State admits redistricting commissioner deleted texts, court documents show
A commissioner appointed by the House Democratic Caucus to the Washington State Redistricting Commission deleted texts from her personal phone, the state admitted in Thurston County Superior Court filings Thursday.
The admission from the state was in response to a lawsuit filed against the 2021 Redistricting Commission by Arthur West, an Olympia resident and open government advocate. West filed suit against the commission in August for withholding and destroying text messages, a violation under the state Public Records Act.
The Washington State Redistricting Commission and the state of Washington were both named as defendants in the lawsuit.
While the state objected to the assertion that any public records were withheld from those who requested them, and denied the assertion that records were destroyed after West filed the public records request, the state acknowledged that prior to West’s request, “Commissioner (April) Sims deleted from her personal cellular phone text messages between her and (1) Osta Davis; (2) Dominique Myers; and (3) Davis and Myers together.”
Sims was among the commissioners appointed to the bipartisan commission for the 2021 redistricting process. Davis was Sims’ Chief of Staff while with the commission, and Myers is the House Democrats’ Chief of Staff. Sims is currently the secretary treasurer of the Washington State Labor Council, AFL-CIO.
The state claimed that the now-deleted texts were not responsive to West’s request and called the interrogatory “irrelevant to any party’s claims or defenses, unduly burdensome, unlikely to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence, and not proportional to the needs of the litigation.”
In 2015, the Washington State Supreme Court unanimously affirmed that “records that an agency employee prepares, owns, uses, or retains on a private cell phone within the scope of employment can be ‘public records’ of the agency.”
In West’s complaint, he alleges that the Redistricting Commission committed a series of violations and that Redistricting Commissioners “deliberately failed to make a reasonable search, and further acted in bad faith with ulterior motives to conceal offensive, ribald, and politically damaging records and information.”
Additionally, the lawsuit further alleged that the Redistricting Commission “failed to make a reasonable estimate for disclosure, failed to reasonably disclose responsive records, failed to conduct an adequate search, and has silently withheld records in the absence of an adequate privilege log.”
In March, Lisa McLean, the executive director for the Redistricting Commission, admitted to Crosscut news that Commissioner Sims had deleted texts from her personal phone before a public records request was submitted seeking those messages. McLean also admitted that some of the texts in response to requests were withheld. But Sims has yet to publicly acknowledge the deletion.
Others have decided to pursue action against the commission as well.
A lawsuit was filed by a former commission staffer as recently as Nov. 15, exactly a year after state commissioners failed to adopt the redistricting map in time for their deadline. The first hearing on that lawsuit is scheduled on Dec. 9 in Thurston County Superior Court.
The Redistricting Commission meets once every 10 years to redraw legislative and congressional districts, and the Legislature is charged with appointing the four commissioners. In addition to Sims, the other members were Paul Graves, a former state representative from Maple Valley; Joe Fain, a former Republican Senator and President and CEO of the Bellevue Chamber; and Brady Piñero Walkinshaw, the CEO of Grist, a leading national environmental media organization. Sarah Augustine, executive director of the Dispute Resolution Center of Yakima and Kittitas Counties, chaired the commission.
In February, the Redistricting Commission admitted to breaking the law when it conducted the redrawing of state districts secretly, and without any public deliberation. The commission came to a settlement agreement by adopting rules that would prevent them from conducting the process behind closed doors in the future.
This story was originally published December 2, 2022 at 2:29 PM.
