Around this time in 1938, Washington state politics got really, really weird, when the Governor and Lieutenant Governor were racing to return to the state to block each other.
This race was extra weird because the two officials had run on the same ticket together – twice – and were political allies, at least to a point.
Governor Clarence Martin had won his job in 1932, vowing to help Washington residents recover from the Great Depression.
He was charismatic and hardworking; Martin even spent part of his first term as governor simultaneously serving as the mayor of his hometown of Cheney!
Lieutenant Governor Vic Meyers wasn’t short on charisma, either; he’d been a professional drummer and bandleader before he got into politics.
But he had a reputation of being a political lightweight, more interested in publicity stunts than policy.
It’s said that he only ran for lieutenant governor because he didn’t want to pay the higher filing fee to be governor.
The longer he served, the more he tried to prove that thinking wrong, by closely studying the rules of government and looking for the right moment to use them to his advantage.
He thought that moment had come in 1938, in his and Martin’s second term.
Meyers pushed for Governor Martin to do more about the Depression; specifically, he wanted the governor to call a special session of the legislature to take action.
Martin had planned to call such a session the following year, while Meyers thought lawmakers should meet right away.
And this is where the situation got weird.
Both men knew that in Washington, whenever the governor was out of the state, the lieutenant governor was automatically acting governor.
If Martin left Washington, Acting Governor Meyers could call lawmakers into session.
So the governor stayed put, except for one time, when Meyers was off fishing in California and the governor figured he was safe to head to Washington D.C. to handle some important state business.
When the lieutenant governor heard about this, he raced back to the capital city, Olympia, taking a train north to Portland, Oregon and then riding with police back into the state.
He promptly announced on the radio that he would call the legislature into session the next day, as soon as he could get the secretary of state to put the official stamp on his proclamation.
Governor Martin heard about all this and realized he had to get back home before the secretary of state’s office opened in the morning.
He used his own money to charter a plane to fly him all the way back across the country.
Lieutenant Governor Meyers showed up the next morning to formally open the special session, only to learn that he was no longer acting governor.
Martin’s plane had landed in Spokane thirteen minutes earlier.
Starting tomorrow in Houston, the World Coffee Roasting Championship.
There are three stages; judges consider how the competitors grade the coffee beans, roast the coffee beans, and then use those coffee beans to make a cup of coffee.
Which sounds like one roast I wouldn’t mind attending.
Meyers, Victor A. (1897-1991) (HistoryLink)
2025 World Coffee Championships
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