Today's headlines:
- A controversial bill restricting citizen initiatives died in the Washington Senate Tuesday.
- Spokane mayor Lisa Brown wants to prohibit federal immigration agencies from building a detention center in Spokane.
- Kootenai County rebuffs Spokane Transit Authority's proposal for a pilot bus route from Spokane Valley to Post Falls.
- Washington governor Bob Ferguson requests $180 million in federal disaster relief funds.
Washington State Standard's Jerry Cornfield explains the multi-year drama, the newly unearthed memo, and what an Ohio-based hunting group has to do with it.
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SPR News Today is a production of Spokane Public Radio.
Reporting contributed by Owen Henderson, Eliza Billingham, Doug Nadvornick and Jerry Cornfield.
SPR News Today is hosted and produced by Owen Henderson with digital support from Eliza Billingham.
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TRANSCRIPT
[THEME MUSIC]
OWEN HENDERSON: From Spokane Public Radio, it’s SPR News Today.
I’m Owen Henderson. It’s Wednesday, February 18, 2026.
On today’s show, Washington won’t tighten restrictions on the process to put a citizen initiative on the ballot.
Plus, Kootenai County officials are shooting down the idea of a public transit collaboration with Spokane.
And the Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission is in hot water—again. We have the latest development in a years-long saga of ethics and transparency complaints.
Those stories and more, coming up on SPR News Today.
[FADE OUT THEME]
Washington won’t be changing its citizen initiative structure this year.
A controversial bill that would’ve increased the hurdles to get a measure on the ballot died yesterday in the state Senate after failing to pass a legislative deadline.
Some Democrats wanted to ban the pay-per-signature structure used by many aiming to bring initiatives to lawmakers or voters.
Michael Cecil teaches constitutional law at Gonzaga University.
He says a 1993 state law did the same thing—and then was struck down by the court.
MICHAEL CECIL: “It's very likely you would have a First Amendment challenge raising very similar arguments that changing this pay structure does actually infringe upon political speech, money being considered speech in our current political climate and kind of legal climate. So I would imagine it would face the same legal challenges as in the ’90s.”
OH: Proponents of the bill argue the current pay structure incentivizes “aggressive and misleading tactics” among signature gatherers.
The measure also would’ve added an extra signature requirement for initiative backers.
Opponents like former Republican Secretary of State Sam Reed had called the proposal a “voter suppression bill.”
Let’s Go Washington founder Brian Heywood, who has brought a number of ballot measures to the legislature and voters, celebrated the bill’s demise, calling the proposal “shameless and arrogant.”
Two of Heywood’s initiatives, which deal with transgender athletes and parental rights, appear likely to go before voters this fall.
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City leaders are trying to block the Department of Homeland Security from creating detention centers in Spokane.
Mayor Lisa Brown introduced an emergency ordinance yesterday to prohibit any private property from being leased as a detention center.
She says the move is a direct response to federal immigration agencies’ aggressive expansion across the country.
According to documents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the agency has listed Spokane and Coeur d’Alene as target expansion cities.
The ordinance would not prohibit leases for ICE offices.
If the ordinance passes, it would go into effect immediately and remain in effect for a year.
Then it would be officially adopted into the city’s Comprehensive Plan.
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Spokane Transit Authority recently proposed a pilot bus route between Spokane Valley and the City of Post Falls.
Kootenai County Commissioners have refused even to meet about it.
Commissioner Bruce Mattare told SPR his constituents aren’t at all interested in connecting with Eastern Washington’s urban hub.
Commissioner Marc Eberlein conveyed that strain of public sentiment in yesterday’s meeting, and Mattare agreed.
MARC EBERLEIN: “Leave Spokane in Spokane.”
BRUCE MATTARE: “Yup. So, there ya go.”
OH: STA’s proposal reports more people travel from Kootenai County to work in Spokane County than the other way around.
But without a partner in North Idaho, no public transit collaboration can move forward.
STA Board members will discuss the reaction at their meeting tomorrow afternoon.
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Washington is asking the federal government for more than $180 million to repair and replace infrastructure damaged by December’s flooding.
Governor Bob Ferguson says the disaster declaration to the Federal Emergency Management Agency could cover up to three-quarters of what the state spends.
FERGUSON: “So that would include the kind of things you'd expect. Clearing debris, repairing damage to roads, bridges, public buildings, public utilities, water control facilities, parks, and more. This historic flooding resulted in, we believe, the largest dollar amount of public infrastructure damage in Washington state in more than four decades.”
OH: Ferguson says the state is also asking FEMA for money to build infrastructure to prevent future floods, like the retaining wall that saved Mount Vernon from disaster.
It’s also applying for funds from the Federal Highway Administration to fix flood-damaged roads.
[SHORT MUSIC BED]
Washington's Fish and Wildlife Commission is once again under scrutiny for allegations of ethics and transparency law violations by some commissioners.
A previously undisclosed memo from 2025 suggests two current commissioners were coordinating with a conservation group.
Here with the latest on a saga involving two separate ethics probes is Jerry Cornfield. He covers state government and politics for the Washington State Standard, and he's been following this story.
Thanks for being here, Jerry.
JERRY CORNFIELD: Thanks for having me.
OH: So before we get into the newly unearthed memo, why don't you set a bit of a baseline for us? Why has the Fish and Wildlife Commission been in hot water for the past couple of years?
JC: Well, it really dates back almost five years. The commission had a months-long debate about whether or not to allow hunting of bears in the spring, and sort of the recreational hunting.
The decision after several votes was 5-4 to approve in November 2022 a ban on spring hunting, recreational hunting of bears.
At that point, the Sportsman's Alliance, a group out of Ohio, was upset and disagreed with the decision. They started looking into and requesting records of the Fish and Wildlife Commission, and that public records requests thousands of records over a couple of years, a lawsuit throughout.
They have been pressing this argument that the commissioners ahead of that vote didn't follow all the rules that they were meeting and talking about it ahead of time, out of the public eye.
So the Sportsman's Alliance has kept their target on them for almost five years trying to showcase this issue.
OH: So the latest memo that the Washington State Standard found through their own records request is a pretty scathing assessment of two of the current commissioners and one former commissioner. What does the memo say?
JC: It accused the two commissioners that are still there, Lorna Smith and Melanie Rowland, of just not responding to public records requests, meeting repeatedly with members of Washington Wildlife First and others in the conservation community, and working, and essentially they used the word, that appeared to be colluding with those interests ahead of votes, ahead of making and developing a policy.
This report was done in May of 2025. It was done in a week and this person was a staff member of the Fish and Wildlife Agency. They had two boxes of public records.
So the response from the two commissioners and the leader of the Washington Wildlife First is that it was full of falsehoods, defamatory language, insinuations, because there just wasn't time in their argument to really go through and ask questions.
OH: It seems like the way that this memo was filed was a little out of the ordinary. What made this particular memo unusual?
JC: Well, this whole process has been unusual because it's a kind of an interesting calendar.
In August of 2025 was the first time anyone learned that the governor was actually looking into the behavior of commissioners.
He kind of acknowledged publicly, he had hired an investigator to look at many of these records the Sportsman's Alliance had received.
But those records were received and then they were actually shared months earlier with the governor.
He says in August, we're going to look into it. It turns out in May with this report, he had received lots of information two, three months earlier that there might be some concerns if he would want to look into it.
OH: And you touched on this a bit earlier, but the commissioners named in the memo and Washington Wildlife First, the conservation organization named, what have they said about the memo? What's their response been?
JC: Well, they've been obviously denying pretty much everything that's in this 10-page document. The director says, I made it available, provided commissioners an opportunity to look at all the records. And there are thousands of records.
They said they were never aware of this particular 10-page memo, but the commission chairman told me that he did see it last year. Apparently he didn't think much of it at the time.
So they're denying having had a chance to see it and respond to it. And now they are responding to it. And the leader of the Washington Wildlife First just happens to be an attorney.
So the comments to me last week were sort of essentially stay tuned. There's more to come on this.
OH: Well, speaking of the future, where do the investigations go from here?
JC: I think there's three things we're waiting for in the next few weeks or few months, depending. One is the governor, right? He's hired this company, paid them $64,000.
They were supposed to turn in their findings on February 13th. Now they've received an extension to March 13th, and then he'll review it if it arrives then and do something or do nothing, who knows.
And then we have back last May, 2025, the Sportsman's Alliance did send the governor a petition to remove these commissioners. He's not responded publicly to that or taken any action.
And then I think these commissioners and Washington Wildlife First is on the record having said, we want the director of the agency removed.
So I think we're going to see that conversation heat up again, and there'll be outside efforts and pressure on the governor to change the leadership of the Fish and Wildlife Agency.
OH: Jerry Cornfield is the state government and politics reporter for the Washington State Standard.
You can find his full story on the memo and more of his reporting on our website, spokanepublicradio.org.
Jerry, I'm sure we'll have you back to talk again when we get the latest from these investigations.
Thanks so much for your time though this morning.
JC: Thank you for having me.
[SHORT MUSIC BED]
OH: SPR News Today is a production of Spokane Public Radio.
Reporting today was contributed by Eliza Billingham, Doug Nadvornick, Jerry Cornfield and me, Owen Henderson.
I’m also your host and producer. Eliza Billingham provides digital support.
Thanks for listening.
It’s SPR.
