One of the eerier threads of our authoritarian trend line is local, not national: The arrival of the "constitutional sheriff," who is sharp contrast to the actual constitution believes that he is above every law. No one outranks the county sheriff, some of them will say.
Most sheriffs are not part of this movement, but a significant number are. A book, The Highest Law in the Land: How the Unchecked Power of Sheriffs Threatens Democracy, written by Jessica Pishko and published last September, outines the growth of the movement, as extreme as anything hanging around national politics (I can recommend reading the book). It's especially endemic (though not limited to) rural western counties.
A summary of the book says, "In recent years there’s been a revival of “constitutional sheriffs,” who assert that their authority supersedes that of legislatures, courts, and even the president. They’ve protested federal mask and vaccine mandates and gun regulations, railed against police reforms, and, ultimately, declared themselves election police, with many endorsing the “Big Lie” of a stolen presidential election. They are embraced by far-right militia groups, white nationalists, the Claremont Institute, and former president Donald Trump, who sees them as allies in mass deportation and border policing."
But guardrails can be placed on the office of sheriff, which is why a new bill in the Washington legislature is of note.
The website InvestigateWest two months ago reported on Klickitat County Sheriff Bob Songer who had gathered a posse - actually, since the group numbers more than 100, something much more than that. The old tradition is that posses would help hunt down criminals, but that's been less common in recent generations. Volunteers deputized by sheriffs in more recent times have often helped with crowd controls and search and rescues. Songer's apparently goes well beyond that.
The new Washington state legislation, House Bill 399, is aimed at limiting what these non-professional deputies can do. It provides some eligibility requirements, limits their use and a little more tightly describes what a sheriff and his deputies can do.
When the bill came up for committee hearing, almost three dozen people turned up to testify, and nearly all were in favor.
One Klicketat resident, Michelle Nijhuis, said “This large core of volunteers, while it’s intended to increase public safety, the wide variety of training and experience levels has in fact created more fear and distrust of local law enforcement within our communities, and it’s undermined law enforcement’s ability to protect us.”
It's a limited step, but it does send a useful message. We all cam use some guardrails, and law enforcement needs them especially. Most sheriffs probably don't need the reminder. But some evidently do.
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