Free Republic

State Sen. Doug Ericksen, a stalwart conservative, former leader of Donald Trump’s campaign in Washington and an outspoken critic of COVID-19 emergency orders, died Friday. He was 52. Ericksen had said last month that he tested positive for the coronavirus while on a trip to El Salvador, although his cause of death was not immediately confirmed on Saturday.... ...Ericksen, a Republican from Ferndale, had been in El Salvador, where he tested positive for the virus that causes COVID. He wrote last month to his Republican colleagues asking if they could help him get treatment.... ...A longtime foe of environmental regulations,...

The whereabouts and condition of a state senator from Washington state are unknown weeks after his location was last reported at a Florida hospital where he was being treated for COVID-19. The whereabouts and condition of a state senator from Washington state are unknown weeks after his location was last reported at a Florida hospital where he was being treated for COVID-19. State Sen. Doug Ericksen (R) sent an email to other state lawmakers on Nov. 11 saying he had tested positive for the coronavirus during a trip to El Salvador, according to a Seattle NBC affiliate. In the email,...

OLYMPIA, Washington, January 8, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) – Washington State will now require public buildings, including schools, to allow individuals to use bathrooms and locker rooms of the opposite sex. Having taken effect on December 26, the transgender bathroom rule was created by the State Human Rights Commission and has been in the works since 2012. It eliminates a previous separate standard for schools, which allowed them to look at locker room use for transgender students on a case-by-case basis. Human Rights Commission executive director Sharon Ortiz, along with ACLU staff attorney Margaret Chen, said the rule clarifies law that previously...

A Washington state senator has survived a campaign by Western Washington University students who demanded their school revoke his master’s degree because he’s not radical enough on global warming. Doug Ericksen, a Republican and chair of Washington’s Senate Energy, Environment and Telecommunications Committee, has blocked efforts to force businesses and residents to go green, but he supports voluntary compliance. He opposes mandated cap-and-trade programs and low-carbon fuel standards. But the effort to yank Ericksen’s degree — he earned his MA in political science and environmental policy at WWU — met with a stiff rebuke last week from the university’s president....

Ah, the beauty of our nation’s college campuses, the traditional hotbeds of free speech and open debate. I wonder what ever happened to those? Out in Washington State, some students at Western Washington University have come up with interesting new techniques in the field of debate. For example, one of their state senators, Doug Ericksen (R-Ferndale) was found by the upset underclassmen to be a heretical non-believer when it comes to the issue of global warming. Ericksen, as it turns out, is an alumnus of WWU, so rather than debating him on the hot topic, they have issued demands...