Washblog

Religious Right and Developers are Stacking Washington's Supreme Court

Useful resource for activists, PCOs, bloggers, and other information gatekeepers: King County Bar Association's Voting For Judges.org and Citizens to Uphold the Constitution (a Washington State coalition): Uphold the Constitution

It makes me sad when people who say they're friends of the public interest misrepresent the truth to further their own interests.  It's even sadder when they say they're upholding spiritual values.  Here's Washington State's Chief Justice, Gerry Alexander, on the left.  I think he's being misrepresented as a judicial activist and a foe of spiritual values.  I report here on one little misrepresentation that is part of a large and complex story being told to the citizens of Washington by sprawl-happy developers, religious fundamentalists, and the drowning-government-in-the-bathtub crowd.  

Let's start off with a little report on Dr. Joseph Fuiten, a main player in this well-funded storytelling aimed at business people and people of faith.  Dr. Fuiten is the Chairman and CEO of Faith and Freedom Educational Foundation, a primary member of the Faith and Freedom Network and Foundation (FFNF).  FFNF is joining with the Building Industry Association of Washington to back pro-development, pro I-933 candidates for Washington's Supreme Court.  He's also the Pastor of the Cedar Park Assembly of God.  David Goldstein reports that this is the church that proposes to raise by 83% the rent of the retired ministers and missionaries who have long lived at moderate rent in the Cedar Springs Bible Camp.  The new lease would rescind the option of these senior citizens, many of them low-income, to renew their leases in the future.  This move by Dr. Fuiten's church amounts to a de facto eviction of low-income seniors from  high-value real estate that will then be available to his mega-church for development.

Dear Jesus, hero of my childhood, protector of the weak, who called on us to be humble and to pray in secret and kick the moneychangers out of the temple, please protect the elderly and the poor and the vulnerable in Washington from the alliance of developers and the Religious Right.

FFNF has sent questionnaries to all the candidates for state supreme court and are utilizing the results to persuade people of faith in Washington state to back the pro-development candidates.

You can see the completed questionnaires in pdf form on the FFNF site.  They contain four  questions.  One about the candidates' endorsements and three on whether the respondents agree with the majority or dissenting opinion in three US Supreme Court cases that recently upheld Right Wing values.

Justice Alexander answered this Judicial questionnaire in full.  He listed his endorsements and then, in answer to each ideological question, he gave this response: "I decline to answer the question in this form.  When the United States Supreme Court interprets the meaning of a provision in the US Constitution, and applies its interpretation to a set of facts, that decision is binding on lower federal courts and state courts. Consequently, it makes no difference whether I agree or disagree with the reasoning of the US Supreme Court.  I am obligated by my oath to follow its decisions."

FFFNF, which preaches the kind of judicial restraint that Justice Alexander displays here, does not accept this reponse as an answer.   It tells its constituencey that Justice Alexander "refused to return questionnaire or did not return questionnaire fully completed."  This is the story they are telling the people of faith in Washington State.  I see this as an immoral and manipulative attempt to mislead people of faith into upholding an agenda that is directly contrary to the main tenents of their religion.  

A quick look at the public record shows that Justice Alexander is a highly-qualified public servant who has upheld the rule of law and many community values both progressive and conservative.  He's known for being moderately pro-business.  His rating from the King County Bar Association is the highest possible, Exceptionally Well Qualified.  Both the Washington Education Association and the Mainstream Republicans of Washington have endorsed him.  He's getting it now from both the left and the right.  He was one of those judges who upheld the Washington legislature's Defense of Marriage Act.  I didn't like this decision either.  But I read the majority opinion and understand it as a good-faith attempt to uphold the rule of law.  

FFNF is one of a well-connected alliance of groups, including the Constitutional Law PAC, that is very well-funded and ideologically aggressive. Creepy, eh?

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