Buying Justice & Lying About It: Building Industry Association of Washington
 John Groen: Exquisite Hypocricy | He's never been a judge
His major organizational ratings are mediocre -- well below the judge he's challenging. He wants to unseat Washington State Supreme Court's Chief Justice His campaign is funded by the building industry
He's a lawyer for the Building Industry Association of Washington
He's spent 18 years representing the building industry in Washington State courts
He tells us that he's running to "preserve an independent judiciary" |
We live in remarkable times. The attempted buyout of our state courts by the building and construction industry is old news. (BTW, Kudos to both Seattle Times and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, which have both been covering this issue steadily). But it's worth focusing for moment on an exquisite bit of hypocricy reported today in the Seattle Times.
John Groen, the attorney for the Building Industry of Washington State who has never been a judge but wants to unseat our Supreme Court Chief Justice, tells us in a Seattle Times article of today entitled Building-industry ads hammer judge , that he is running in order to prevent "the undermining of the notion of an independent, nonpartisan judiciary."
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ho ho ho hee hee Ug! Hack! Ew!
This is the man who touts his "eighteen years (of) experience before the Washington Supreme Court, advocating for property rights," He's raised, $276,061.56 for this race, according to Washington's Public Disclosure Commission records. Much of it's from lumber, construction, and development interests. Scads of it was poured into the campaign right before a June deadline that made such contributions illegal. SDS Company, for example, which provided $25,000 right before that deadline, is a lumber company from Klickitat County. Then we've got $25,000 from the principals of another development company, Sundquist Homes. And so on.
Gerry Alexander, our current chief justice, known as a moderate, adhered to the letter and spirit of Washington's law and has raised only $47,581.60. Alexander, according to King County Bar Association, is exceptionally well qualified.
This fall, the building industry is heavily supporting three sprawl-happy candidates for the Supreme Court above the experienced and moderate incumbents. Can this industry buy justice in Washington? Yes, they can. And maybe they will succeed. Except it won't be justice any more, once they've got their paws on it.
It's also worth noting that the same interests that are trying to buy our courts are also pushing I-933 in order to unravel a good portion of Washington State's environmental and zoning laws. This will generate a huge amount of sprawl and... yep, litigation. If the BIAW has its way, much of this litigation will end up before its own hand-picked judges.
How do these people sleep at night?
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