Glen Tate - 299 Days - The Preparation

Ed had to have a real estate license to be in business, and having a real estate license meant that the Board had the power to inspect every aspect of Ed’s business. Lo and behold, Ed was selected for a “random” audit by Sellarman. Ed wasn’t concerned; he had always been honest so they could look at whatever they wanted.

Sellarman found that Ed had improperly allowed “unlicensed” realtors to work at this company. Ed was puzzled because all of his agents were fully licensed. It turned out that a law mandating that an agent from another state had to take the Washington real estate exam before selling real estate had been repealed about two years ago. The new law said there was a grace period, and that the out-of-state realtor could take up to one year to get his or her Washington license. Sellarman found that one of Ed’s agents had only had an Oregon license for eight months but then got a Washington one. But, Ed explained, this was legal now.

“That’s not my interpretation,” Sellarman told Ed. Sellarman told Ed that the new law, passed by the Legislature, did not apply until the Board wrote regulations enacting it. Yes, but the law says what it says, Ed argued, and it was passed by the Legislature. No “interpretation” in Board regulations is necessary. Besides, Ed thought, no state agency could write mere regulations overturning a statute passed by the Legislature.

Grant backed Ed and explained to Sellarman that the statute is the law; it doesn’t take Board regulations to make a law of the State of Washington effective. This was not good enough for Sellarman. He revoked Ed’s license for violating a repealed law. Then Sellarman revoked the real estate licenses of all of Ed’s employees for working at an “unlicensed” real estate company. Sellarman didn’t care about all these innocent people; he was vicious, vindictive, and, thanks to how much power the good people of Washington State had handed to their “public servants,” had the unlimited power to do this.

Of course, the law didn’t allow taking away the licenses of people based on repealed laws. But it would take a “hearing” in front of the Board of Real Estate Licensing which was presided over by Sellarman. Ed and his employees could appeal to the county court in Olympia that heard all the appeals of state agency decisions. The judges on the court were very pro-agency. Olympia was a company town and making sure government worked smoothly—that is, got its way—was the job of most people there, including the “impartial” judges. Ed and the employees could appeal to the court of appeals, and then the state Supreme Court.

Each one of these three or four steps would cost Ed about $50,000 and take nearly a year, while he had no license to be in business and couldn’t make any money. So he had “due process” appeal rights, but they cost more money than anyone had, and took longer than anyone could take. This was big government’s approach to Constitutional rights: they still exist, but we’ve created a system where no one can actually use them. You have appeal rights; good luck exercising them. Now do what we say.

Ed got physically ill over this. Besides nausea and vomiting, he had a host of other ailments. The ordeal was devastating. Long- standing clients were leaving in droves. Ed’s wife was furious at him for “making a big deal” out of Sellarman’s corruption and thereby costing them money. She threatened divorce and made him move out for a while. He was a wreck. He had spent hundreds of thousands on his attorney, who was getting beaten repeatedly in court. The judges kept deciding that the Board had “discretion” to carry out its important regulations. After all, the Board had to have “discretion” to protect the public from all those evil companies.

Out of money and totally desperate, Ed called WAB. Grant took the case.

About this time, a new junior lawyer came to WAB to help Grant with all the cases he was getting. Eric Benson was a smart guy who was fresh out of law school. He was really devoted to the cause; even more conservative than Grant. He was a libertarian, actually. Eric shared Grant’s hatred of government and actually hated it more. Eric would stay up at night thinking of ways to defeat bureaucrats. Eric was Grant on steroids.

Eric started working with Grant on Ed Oleo’s case night and day. Eric had dug up some interesting information out about Sellarman and his finances. (Grant was afraid to ask how Eric got the information.) It seems that Sellarman, who earned a relatively modest state salary, had all kinds of assets like boats, a race horse, and a condo in Mexico. It was obvious Sellarman was taking bribes to let people off if they paid him. By the time Grant and Eric were done with Sellarman, the Board of Real Estate Licensing agreed to drop all the charges against Ed and his partners and settled the retaliation claims for $200,000. Sellarman was not fired, of course.

On the day he had to hand over the check for the $200,000 of tax payer money, Sellarman confidently told Grant and Eric, “So what? It’s just other people’s money. We’ve got more. Much more. See you in round two.”

WAB’s attempts to get the Governor’s Office to fire Sellarman were laughed at. Sellarman, it was explained, was “protecting consumers.” Government was not protecting people—it was terrorizing them.

No one outside of WAB seemed to care. Grant wanted to scream to them to forget all that crap they learned in school and on the news about fair government employees protecting the public by using reasonable regulations. That might have been true forty years ago, but now government had so much more power. Ed’s business was in the hands of a guy like Sellarman who could shut him down just to get some quick bribes or to get even. The courts were letting it happen. It took something unusual like finding out about Sellarman’s corruption to stop it.

Ed’s view of how government worked was forever shattered. “I’m a Democrat,” Ed told Grant and Eric at their celebratory dinner after winning. “Hell, I even donated money to the Governor’s last campaign and she’s the one who just told us that Sellarman is a faithful public servant doing his job.” He was stunned by all of this.

“I thought,” Ed continued, “that all these agencies were here to help people and be the one fair referee in the system.” Ed looked like he was now embarrassed to be saying it. “Everyone I know thinks like I used to. My friends think I’m making all this up until they see the check Sellarman had to write me. They all think like I used to. How can everyone be so wrong?”

“I know, man,” Grant said. “I deal with this all the time.” That’s all Grant could say.

“They’re evil bastards,” Eric said. “Evil. That’s the answer.”

The majority of regulators were not like Sellarman but it only took a few like him to make the system corrupt. Grant started to feel like there were two universes. One universe was where normal people just went about their business not caring about what was happening, and another world where Sellarmans were out destroying people. The universes existed simultaneously. Why didn’t people care? Why?

Ed, Grant, and Eric were silent for a while, trying to figure out the answer. It was beginning to ruin the celebratory mood of the dinner. Then Ed looked Grant and Eric in the eye and said something that was obviously hard for him to say.

“When are people going to stand up and fight back?” he asked.

“When are we going to put a stop to this?”

“Soon,” Eric said with a smile. He looked like he would enjoy that day.

Grant thought and answered. “The problem, Ed, is that only a small percentage of the population ever gets screwed like you did. Most people just live off the system and don’t care. But the number of Ed Oleos out there is growing and growing. The government is getting more bold and brazen each year. They’re drunk with power. No one can really stop them. They’re creating more Ed Oleos. That’s how it will stop.”