Ep. 11 They Didn’t Ask For Slack Chats

[AI VO] (0:00 - 0:31)

Before we start, a quick heads up. Some of the voices you'll hear reading documents in this podcast are AI-generated, but the words are real. They come straight from public records, produced by real people inside government.

Further, if you're a public employee who's been asked to bend the rules, or if you've seen something that just doesn't sit right, we want to hear from you, confidentially, off the record. Your identity stays with us. You can reach out to us at contact at thepublicrecordsofficer.com.

[AI VO] (0:36 - 0:45)

You're listening to the Public Records Officer podcast, where we fight for your right to know. Now, here's your host, Jamie Nixon.

[Nixon] (0:53 - 7:33)

Hello and welcome. This is the Public Records Officer podcast. I am your host, Jamie Nixon.

At the end of this episode, you're going to hear my conversation with Bill Lucia. Bill is the editor of the Washington State Standard, and we had a discussion about what I have called Governor Bob Ferguson's weird approach to reporting to the public about what he and his office is up to. Lucia has written a couple of pieces in the Standard that speaks to this phenomenon, so please stick around for that.

But first, an update. In the last episode, I told you about the records request that I had submitted with WaTech for copies of the DAUG meeting recordings, the eDiscovery Accelerator User Group meetings. As part of that request, I also requested the meeting notes, and most importantly for our purposes here, the live chats that occurred during those meetings.

As you may recall, WaTech claimed to have produced the live dog meeting chats for this request, but what they actually sent were meeting recordings with maybe a couple of tiny accidental glimpses of the chat window across hours of footage. Not exported chats, not production. Here's the update.

As of October 17th, WaTech has now formally closed the request and gone on record claiming, quote, live meetings and chats were provided, unquote, and that they, quote, run alongside the recording, unquote. This is not true. It is factually incorrect.

Across more than 20 meetings, the chats appear only in brief accidental on-screen moments in just two videos for a total of maybe two minutes each of those videos. And perhaps most importantly, for my purposes, they weren't sent as exports. You can export those chats.

Were they going to have me like read them off the screen and like, transcribe them? No.

Then they also tried to explain the absence of such chats on nine of the videos without identifying which nine those were by saying it was, quote, reasonable to assume the transcript function wasn't enabled, unquote.

Transcript and chat are not really the same thing. A transcript not being enabled does not delete a chat. If you had chats going in all those meetings, those chats either exist or those chats were destroyed.

That's it. They exist or they were destroyed. But then comes the tell.

WaTech then informs me that any further clarification will now be routed through their communications team and not the public records office. Translation of that is this. They closed it.

The one-year clock is now running, and they are moving the conversation out of the PRA lane and into PR handling, public relations, right? So for the record, WATECH has closed that request while falsely asserting that the live chats were produced and that contradiction is now locked in place. They are stuck with it.

That leaves me with some solid legal options to consider. I will update you further as circumstances warrant. Things to look for in upcoming episodes.

We are going to talk about legislative privilege. That fight is heading back to court in a couple of important appeals cases. I haven't touched much on this topic as the audit deletions matter has a bit more day-to-day action, so to speak.

However, oral arguments in Arthur West's appeal of the privilege ruling are scheduled for December 4th in Tacoma. And I'm going to interview Arthur for a dedicated episode on that matter. And oral arguments in the legislative privilege case in which WashCOG is my co-plaintiff is now scheduled for January 29th.

In those episodes, I will give you some background. I may bring Shauna Sowersby in for some of that as well. She did some terrific work digging into the history of the Washington state legislature's long-term commitment to trying to work in secret.

Another important upcoming segment will be on the AG's model rules. Attorney General Nick Brown has now proposed changes to the model rules under the Public Records Act. While nothing in his proposal is overtly harmful, I think the proposals that he gave out are actually pretty good overall.

It is also kind of a missed opportunity, I think. Model rules could have addressed some of the very evasive practices we have covered here on the show. Instead, they sidestepped those.

This one will probably be next as there are some quickly arriving deadlines on this matter. But I have put a link into the show notes and on this episode's transcript to the AG's website where the proposed changes to the model rules can be found so that you can take a look and chime in on those as you will.

And with all that as a backdrop, this week we have a fresh example of the culture that drives all of this straight from the office of the insurance commissioner.

Every journalist, citizen, or investigator chasing records in Washington eventually hits a wall that feels very familiar. It's a wall made of semantics, red tape, and a healthy dose of selective amnesia. You know, the trick is kind of simple.

It's about the wording of your request, right? If you don't say the magic words the right way, they're not going to look for it. I got more evidence of that this week, courtesy of an email thread between Aaron Cuoio of WA Tech and Kelly Cairns, the public records officer at the office of the insurance commissioner or the OIC.

The thread dates to August 29th, 2023, which is the same day as the now infamous meeting where Aaron Cuoio set the tone for the state's approach to public records handling. What's the state's model again, Aaron?

[Cuoio]

Get it gone.

[Nixon]

Right, right, right. Cairns had just returned from vacation to find a records request from Sowersby waiting for her. It requests for seven days of the OIC's team chats.

Here's an AI generated reading. Here's an AI generated reading of what she writes in the email to Cuoio.

[AI VO] (7:33 - 7:41)

What is the most efficient way to put a hold on these so we don't lose any or any more? I'm afraid last Mondays are probably gone already.

[Nixon] (7:41 - 13:31)

This is an important thing to pause and think about for a second. That is a public records officer of an independently elected executive branch office. Someone legally responsible for preserving records, admitting she doesn't know how to stop her own agency's records from self-destructing.

[Cuoio]

Get it gone.

[Nixon]

This is over two years into implementation of the seven day policy. Weeks later, on October 13th, 2023, Sowersby publishes her first story about the deletion scandal and it includes a line quote, a request from the Washington State Office of the Insurance Commissioner yielded no work related material.

Now, the reason this is an important detail to include in that story, if you remember, the agencies were not supposed to put work related materials into Teams, into the Teams chats as it is an automatically deleted space, right?

So it appeared that OIC was at least being compliant to that and Sowersby wanted to acknowledge that compliance. However, now we know why they didn't have any work related materials in those Teams chats.

It's because they were using Slack instead. Yet another instant messaging platform where public records can be made to disappear at will. And in that same August 29th email chain, after confessing confusion about Teams retention, Karen adds

[AI VO]

We got lucky that our primary IM is Slack and the requester didn't ask for that.

She finishes that proverbial sigh of relief with a nice little wink emoji, a wink emoji that serves to essentially say, no sweat, Aaron, we got over on that state government reporter, didn't we?

[Cuoio]

Get it gone.

[Nixon] 

That wink isn't cute.

It's not funny. It's a confession. It's an expression of relief that scrutiny and accountability were successfully avoided.

Well played. And to be clear, this isn't an isolated thing. I mean, we have documents showing that the Department of Corrections was only searching text messages when a requester explicitly said to search text messages.

We have a chat message out of the Department of Children, Youth, and Families referring to a search on a request they were working that says, quote, didn't specify Teams. So we didn't do a team search. Unquote.

It appears the rule across agencies is the same. If you didn't name the platform, they probably didn't search it. Add deletion to this formula and you don't just lose records.

You deny the people the transparency and accountability they deserve. And this is why the seven day deletion scandal still matters. It's not about retention.

It's about intent. Delete faster, look narrower, and call it efficiency. Washington loves to brag about modernization, but what we're seeing here isn't modernization.

This is evasion via better software. So a little advice. If you're going to file a records request moving forward, you must now include a sentence that sounds something like this.

This request includes but is not limited to all emails, text messages, Microsoft Teams chats, Slack messages, and any other communication platforms used by the agency. Because you won't know which ones they're using. They use Jabber, Yammer, text messages, Teams chats. Some of them were using Zoom and Skype chats until recently. If you don't use language like this, many agencies will not search whatever platforms they may be using. They still may not search them.

But if you end up having to take them to court and you use this kind of language, you will be putting them in a position to prove that they conducted a dutiful search. That's the position you want to be in. The most frustrating part about this is it just goes to show that the transparency system in Washington is not broken.

It's working exactly as designed to keep accountability at bay. 

And now to the interview. As mentioned at the top, Bill Lucia is the editor of the Washington State Standard.

He, like me, and like the reporters who recently sat with Sarah Bernard for Cascade PBS's excellent podcast, Northwest Reports, have grown increasingly concerned with a governor who has shown no willingness to talk to the press about his work. It is my ardent belief that while it may not be codified in law, governors, presidents, executives at the highest level of government have an obligation to report to the people through the press what they're doing. Bob Ferguson obviously feels he has no such responsibility.

Bill and I discussed this phenomenon and why it matters. Real quick aside, audio quality here isn't totally up to my standard. I had last second failing with my setup and had to work off my webcam microphone, so not ideal.

But the discussion is still very much worth listening to.

[Nixon] 

My guest today is Bill Lucia, editor of the Washington State Standard. Bill has spent some time recently chronically in a concerning shift in Olympia, one where Governor Bob Ferguson was known for his public-facing energy as Attorney General, now seems to prefer operating behind closed doors.

From his August piece, Where's Bob Ferguson? to his recent column, Known Unknowns in Bob Ferguson's Olympia, Bill's been documenting the administration's increasingly tight grip on information. Bill, thanks for joining me.

I know you've been watching this closely. When did you first realize that Ferguson's approach to transparency was different from what we've seen from the last few governors?

[Lucia] (13:32 - 15:06)

Yeah, thanks for having me, Jamie. I think we really noticed the shift pretty close out of the gate. I mean, I will say during the session, the governor tended to be a little more available just because of some of the issues going on there with the budget, etc.

He was coming out and doing press conferences and so forth. But even in that era, I think it was difficult to get him to take positions on things. And there was a sense that he was certainly kind of a somewhat cagey figure when it came to his views on things like tax policy and so forth.

So it would kind of be like, there'd be a press conference, he'd come out, say his talking points, and didn't really want to go beyond that. Once the session ended, though, and this is kind of part of what led up to the Where's Bob Ferguson column and the Where's the Governor feature in our Saturday newsletters, it seemed like a lot of day-to-day communication with his office became really bogged down, difficult, and we weren't getting schedule updates on where he'd be, that kind of thing. And we're caught off guard at different times when he was popping up different places.

So I would say spring, summer was when it really set in that I think we were dealing with a different mode of operating in terms of how the governor was going to interact with the press and communicate.

[Nixon] (15:07 - 16:06)

It does seem, it's funny because I'm trying to remember back when he was Attorney General, because he was obviously very public-facing because he was doing a lot of lawsuits against the Trump administration during the first Trump admin. And I'm trying to remember how many questions he took, but it almost kind of seems to be a very different thing doing an Attorney General press conference versus a governor press conference. As a governor, you have to speak sometimes to so many different issues, whereas Attorney General, you're probably speaking to the current issue at hand, the one issue, you probably have some level of mastery over it.

Even though when he was at, as AG, I'm not sure it was that functionally different in some ways, except for the expectations of what an AG is supposed to offer. In Where's Governor Bob Ferguson, you described the governor stopped releasing full schedules and even skipped notifying the press about out-of-state trips. Has the governor's office offered any justification for withholding schedules beyond security?

And what do you think the motivation is? Is this caution, message discipline or something else?

[Lucia] (16:07 - 16:53)

I don't really know. I mean, I can't speak for them. I mean, I will say they have improved in terms of getting schedules out somewhat compared to where we were earlier in the year.

I mean, that being said, I mean, we still get schedules with pretty big gaps on them and the governor's still going places and doing things that aren't necessarily on the schedule. You know, I don't know. I don't have a good answer for you on that.

I think we would have to ask somebody in the governor's office, and I'm not quite sure what they would say. They have referenced security concerns at least one time recently in terms of disclosing information about where he'd gone, that kind of thing. But yeah, in general, I don't have a good explanation for it.

[Nixon] (16:55 - 18:10)

Yeah, the security concerns, I mean, I don't want to minimize those certainly, but I just don't recall that being a problem with other governors. They have security. The Washington State Patrol is charged with the governor's security.

I'm sure they take care of the residents or anything like that. So that seems to be one that I'm not sure how much, I mean, I don't want to say it's nothing, but I'm not exactly sure how much weight we ought to give to it. Early on in the session in his term within the first month, Seattle Times reported on internal memos requiring agencies to clear interviews and press releases through the governor's comms team.

Have you seen that chill like trickle down in your interaction with agencies? I was a public information officer for the Department of Health during COVID when COVID started. And when I first heard about that, I was pretty surprised and a little concerned because it's one thing to just run a check, but I mean, I know that we were charged with knowing when to do that.

We were trained, educated. We have experienced people. We're supposed to know something rises to governor level eyes and when it doesn't, knowing that almost all external communications from the big agencies is going through there seemed really concerning.

Have you seen a weird trickle down of things slowing down or what has been the outcome you've seen of that?

[Lucia] (18:11 - 20:02)

Yeah, absolutely. I think we have seen the effects of it. I mean, our understanding is that that policy is still in place where at least a lot of, if not all of agency communication with the press needs to be routed through the governor's office before giving a response.

I mean, the effect of it has been as it just bogs down the pace of getting information to the public. And just to sort of zoom out for a minute, I mean, a lot of the frictions or difficulties we've encountered, I mean, this isn't blowing the lid off some big scandal or something. I mean, this is just the sort of day-to-day flow of information between government and the public.

And a lot of the work that the press does, or at least a daily news operation like ours, I mean, that's the role that we're in. That's the role that we're in. You know what I mean?

We're trying to move that information through the pipeline and let people know about what the government's doing. So, yeah, I mean, we've seen delays to inquiries. We've seen inquiries go unanswered, that kind of thing.

And I can't speak for the folks at the agencies, but I imagine it's got to be a little bit, it's got to feel a little bit micromanaging, I guess, to have the governor's office sort of wading in in that way and kind of taking control over how you're interacting with the press. I mean, the flip side of it, though, of course, is, you know, the governor answers for the agencies at the end of the day. So, you know, that would be the case for taking a, you know, taking tighter control over their communication.

I mean, that being said, if you're going to take that approach, I think you need the infrastructure in your office to be able to do it efficiently. And I don't think we've seen that.

[Nixon] (20:03 - 20:46)

Yeah, I agree. That was one of the things that, you know, talking with a reporter about it as well. Well, I hope that they're hiring up in the governor's office to handle the volume, because that's a lot of volume.

Now, it'd be one thing if they just said, hey, send it to us before you send it out. We would trust your judgment to send it out, you know, like, you know, just make sure we get a copy, which we always copy them on everything anyway, before. So, this one just seemed really, again, some of this stuff, it just feels weird, like unnecessarily strange.

And I just, you know, I'm just not, I'm curious if he thinks that this is, if this is a strategy he feels in some way is serving him and the people he's serving, because to me, it seems to me like the people of Washington aren't being served well by this tight grip and control over information. I was wondering what you think of that.

[Lucia] (20:48 - 21:53)

Yeah, I mean, I think some of it, some of it probably goes back to what you were talking about before. I mean, the AG's office is a more, it's a, you know, it's a narrower world to operate in, in a narrower, you know, role, you know, in terms of the leadership role that the Attorney General's, the Attorney General has, you know. So, some of it could be making a transition from, you know, managing an agency like that to, you know, being governor where you're overseeing the whole, you know, broad scope of all these agencies.

I, you know, I honestly, I don't know what to make of it. I, it's the way that the governor's operating. I can't, again, I don't want to speculate as to why, but it's, you know, it's clear that they definitely favor an approach where the flow of day-to-day information to the press is more tightly restricted and controlled and routed through their office as opposed to delegating to the agencies and, you know, letting them sort of handle it in the way that they think is best.

[Nixon] (21:54 - 22:03)

You wrote that Ferguson's meeting recently with statewide elected officials looked more like spectacle than governing. I was wondering if you could explain to me a little bit more what you meant by that.

[Lucia] (22:04 - 24:11)

Well, you know, we've had these issues that we've been talking about with the, you know, the difficulties getting, you know, getting questions answered, inquiries answered, you know, getting the governor, you know, having the governor available at press conference, open, you know, press conferences where we can, you know, ask any variety of questions as opposed to more scripted ones. And, you know, I think the messaging that came out of that meeting, which, you know, we tried to get a little information on that meeting in advance, didn't really make much headway on that. And, you know, and then in the end, the governor ended up, you know, tweeting out and posting on Facebook some of, some of what they talked about.

And it was, you know, it was largely oriented around the state's, you know, the state's clashes with the federal government and the Trump administration. And, you know, I don't want to downplay that stuff. I mean, it's, it's definitely a big part of what the state is navigating at the moment. It's an important set of issues there. But it's also, you know, I mean, that is, you know, as I said in the piece, I mean, it's a core element of the governor's political platform. And so, you know, I think that's what I was trying to get at is it felt a little bit like he was taking this meeting, which was supposed to be, hey, I'm sitting down with the, you know, the statewide elected executives and turning it into something more, the way it was messaged had more of a political bent to it, I thought.

You know, and again, I don't know. I don't know what else they talked about in the room, because it wasn't open to press. I mean, we could have reported it out.

I mean, we could have, we could have called, you know, the statewide electeds and found out more about what got said. But, you know, again, I don't even know that it would have been, if what we could have got out of that would have been that compelling for the average reader. But the spectacle comment, that's what it was basically about, was just the fact that in the end, Ferguson, the information he put out on it, it was really oriented around this core part of his political platform.

[Nixon] (24:12 - 24:37)

Yeah, it came off to me as a bit of what I think I would phrase as like accountability theater. Look, we're doing this thing, and we're all talking about stuff. Okay, well, that's nice that you tell us that.

But if we don't, aren't able to access additional information and ask pertinent questions, you know, it'd have been nice to have like 20 minutes at the press with all those people in the room afterwards, you know, to say, hey, what'd you guys discuss? You know, there's this topic over here we think is important. Can we ask about that?

It's definitely lacking. [Lucia] (24:37 - 25:10)

A hundred percent. And I mean, I, you know, I said we didn't report it out, but I mean, let

me, you know, elaborate on that a little bit. I mean, if they, exactly, if they had had a press conference afterwards where everybody came out and, you know, they were there, we could ask some questions and got a sense of what went on.

We would have participated. We may have written something up on it, but I mean, I don't, you know, trying to gather string on what was said in that particular meeting, I don't think would have been a great use of our time if we had to run all the different people down to get comment. Yeah, so.

[Nixon] (25:11 - 25:58)

I've been big on the idea of, you know, I care greatly about the issues regarding legislative privilege and the auto deletions of teen's messages and just the auto deletions of public records in total. In February, he put a six-month suspension on that policy. We are now nearly two months past the end of that six months.

He hasn't commented at all about where we're at. We don't know if he's restarted it, if he hasn't restarted it. It seems to, there seems to be a pattern growing.

To me, part of the job is the requirement that you report to the people what's going on. You know, especially when you yourself set the dates and the deadlines. Have you guys ran into things like this where it's like, we have legitimate questions about legitimate issues that have been brought up and we can't get answers at all?

[Lucia] (25:59 - 27:11)

Yeah, I mean, all the time, I would say. I mean, I think that's another thing that frustrated me, like, for instance, with the messaging after that meeting the other day with the statewide elected officials, is that, you know, it was another example of the governor pivoting back toward talking about the Trump administration and federal policy largely. And, you know, a lot of the questions, again, I don't want to downplay the importance of that set of issues.

It is important for a whole variety of reasons. It's an important, you know, area that the governor and that the state are dealing with right now. That being said, I mean, we have, you know, a whole slate of questions we would love to ask the governor about, you know, what his approach will be around the budget and taxes and any number of other things heading into the 2026 legislative session.

And it's not, I mean, that's also a very pressing set of issues. I mean, the state is looking at another, you know, pretty tough outlook with its budget. And that's, you know, that's squarely in the land of state government.

That's not, you know, how did the tariffs trickle down and affect Washington state? You know, that's something that's very, you know, the very real thing that the state is dealing with in the near term.

[Nixon] (27:12 - 27:45)

You mentioned one of your pieces about, you know, there just also being fewer reporters in Olympia now than even 10 years ago. I know when I worked at the legislature, I started in 2013, I did five years there. And then I think we had, you know, we were down from about 30 at one point.

By the time I got there, I think we were around 15. And now I think we're down to like maybe less than 10, covering 147 members plus the governor during session. How does that shrinking press corps, how's that shaping the equation overall as far as accountability goes in Olympia?

[Lucia] (27:47 - 29:46)

Yeah, I mean, it definitely doesn't help to have less reporters around. We, you know, we're a team of, it's myself and three reporters. You know, more people, I think it's safe to say more people would be better in terms of, you know, improving accountability across state government.

You know, I don't really know what to say beyond that. It kind of is what it is in today's media environment. You know, so much has been said on the decline of the statehouse, you know, statehouse press corps around the country. I don't really know what else there is to say on it other than that, you know, it's not a great trend. I mean, I think, you know, we do have some advantages that journalists, you know, 30 years ago didn't have in terms of, you know, ways we can access information and things like that. So it does speed up some of the reporting.

But, you know, on the flip side of that, you know, I think, and I kind of got at this in the last piece a little bit that you've referenced, you know, we're operating in a different environment where we're politicians, we're people in power. I mean, they want to, you know, the messaging is very tightly controlled. I mean, they want to be able to do things like fire off a tweet or, you know, sorry, you know, post on X or blue sky, whatever.

You know, where they want to get their message out there and they don't want to have to, you know, if they can help it stand for questions from the press, and, you know, the era of, you know, reporters picking up the phone and calling somebody over the agency, and they hop on the phone and give you comment. That's largely gone. I mean, a lot of the communication that takes place between reporters and the government these days, it happens through layers of spokespeople, via email statements, you know, and so I don't know, I kind of drifted off from the original gist of your question.

[Nixon] (29:47 - 31:09)

No, that's okay. I think I'm picking up on that. So there used to be a symbiotic relationship, right?

So the press would really help, would rely on people in power to give them great material to put out, and they would rely on the press to put material out for them. And that there seems to, that filter seems to be gone now in some way. And the ability, and the press also served as somewhat of a fact filter in a lot of ways.

So stuff would go through the press, they would fact check, or at least, you know, proper journalists will fact check and make sure that they're putting out accurate information. And that certainly seems to have been lost in my mind as well. I did want to ask a little bit about the independent journalism thing that's happening, that podcast thing where people seem to be taking up the mantle as either citizen journalists, or sometimes something less than that.

I'll just say it that way. Last year, there was some conflict regarding credentialing certain independent journalists, as they probably call themselves, onto the legislative floor. And I spoke out against a certain couple of people, because I tend to believe that journalism still should be fact based.

And that while I don't have any problem with anybody taking the news of the day and putting their take out over a podcast, I do some of that as well. I try to keep mine as journalistically sound as possible and fact based as possible. Are we going to see more of those people getting that kind of credential to get on the floor to be official reporters at the Capitol?

[Lucia] (31:10 - 32:19)

You know, I think the conversation is still ongoing about what the credentialing process will look like. You know, I don't want to wade too far into the specific turmoil that happened last session. I think what it all speaks to is that, you know, there's a broader conversation going on across media and across the country right now about what, you know, who qualifies as a journalist in this day and age.

And, you know, it's an unsettled question. And, you know, as a result, deciding who gets credentialed or doesn't get credentialed, that can be a tough conversation. You know, I think the way that things played out this past session, the lawmakers ended up with, say, over credentialing in the end.

There were a number of reasons why that happened. But, you know, I think ideally credentialing would be moved back to the Correspondents Association. It's, you know, TBD, how that's all going to play out.

But yeah, it's, you know, the credentialing question, again, I think it just reflects this broader conversation that's going on that has no easy answers over who is a journalist today.

[Nixon] (32:21 - 32:25)

If you had 60 seconds alone with the governor, what was the first thing you'd want to talk to him about?

[Lucia] (32:27 - 33:27)

Right now, I would want to talk to him about the budget and tax policy and, you know, the legislative session that's coming up. I think those are some of the, you know, some of the key areas. You know, I would also, I would want to talk to him about his approach to governing.

It's, you know, some of the stuff we've talked about today in terms of, again, restricting the flow of information, for lack of a better way of describing it. You know, it's also, I think it's also reflected in how he conducted himself last session. I mean, a lot, it was very hard to know where he stood on a lot of things until the last minute.

I don't think that that was just an issue for the press. I think lawmakers in a number of circumstances felt the same way. So he has a very, you know, close to the vest, playing close to the vest style of governing.

And, you know, I would want to maybe ask him about that and talk about that a little bit, just like why he is choosing to take that approach. I mean, those are just a couple areas that jumped to mind, I guess.

[Nixon] (33:27 - 33:50)

There was that weird stuff that happened during session regarding some of his high-ranking legislative staff and his main guide, Mike Webb. I could see that maybe, you know, getting punched in the face a little bit like that could could daze you a bit and make you a little hesitant. I want him to be successful, as I want any governor to be successful for the Yeah, if I could just jump in.

[Lucia] (33:50 - 34:22)

I mean, report to the people. I mean, I think that's something else I think about is, you know, in my mind, for the governor to come out and have a press conference and take questions, you know, take off-the-cuff questions from members of the, you know, State House Press Corps, I just think that's part of the job. I mean, the governor's free to disagree with me on that.

But I mean, I think if you were to ask most people, they would sort of see that as part of the, you know, basic part of the job of being governor, so.

[Nixon] (34:22 - 34:38)

Yeah, I mean, it's not mandated in the Constitution or anything, but it is a freaking norm that every single other one of them has done. It's one of those things you feel like it shouldn't have to be a thing that is codified in any way. Most politicians can't wait to get in front of a camera.

They can't wait to, you know, to get some coverage, you know, good or bad these days, it seems like so.

[Lucia] (34:40 - 34:56)

Oh, no, I was gonna say, I mean, he does get in front of the camera. It just tends to be in circumstances where he can talk about the federal government and the Trump administration. And, you know, he's done a number of interviews with national media outlets talking about topics that, you know, tie back to those areas.

[Nixon] (34:56 - 34:57)

Yes, that's true, he has.

[Lucia] (34:57 - 35:02)

You know, so I think it just, he's being very selective in terms of how he puts himself out there.

[Nixon] (35:04 - 35:13)

Well, Bill, I want to thank you for coming on and discussing this stuff with me. I look forward to your continuing coverage on it. If people want to get their own look at your work, where could they find that?

[Lucia] (35:14 - 35:36)

Yeah, it's WashingtonStateStandard.com. You can find all of our work there on the website. You can also subscribe to our newsletters, which go out six days a week.

Our Saturday newsletter is kind of a roundup of the news of the week. And yeah, and I would say, especially during the legislative session, we, I think we were filling a pretty important role here in Olympia at the moment, so.

[Nixon] (35:37 - 35:41)

I agree wholeheartedly. I'm grateful for your guys' work and thank you so much for coming on. I appreciate you giving me your time.

[Lucia] (35:42 - 35:42)

All right, yeah, thanks.

[Nixon] (35:44 - 36:04)