Editorial: Find path to assure fitness of sheriff candidates

Published 1:30 am Tuesday, January 20, 2026

By The Herald Editorial Board

Heated testimony isn’t unheard of in the committee rooms of the Washington state Legislature; what is rare — thankfully — is testimony that is vitriolic enough to generate backlash, including news coverage of veiled threats made against lawmakers and a law enforcement association’s consideration of a rebuke against an elected law enforcement officer.

Last week, during a public hearing of a bill sponsored by Sen. John Lovick, D-Mill Creek, which would update qualifications for appointed police chiefs and marshals and extend those qualifications to elected sheriffs, Pierce County Sheriff Keith Swank belligerently criticized lawmakers, specifically Democrats.

“You want to give unelected bureaucracy the ability to decertify me and remove me from office because you don’t agree with my speech,” Swank alleged during about 90 seconds of testimony. “I don’t recognize your authority to impose these controls over me, and when you try to remove me from office, thousands of Pierce County residents will surround the county-city building in downtown Tacoma and will not allow that to happen. I hope it doesn’t come to that, but I and they are prepared. Are you prepared?”

As well, Swank, referring to a separate bill that would bar law enforcement officers at all levels — local, state and federal — from wearing face masks, said that if adopted he would encourage his deputies to wear masks, “just to see what you do.”

In coverage of the meeting, the Washington State Standard noted that Lovick, himself a former Washington State Patrol trooper and sheriff for Snohomish County, and at least two other senators at the hearing took Swank’s comments as a threat or an attempt at intimidation.

Lovick, who earlier noted that the hearing’s date coincided with Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday, compared Swank’s testimony to the rhetoric of Eugene “Bull” Connor, a Birmingham, Ala., law enforcement official who protected racial segregation in the early 1960s and ordered the use of fire hoses and attack dogs on civil rights protesters.

“He just doesn’t represent what law enforcement is supposed to represent,” Lovick said of Swank.

At the same time, the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs, which had several representatives at the hearing citing either opposition or suggestions regarding the legislation, called Swank’s testimony “inflammatory” and said it planned to begin an investigation that could result in his being expelled from the organization; a determination that in itself would not remove Swank from office.

Swank, who won a tight election in 2024, has drawn attention to himself previously, defending rioters at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, disparaging transgender people and most recently posting comments on social media regarding the recent shooting death of a Minneapolis woman by federal immigration agents that appeared to dismissively hold her responsible for the fatal shooting.

What Swank’s invective has accomplished has only diverted attention away from the issue of law enforcement accountability at a time of continuing concern for policing and justice.

Lovick, who called law enforcement “the family business,” noting a son and others in his family in that career, has made such issues a focus of his tenure as a lawmaker.

“Why not hold law enforcement leaders, appointed or elected, to the standards of accountability and professionalism that their subordinates are held to? This legislation ensures that anyone with the authority to detain, arrest or use deadly force, is highly trained, well-prepared and professional,” Lovick said in introducing his bill before the Senate Law and Justice Committee.

The legislation adds eligibility requirements to police chief and marshal positions appointed by local governments, including being at least 25, having five years of law enforcement experience, obtaining and maintaining certification and passing a background check if not yet certified.

Those requirements would be extended to sheriffs, who under current law face no requirement other than certification by the state’s Criminal Justice Training Commission.

The legislation also would limit the activities of volunteers working with law enforcement agencies, including carrying firearms, engaging in pursuit, and the use of dogs other than in search and rescue operations

There is support for Lovick’s bill among law enforcement, notably from the Washington Council of Police and Sheriffs, said the council’s Jeff DeVere. (WCPS is separate from the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs.)

“Few things erode trust more than a leader who’s not held to account. And that’s happened in our past,” DeVere said.

But others, including law enforcement officials with WASPC, while agreeing with the goal of accountability, called the legislation flawed.

Thurston County Sheriff Derek Sanders said his main concern with the bill was its potential to remove authority from voters in selection of a sheriff.

“I think right now, we should be turning to voters more often,” Sanders said. “We should be allowing voters to have more control over their elected officials, and I don’t like the sentiment that this bill allows the state to intervene in that process. Give voters more control, not less. That is how we fix the divide in our country.”

Sanders ended his comments with hope for finding a compromise that balanced concerns for accountability and the rights of voters.

That’s where further consideration of the legislation should be focused.

Opponents are largely correct that no other elected position in the state carries such requirements for eligibility to run and serve in office. (Washington state Supreme Court justices must be licensed attorneys, although passing the bar exam is no longer a licensing requirement.)

But the work of law enforcement and its leadership presents heightened responsibilities that weigh directly on life and liberty and warrant a higher bar for office.

Voters should have the final say on who runs a county sheriff’s office, but they should know that those on the ballot have met some commonsense minimum requirements.