REI COOP Election Mockery

  RCW  23.86.080 Directors — Election and appointment. (1) Associations shall be managed by a board of not less than three directors (which may be referred to as "trustees"). The directors shall be elected by the members of the association at such time, in such manner, and for such term of office as the bylaws may prescribe, and shall hold office during the term for which they were elected and until their successors are elected and qualified. (2) Except as provided in RCW  23.86.087 , any vacancy occurring in the board of directors, and any directorship to be filled by reason of an increase in the number of directors, may be filled by the board of directors unless the articles of incorporation or the bylaws provide that a vacancy or directorship so created shall be filled in some other manner. A director elected or appointed to fill a vacancy shall be elected or appointed for the unexpired term of the predecessor in office. [  2003 c 252 s 1 ;  1989 c 307 s 10 ;...

  Some Democrats in Olympia think employees should have more representation on REI’s board of directors. The co-sponsors of house bill 1635 ( pdf ) were Cyndi Ryu , Beth Doglio , Mia Gregerson . Below copy of the story by Nate Sanford . The bill was reintroduced on January 12, 2026. The WA law on cooperatives . Directors, election and appointment, RCW 23.86.080  that could be amended to assert members voting rights.

 The REI-COOP reality is that since 1982 the REI-BOARD of directors has taken over the institution by concentrating all the power with the board of directors and effectively denying any to the membership. The history and "justification" of this take over is best described by Andy Ryan in his 2003 article, titled Who owns REI?

My source on Reddit  Below an extract centered on how the board of directors took over sometime after 1982. 

  Naively I though the term "annual report" meant there was some sort of useful information shared by REI about their performance. It's 2 pages long, filed for $10 fee, completely useless :( Look for yourself . It seems that nobody holds REI-COOP board of directors and management accountable. They do as they please.

  You can read below how the Secretary of State extremely fast declines to do anything and sends to the WA Attorney General.