President Jon opened the meeting at Seattle #4 Rotary’s new home, the Washington Athletic Club, followed by Linda Rough, accompanied by guest violinist, Dr. Sue Erber, leading the day’s song, ‘America the Beautiful’. Larry Granat recognized the passing of long time Rotarian and founder of Music4Life, David Endicott, with a moment of silence.

 

Following five minutes of ‘table talk,’ President Jon introduced the day’s featured speaker, Washington State Attorney General, Nick Brown, who took the reins of the state’s largest ‘law firm’ in January. He described the office as representing all the people in Washington State, with 830 attorneys supported by 900 professional staff providing policy, legislative and legal assistance as needed. Washington’s AG Office is second only to California in size.

 

“Everyday when I come to work, everything we do matters,” he said. As U.S. Attorney, Western District of Washington, “I had respect and admiration for the people and work that really mattered, now in this job we represent all people in Washington State and advocate on their behalf.”

 

“We are in a crisis today. We are tasked with protecting our people from the President of the United States,” he said. Protecting people from unconstitutional acts including our state’s challenging protection for birthright citizenship, public employees as victims of irrational attacks among man other illegal acts. The President cannot do illegal things, he continued, as an Executive Order is like a memorandum not a law, cannot break the law and has resulted in our state’s joining in 20 cases so far against the federal government.

 

He said every case brought we brought against the federal government’s illegal actions impacts people in Washington State, citing WSU and UW research grant suspensions that will not only inhibit life-saving research, but whole communities as people are laid off or fired.

 

Of the three branches of government, only the judicial system appears poised to uphold the constitution as the Congress has turned over control to the Executive. “The Department of Justice was formed to protect Americans and to see what is happening now to the department just makes me angry,” he concluded. He said organizations like Rotary are important and help inform communities, encouraging everyone to know something about their elected representatives and not neglect state and local governments, “because that’s where the rubber meets the road.”   

 

-Thank you Pete for catching all the action live and reporting out this week!