. Tracked down in Alaska, where he now lives by colleague Jim Brunner of the Seattle Times, Pidgeon said he’s happy and relieved to be away from the stress of law practice.