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3 WDFW Commissioners Receive Nod From Senate Committee
By Andy Walgamott April 25, 2025
A Washington state Senate committee gave three recently appointed Fish and Wildlife Commission members do-pass recommendations this morning.
It’s fairly unlikely that the full Senate will take up the nominations of Jim Anderson of Buckley, Molly Linville of Palisades and Victor Garcia of Anacortes for confirmation, but they can continue to serve in the meanwhile, and it’s one more affirmation that Governor Bob Ferguson’s picks are acceptable to the powers that be.
Voting in favor of a do-pass recommendation were Senators Mike Chapman (D-Port Angeles), Shelly Short (R-Addy), Ron Muzzall (R-Whidbey Island), Rebecca Saldaña (D-Seattle), Mark Schoesler (R-Ritzville), Sharon Shewmake (D-Bellingham) and Keith Wagoner (R-Sedro-Woolley).
While no nays were audible on the TVW broadcast as the four Democrat and four Republican members of the Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee in attendance this morning voted, subsequent records posted to the legislative website show that the member – vice chair, Senator Deborah Krishnadasan (D-Gig Harbor) – who made the motion to give each commissioner a do-pass recommendation also voted not to recommend them.
The do-pass recommendation came despite a pressure campaign from reformists still pissed that their candidates – Tim Ragen and Lynn O’Connor – were ditched by Governor Bob Ferguson earlier this year. He’d pulled their last-minute appointments by former Governor Jay Inslee and then launched an extended interview process that led to the reappointments of Anderson and Linville and appointment of Garcia.
This morning’s vote came after the committee heard from all three commissioners on Wednesday. The trio told senators their stories as they relate to Washington fish and wildlife and fielded questions from lawmakers. They did a pretty good job.
Reformists’ attacks on the committee and process did not go over well with its chair, Senator Chapman.
“This hearing is being held at my request and my request only,” Chapman said Wednesday. “No member, no other member of the committee – I think Ranking Member Short agreed to have this hearing – but it is a fulfillment of a promise that I made to the governor of the state of Washington. And as folks remember, at the very beginning of session, there were some nominees that had been delivered by the previous Governor Inslee. Governor Ferguson asked this committee not to hold hearings – his office – and then he requested in a formal letter to the Senate to return those nominees to governor’s office.”
“At that time, I made it clear to the members of the governor’s staff that should the governor appoint nominees – whoever they were, whether I knew them, didn’t know them, and in this case, I have no knowledge of any of these individuals – whoever was nominated would have a hearing before we adjourned if it was at any way possible. So this is a fulfillment of a commitment that I as the chair of this committee held. It is a commitment that I will continue to hold with Governor Ferguson’s office.”
“I do not weigh in on nominations. I do not work with the governor’s staff on who is nominated, nor do I think many, if any, of our committee members have. But it is a commitment that as the chair, and I think one of the issues over the years is that nominees had languished and not had hearings. And I don’t think that is inappropriate,” Chapman said.
Earlier this week, reformists also went after Governor Ferguson over Linville’s appointment, suing because she also served on the Palisades School District School Board. But on Thursday Linville stepped down from overseeing the 29-student, three-teacher Douglas County district.
“Rather than drag the school through the mud and clog up the courts with this lawsuit, I am choosing to step down,” Linville wrote in a resignation letter, according to the Spokane Spokesman-Review, which first reported the letter. Per the paper, she added she had “done nothing more wrong than volunteering my time to two entities.”
It will go down as tit for tat following the Sportsmen’s Alliance Foundation’s successful suit against Inslee and Commissioner Lorna Smith over her concurrent appointment to the Jefferson County Planning Commission. State law says that commissioners can’t hold two appointive positions at once.
But in Linville’s case, the hurt will go far, far deeper and affect a tiny rural community.
During her confirmation hearing Linville termed herself a “place-based person,” someone whose great grandmother and seven sons sailed, walked and took a wagon train from Germany to Central America to the Pacific to the Northwest to homestead in Lincoln County, where she grew up on the family’s farm.
After college, managing Conboy National Wildlife Refuge in Southcentral Washington and working on her master’s at WSU, she and her husband unexpectedly inherited his dad’s 100-year-old, 6,000-plus-acre ranch in lower Moses Coulee, where Palisades is located, and have made a successful go of keeping it running.
Along the way, Linville has also been involved in WDFW’s Wolf Advisory Group, where she received training on how to work on conservation conflicts and brought those skills to the Fish and Wildlife Commission.
She’ll have another chance to do that through the end of 2030, but it comes at a dear price for the kids and their parents in the coulee and Linville’s sense of place.
“I am pretty heart sick about it,” she stated this morning of having to step down from the school board.
This will go down as one of Washington Wildlife First’s stupidest moves.
By Andy Walgamott April 25, 2025
A Washington state Senate committee gave three recently appointed Fish and Wildlife Commission members do-pass recommendations this morning.
It’s fairly unlikely that the full Senate will take up the nominations of Jim Anderson of Buckley, Molly Linville of Palisades and Victor Garcia of Anacortes for confirmation, but they can continue to serve in the meanwhile, and it’s one more affirmation that Governor Bob Ferguson’s picks are acceptable to the powers that be.
Voting in favor of a do-pass recommendation were Senators Mike Chapman (D-Port Angeles), Shelly Short (R-Addy), Ron Muzzall (R-Whidbey Island), Rebecca Saldaña (D-Seattle), Mark Schoesler (R-Ritzville), Sharon Shewmake (D-Bellingham) and Keith Wagoner (R-Sedro-Woolley).
While no nays were audible on the TVW broadcast as the four Democrat and four Republican members of the Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee in attendance this morning voted, subsequent records posted to the legislative website show that the member – vice chair, Senator Deborah Krishnadasan (D-Gig Harbor) – who made the motion to give each commissioner a do-pass recommendation also voted not to recommend them.
The do-pass recommendation came despite a pressure campaign from reformists still pissed that their candidates – Tim Ragen and Lynn O’Connor – were ditched by Governor Bob Ferguson earlier this year. He’d pulled their last-minute appointments by former Governor Jay Inslee and then launched an extended interview process that led to the reappointments of Anderson and Linville and appointment of Garcia.
This morning’s vote came after the committee heard from all three commissioners on Wednesday. The trio told senators their stories as they relate to Washington fish and wildlife and fielded questions from lawmakers. They did a pretty good job.
Reformists’ attacks on the committee and process did not go over well with its chair, Senator Chapman.
“This hearing is being held at my request and my request only,” Chapman said Wednesday. “No member, no other member of the committee – I think Ranking Member Short agreed to have this hearing – but it is a fulfillment of a promise that I made to the governor of the state of Washington. And as folks remember, at the very beginning of session, there were some nominees that had been delivered by the previous Governor Inslee. Governor Ferguson asked this committee not to hold hearings – his office – and then he requested in a formal letter to the Senate to return those nominees to governor’s office.”
“At that time, I made it clear to the members of the governor’s staff that should the governor appoint nominees – whoever they were, whether I knew them, didn’t know them, and in this case, I have no knowledge of any of these individuals – whoever was nominated would have a hearing before we adjourned if it was at any way possible. So this is a fulfillment of a commitment that I as the chair of this committee held. It is a commitment that I will continue to hold with Governor Ferguson’s office.”
“I do not weigh in on nominations. I do not work with the governor’s staff on who is nominated, nor do I think many, if any, of our committee members have. But it is a commitment that as the chair, and I think one of the issues over the years is that nominees had languished and not had hearings. And I don’t think that is inappropriate,” Chapman said.
Earlier this week, reformists also went after Governor Ferguson over Linville’s appointment, suing because she also served on the Palisades School District School Board. But on Thursday Linville stepped down from overseeing the 29-student, three-teacher Douglas County district.
“Rather than drag the school through the mud and clog up the courts with this lawsuit, I am choosing to step down,” Linville wrote in a resignation letter, according to the Spokane Spokesman-Review, which first reported the letter. Per the paper, she added she had “done nothing more wrong than volunteering my time to two entities.”
It will go down as tit for tat following the Sportsmen’s Alliance Foundation’s successful suit against Inslee and Commissioner Lorna Smith over her concurrent appointment to the Jefferson County Planning Commission. State law says that commissioners can’t hold two appointive positions at once.
But in Linville’s case, the hurt will go far, far deeper and affect a tiny rural community.
During her confirmation hearing Linville termed herself a “place-based person,” someone whose great grandmother and seven sons sailed, walked and took a wagon train from Germany to Central America to the Pacific to the Northwest to homestead in Lincoln County, where she grew up on the family’s farm.
After college, managing Conboy National Wildlife Refuge in Southcentral Washington and working on her master’s at WSU, she and her husband unexpectedly inherited his dad’s 100-year-old, 6,000-plus-acre ranch in lower Moses Coulee, where Palisades is located, and have made a successful go of keeping it running.
Along the way, Linville has also been involved in WDFW’s Wolf Advisory Group, where she received training on how to work on conservation conflicts and brought those skills to the Fish and Wildlife Commission.
She’ll have another chance to do that through the end of 2030, but it comes at a dear price for the kids and their parents in the coulee and Linville’s sense of place.
“I am pretty heart sick about it,” she stated this morning of having to step down from the school board.
This will go down as one of Washington Wildlife First’s stupidest moves.