Democrat Senator Kevin Ranker’s sex harassment case raises questions – how much sex is traded to increase agency budgets?

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Democrat Washington State Senator Kevin Ranker (LD-40) has always been a self-proclaimed champion of the environment and environmental causes.  He has been the recipient of many awards bestowed upon him by various organizations which claim to be environmentally concerned. For example, he was the recipient of the Washington Conservation Voters Legislator of the Year award for 2013 (see article here, and pdf of the article here in case it gets taken down).  Unfortunately, Senator Ranker has become the target of a recent investigation into allegations of past sexual harassment.

Much has already been written about this recent investigation.  Ranker’s accuser, his former aide Ann Larson (and current Director of Government Relations, Washington State Department of Enterprise Services), has additional credibility because she also exposed former Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife division manager Greg Schirato, who was convicted and sentenced to 10 years to life in prison earlier this year for breaking into Larson’s home and raping her in December 2014 (see story here, here, and here)

There is an Orca whale in the room, however, which has been obscured and hidden by the sexual harassment investigation and scandal.  This has been the casual exposure of the disclosure that Senator Ranker allegedly thought he could reduce the budget of the Fish and Wildlife Department based on whether accuser Ann Larson had sex with him or not.  This accusation, if true, raises a much bigger question than just how many women Senator Ranker has sexually harassed in Olympia and elsewhere.  Just who must sleep with whom to influence agency budgets in Olympia?  How common is the promise of sex (withheld or granted) used to adjust these same budgets?

From the Seattle Times article:

“Larson left the Legislature after her 2010 complaints and began working as the legislative director at the state Department of Fish and Wildlife. She said Ranker continued to make advances while also treating her with disdain, threatening to cut the department’s budget, looking up her salary, telling her she was overpaid, examining what state authorizations allowed her job in the first place and threatening to cut programs important to her.

In 2012, Ranker served as chair of the Senate’s Energy, Natural Resources and Marine Waters Committee, which would oversee much of her agency’s work. She said Ranker also threatened to publicly embarrass her and made it difficult to do her job.

“It was making my job unbearable,” Larson said. “I couldn’t function because I was in a spot where there was nothing I could do.”

She provided copies of a text exchange to The Times in which Ranker seemed upset that she hadn’t testified in his committee, and then threatened to work to eliminate the Fish and Wildlife Commission, which had appointed Larson’s boss. She said the challenges continued at least until a Republican-led majority took control of the chamber in 2013. “Probably one of the best days that I had working for Fish and Wildlife is when Republicans took over the Senate and Sen. Ranker lost his chairmanship and his position of power,” said Larson, who is a Democrat.” (emphasis added)

Senator Ranker has always been considered a “Good Progressive” since his days as a San Juan Island Commissioner and has been endorsed by a variety of self-identified Progressive groups like NARAL, League of Women Voters, Washington Conservation Voters, among others.  He has also claimed to support Women’s issues and the #Metoo movement, but if these recent allegations are documented (and his text messages to Larson appear to support her side of the story) he may struggle to convince others that he isn’t just another hypocrite.  Senator Ranker always claimed he wanted more money to help wolves and orcas, but now we may be discovering that he didn’t really care about the wolves or orcas – just who would give him sex to justify their bloated budgets. 

If Senator Ranker believes that he can cut or increase state budgets in exchange for sexual favors and was so blatant and casual about this belief, just who else in the state legislature shares his views?  Senator Ranker has always recommended increasing the budget of the Washington State Department of Ecology.  Did someone from that agency trade sex for that budget increase?  If so, who had to “take one for the team?”  Just how prevalent is this attitude among key legislators and bureaucrats in Olympia?

If the Washington State Legislative Ethics Board actually cared about ethical violations rather than harassing Republican lawmakers who post educational videos on their Facebook page, we might actually get to the bottom of this “Sex for Budget” scandal, which should be the real story here.

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Related Articles:

Seattle Times – “Woman says Washington State Sen. Kevin Ranker threatened to cut her agency’s funding after she rebuffed his sexual advances”

The Islands’s Sounder – “Ranker receives honor” (if link is removed, here is the original article)

Seattle PI – “Woman raped by Fish & Wildlife boss: ‘I used to be so happy'”

The Olympian – “Greg Schirato sentenced to more than 10 years for rape of co-worker”

The Olympian – “Fish and Wildlife sexual assault case in the hands of the jury”

Fishery Nation.com – “Rape allegation against division manager reveals ‘highly sexualized’ culture at state agency'”