Washblog

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?

< Community to Community Immigration Panel: "Must Attend" Tonight, Town Hall | Return to the Commons: Community Economies in Our Times >
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UGH...I've been asking "Is it Green, Groan, or Grain?" Now I know...

by dinazina on Fri Sep 08, 2006 at 04:00:29 PM PST

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smearing Alexander about some decision, and, btw, vote for our corporate crook-du-second cuz the aristocrat's lackey is gonna give a crap about peons without money.

I feel sick.

I felt this way on Tuesday when I saw bush lie his ass off about gitmo, and, some Dem came out for her 8 second soundbite and she STARTED it by repeating their lie, then, saying that ... they were inaccurate? Whatever she said, it was pathetic as a response.

I felt this way last night watching Mike!The!Crook! lie about bickering and diviseness !!

Unlike 5 or 10 or 15 or 25 years ago, with this internets thing we have people doing REAL INSTANT anlysis and rebuttal of the ari$tocrat$ lie$.  

like 5 or ... or 25 years ago, we got too many Dems in leadership positions who will NOT do whatever it takes to get a national to local quick repsonse message machine in place to counter these lying ari$tocrat sons of bitches.

I said this before -

I EXPECT ari$tocrat$ to want us all fighting each other for the privelage of licking thier boot$ while they pee on someone's head

http://www.progressivehistorians.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=14

I also EXPECT the 'leaders' on my side to do something about this barrage of lies, other than give speeches preaching to the choir about what de$picable ari$tocrat$s these lying $cum are.

rmm.

http://www.liemail.com/BambooGrassroots.html

by rmdSeaBos on Thu Sep 07, 2006 at 04:54:38 PM PST

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Great article Noemie!  We don't have much time to continue to expose these frauds, with the primary scarcely over a week away.  In my county of Kitsap, voters have already received their ballots in our all mail election, so every day that passes is a day some neighbor may vote without important knowledge.  Though Stephen Johnson doesn't look as bad as Groen, looking at his contributors make it clear enough where his loyalties will lie.  I'm especially nervous about Owens losing her seat, though in this big money race they (Alexander, Chambers, & Owens) are all vulnerable.

Choosing Hope

by walker on Sun Sep 10, 2006 at 05:34:16 PM PST

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