Scott St. Clair: Should Washington St. Senator Maralyn Chase be Flogged for Introducing This Wash Out of a Bill?

January 17, 2012

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Car Wash Police Chief

Sometimes what they do or say goes beyond the pale. Outrageous stupidity in word or deed that cannot be taken seriously without dignifying the underlying lunacy is such that the only appropriate response is to consider resorting to the lash.

Should the offending idiot be flogged?
Car Wash Offender

In this case, it’s Washington state Sen. Maralyn Chase, D-Edmonds (pictured left), who has introduced Senate Bill 5777, a measure so patently absurd that citizens everywhere should be manning the barricades with pitchforks and torches to prevent any progress on it while others assemble a goodly supply of tar and feathers for just administration upon its sponsor.

SB 5777 effectively outlaws charitable fund-raising car washes, and criminalizes violations of the impossible-to-meet requirements to have one.
Gone are those Saturday morning events at the local gas station or parking lot that benefit the cheerleading squad, Girl Scout camp, the junior high pep band, the church youth group, Little League or anyone else looking to raise funds for activities that find it harder and harder to get funding in the first place.
Car Wash. Stop the Madness!

Additionally, one more wholesome activity that teaches kids the value and reward of work goes, if you will, down the drain.
The bill demonizes “outdoor car washing” by claiming all sorts of environmental hazards result from it. In reading the bill’s catalogue of horrors, you would think car washes are the second coming of the Exxon Valdez or the BP – Gulf of Mexico disaster. Charitable car wash efforts will, under the bill, be required to use biodegradable soap, wash cars only on water-permeable surfaces (how many gas stations are built on grass?), block off storm drains, capture all used car-wash water and pump it into a sanitary sewer drain or onto grass or landscaping and other nonsensical requirements.
You Have the Right to Remain Silent

Since you can’t make this stuff up, here’s the criminal part direct from the bill: “A person found in violation of section 2 of this act must serve a minimum of six hours of community service related to storm water education.”

What’s the maximum punishment – life without parole? Will an alleged offender receive a jury trial with state-provided counsel?    Miranda warnings to be offered? (Hat tip to Bellevue, WA attorney Richard Pope for raising these questions.)
Haz Mat Needed for Car Wash?

And specially deputized Kar Wash Kops – I can hear them now: “All you kids put down those hoses, buckets and rags, then up against the wall, feet back and spread ‘em. Book ‘em, Danno – First Degree Car Wash!”

Adding insult to injury, each May, the bill requires each public school to teach the evils of car washing as storm water pollution. It’s not as though public education in Washington state doesn’t have enough troubleswithout adding this drivel. Add to reading, writing and arithmetic “car wash etiquette.”
Car Wash Offender

The 2012 session of the Legislature is scheduled to run 60-days. On the agenda are serious issues dealing with budget shortfalls, tax increases and even the thorny issue of gay marriage. Yet the honorable lady from the 32ndDistrict wishes to burden her august assembly and the taxpayers of Washington state who pay for it all by clogging the process with the question of outlawing charitable car washes and criminalizing those who don’t toe the mark.

Should Sen. Maralyn Chase, D-Edmonds, be flogged?
Tell ’em where you saw it. Http://www.victoriataft.com