Seattle Times

Endorsements

• General [Supreme]: Johnson for high court
• General [King]: LaSalata for judge
• Primary: Three important seats on state Supreme Court

Johnson for high court

Thursday, October 26, 2006 — Sen. Stephen Johnson is the only challenger in the Washington Supreme Court races to have survived the primary, and he is the better candidate for the seat being contested in the Nov. 7 finals.

Johnson is a respected member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, the ranking Republican on the panel, and was rated higher than his opponent by the King County Bar Association. He has run a clean campaign and has insisted that independent groups supporting him run a clean campaign also.

His opponent, Justice Susan Owens, has written few dissents and lacks the forcefulness needed on the highest court. She has too often accepted government's excuses for crowding the citizen, particularly in cases involving public information and seizure of private property. In a series of emergency-clause cases, she has voted to weaken the citizens' right of referendum, again favoring authority.

On these matters, Johnson promises to protect the people's rights, and we endorse him.

LaSalata for judge

Saturday, October 28, 2006 — Richard Pope, the Bellevue attorney who has offered himself to voters as Port of Seattle commissioner, King County assessor and state attorney general, all without result, now asks for a job as a judge.

In the Northeast District of King County District Court race, Pope had the wit to choose an incumbent, Mary Ann Ottinger, who had been twice censured and once suspended. She lost the primary and he survived it. Pope's colleagues at the King County Bar Association rate him as "not qualified," their lowest category, citing him for a history of unprofessional conduct. The Times suggests a vote for his opponent, judge pro-tem Frank LaSalata, whom the association pegs as "well qualified."

Three important seats on state Supreme Court

Tuesday, September 5, 2006 — THREE incumbents on the Washington Supreme Court, all who tend to lean moderate-to-liberal, face more-conservative challengers. The Times supports two of the incumbents, Chief Justice Gerry Alexander and Justice Tom Chambers, and one of the challengers, state Sen. Stephen Johnson.

Our recommendations are based on philosophy, credentials, competence and personality. Philosophy, first. The Supreme Court's most important job is to limit the overreaching of the executive and legislative branches of government, particularly when it damages the rights of the people. In our view, the court has been too deferential to those in authority, particularly in regard to:

• Sound Transit's power to shorten its light-rail project without having to ask voters (the Sane Transit case);

• The Seattle Monorail Authority's power to take more private property than it needed for a station, giving itself the option to develop the property later at a profit to itself, (the "Sinking Ship parking garage" case);

• The power of public agencies to deny information to the public (the Hangartner case) and to deny an owner reasonable notice of a meeting about condemnation of his property (the Miller case);

• The Legislature's power to nullify the right of public referendum by declaring a public emergency (the emergency-clause cases);

• The Legislature's power to deny children the protection of the marriage laws if the couple raising them happens to be of the same sex (the Defense of Marriage Act case).

Justice Susan Owens, who is the most liberal of the three incumbents, sided with government in all the above cases except the gay-marriage case. Alexander sided with government in all the above cases except Miller. Chambers was more protective of individual rights, voting to limit governmental overreaching in Sane Transit, Hangartner, Miller, in a key emergency-clause case and in the marriage case.

Chambers is the easy choice. He is an eclectic justice in the mold of Sandra Day O'Connor. He will support property rights for owners and marriage rights for gays — and can cite the reasons for both. His dissent in the gay-marriage case offered a genuine constitutional argument for same-sex marriage, citing the privileges and immunities clause, rather than arguing that his more-conservative colleagues had no reasons for their beliefs other than bigotry.

Chambers also has the weakest challenger, Jeannette Burrage, who served one term as a Superior Court judge and is unready for the Supreme Court.

Our endorsement of Alexander comes with some caveats. On most of the cases cited above, we favor his opponent's thinking rather than his. But Alexander has the widest judicial experience of anyone on the court. He has the backing of his colleagues as chief justice. He has an exemplary judicial manner. He is nearing the end of his career — this would be his last term — and he offers stability and continuity to the institution.

His challenger, John Groen, is a private attorney who took over the client list of Richard Sanders when Sanders was elected to the court in 1995.

Like Sanders, Groen would be a champion of property rights, but in criminal cases would side more with prosecutors than Sanders does.

Groen is smart and well-spoken, and has appeared many times before the court as an attorney. But he is new on the public scene and it is a leap of faith to choose him over the chief justice.

Owens is the weakest of the incumbents: Her opinions have been the least persuasive and her background — she was a judge in Forks, Clallam County — is the least stellar.

In Johnson, she faces this year's most-qualified challenger. As the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee of the state Senate, Johnson has been respected on both sides of the aisle. People know him and are comfortable with him. Johnson is a conservative whose doctrine is moderated by experience and temperament. This page endorses him.

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