Quincy would think it's a very bad idea

@1 I wonder what Jordan Cavanaugh would think.

Why on earth elect coroners?

If larger than counties (like King) can appoint their Coroner (in our case the medical examiner), then smaller counties should be able to do the same. Quite frankly, coroners are not desirable - this is even codified in WA law (the gold standard is the medical examiner approach).

And given TS was an advocate for changing the king county sheriff to an appointed position, seems a little hypocritical for them to be advocating for electing coroners (I know we shouldn’t expect consistency from the current crop of writers, but Jesus - that just happened).

@4, FTW!

So there’s stiff opposition to this proposed law?

@3: Democracy.

It depends on where you want to delegate powers. To the voters or to a city/county council. The coroner's position may not seem important. But we, as voters, lose power a drip at a time.

I wasn't in favor of moving the Sheriff's office to an appointed one. There's too much politics attached to tweaking crime statistics via enforcement priorities to fit lawmakers agendas. I can just imagine more causes of death listed as "socio-economic injustice". Now give us more money.

Science has developed considerably since the olden days. There are medical professionals that specialize in this sort of thing and can make a determination as to cause of death. When medicine was more like witchcraft then science they conducted hearing with juries to rule on the cause of death. There is no real need to elect someone when the county could hire a professional crew. I just hope witchcraft has not advanced into a science or I am probably going to take issue with how I phrased that.