Washblog

With a 2004 victory under its belt, the Building Industry Association of Washington has sent out paid workers to leaflet for court challengers Steve Johnson and John Groen.

This sounds like a first!  Paid workers leafletting for judicial candidates - with the paychecks coming from the second-leading far-right special interest group in the state.  I wonder what possesses people like Judith Finney, an apartment-dweller, to join forces with a group with "Building Industry" right in their name on stuff like this and think that they're not all about developing stripmalls and...you know, building stuff.  To hear our friend Judith tell it, it's just good hard-workin' folks wanting the right to put up a barn for their ponies and eventually sell the house to retire peacefully.  

No, the BIAW wants unrestricted access to all lands so they can build commercial property and massive, sprawling housing complexes like Snoqualmie Ridge for their enrichment.  And now they want some Supreme Court Justices bought and paid for to help pave the road for them.  As Joel points out,

The challengers are stressing what they call judicial philosophy, defined by the conservative Constitutional Law Political Action Committee as "deference to the law, constitution and established legal precedent."

Under the group's rating, Chief Justice Alexander gets a "C-minus" despite his recent vote to uphold the Legislature's Defense of Marriage Act. Justice Owens gets a "D." Both Johnson and Groen get "A's."

I wonder how the Constitutional Law PAC would have rated the U.S. Supreme Court a half-century ago.

Eep.  I don't recall "philosophy" being part of a justice's job.  I recall their job as "interpreting the law", not "deferring to" the law.  Of course, this is pointless semanticism, as these douchebags don't give a tin shit about the constitution, they want the law to help them make profit.  

In case y'all haven't noticed, we're back to the Teapot Dome days, when "the business of government is business".  

Joel continues, and I want to hug him (well, sorta) for this:

In America's new era of conservative rule, judicial philosophy seems to mean that judges can publicly display their biases even on issues and cases where they must decide.

Fair use principles require that I stop quoting him pretty soon, but you must read the paragraphs following that sentence.  He's absolutely right.  No longer is the judicial branch, at any level, considered independent - the far-right loons have decided that the deck must be stacked in their favor, and if the laws don't help, you take over the courts.  Screw changing the laws - you have to win elections and change the constitution to do that!  Let's just place ideologues on the bench, and anyone who doesn't announce their agreement - loudly - with conservative ideology can be painted as an "activist" judge.  

Finally, now that I'm done with the overly obvious portion of today's program, allow me to reintroduce Mike!, who recently said he is focused on federal issues (except for that pesky Flying Spaghetti Monster thing):

"John Groen and Steve Johnson are terrific candidates," U.S. Senate candidate Mike McGavick tells the GOP faithful.

Zounds!  Sounds to me like he's trying to influence state-level politics!  So let's add this to the open letter list:  Please stop trying to sell our state out to developers, and let's keep the resource-destroying sprawl to a minimum, shall we?

Kids, Joel recommends we visit Voting for Judges, and after perusing it, I'm inclined to agree with him.  So go visit www.votingforjudges.org ASAP!  Do it, because I'm smarter and better connected than you and I said so!