Sportsmen's Alliance Petitions Gov. Ferguson for Removal of Four Washington Fish and Wildlife Commissioners

Today, May 16, 2025, the Sportsmen’s Alliance Foundation (SAF) filed a petition with Gov. Ferguson asking for the removal of Washington Fish and Wildlife Commissioners Barbara Baker, Lorna Smith, Melanie Rowland, and John Lehmkuhl after evidence of corruption and bad practices was uncovered by the organization in its lawsuit to force disclosure of internal communications.

“We thought the evidence of corruption might be bad, but the mountain of evidence we’ve uncovered is like nothing we’ve seen before,” said Evan Heusinkveld, President & CEO of the Sportsmen’s Alliance. “This is bad government on steroids. Secret meetings, exclusion of tribes and others from public meetings, an obvious and open contempt for the public, and a total disregard of the law – it’s all there, and it’s obvious that this is simply the way these four commissioners do business. We are hopeful the governor stands up for the good people of Washington and shuts this down.”

Governor Ferguson has the full authority to remove Fish and Wildlife Commissioners for cause, and the SAF petition is replete with examples of behaviors that call for the governor to exercise this authority and put an end to these ongoing abuses. The petition also references a multitude of other documents the organization has that illustrate additional examples of how deep this corruption goes with these commissioners.

“We have thousands of pages that exhibit how these behaviors are repeated again and again,” said Heusinkveld. “We will be making these documents public over time, but we want to give the governor space to consider our petition while our lawsuit continues to uncover even more. More documents will simply mean more evidence, but what we’ve given the governor is more than enough for a swift removal of this cabal of bad actors.”  

The SAF petition consists of several parts, but among its most damning evidence is recurrent violations of Washington’s Open Public Meetings Act (OPMA) by Commissioners Baker, Smith, Rowland, and Lehmkuhl. To garner a majority vote, these commissioners would “daisy-chain” meetings, where three or four would meet through email or on Teams/Zoom, then one or two would reach out to other commissioners to pull together majority votes on issues. Baker was often the fifth vote when the group wanted to move something, but she was always looped in to solidify a decision before a public meeting, sometimes even weeks before. 

“This daisy-chain approach, where you put together a majority while claiming to not have a quorum, is nothing more than a favored and long-standing trick of corrupt public officials, where you put together a majority without ever meeting together at once,” said Michael Jean, Litigation Counsel for SAF. “This corrupt practice is often utilized so members of a cabal can claim, ‘we didn’t have a quorum present, so no official meeting took place,’ but all of us see through this nonsense for what it is: old fashioned corruption.”

There is no time limit on how long Governor Ferguson can consider the petition before taking action. Nor is there a requirement that the governor answer the petition one way or the other. Meanwhile, the SAF lawsuit to compel production of insider communications continues, with more activity expected on that case in coming weeks. 

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