Tacoma News Tribune

Endorsements

• General: Keep Susan Owens on state Supreme Court
• Primary: For high court: Owens, Alexander, Chambers

Keep Susan Owens on state Supreme Court

Tuesday, October 24, 2006 — Don’t let the calm after the storm fool you. There is still a race for state Supreme Court to decide, and it’s the closest one this year. Fortunately, Washington voters are not being subjected to a repeat of the ugliness that marked Supreme Court politics leading up to the primary election last month.

The race between Justice Susan Owens and challenger Stephen Johnson, a Republican state senator from Kent, has largely been about what Supreme Court races ought to be about: candidates’ qualifications and judicial philosophies.

Owens and Johnson are far different candidates, each with their own strengths. Owens outpolled Johnson in the primary 46 percent to 35 percent, but the tide could turn if Johnson is able to pick up the votes cast for candidates eliminated in the primary.

Owens brings a rural perspective (she’s from Forks) and 25 years of judicial experience, including some time on tribal courts. She was elected to the state Supreme Court in 2000 and is respected by her peers.

Stephen Johnson is by far the best candidate among the crop of conservative challengers that emerged this year to take on sitting justices. He has served 12 years in the state Senate, a valuable perspective that is missing from the state Supreme Court. But he has little courtroom experience even as an attorney. Johnson could grow into a fine justice, but he would begin at a disadvantage relative to Owens and then would have just a few short years on the bench. At age 66, Johnson would run up against the mandatory retirement age of 75 if he were to run a second time.

Owens has attracted criticism for a few court opinions, but any justice who signs hundreds of decisions over six years won’t make everyone happy every time. On the whole, Owens has demonstrated a measured temperament and brings a much needed rural Washington insight to the court. She deserves voters’ support again.

For high court: Owens, Alexander, Chambers

The News Tribune

Sunday, August 27, 2006 — Washington's judiciary has traditionally been the low-key, apolitical branch of state government. That's changing, and not for the better.

In recent years, political advocacy groups on both sides of the political spectrum have targeted the state Supreme Court, seeking to alter its makeup with large campaign donations and other support.

The danger here is that jurists will have their thumbs on the scale of justice when deciding cases involving the ideologies that got them elected.

That's not much of an issue in the race for Position 2, which has drawn five candidates. The two chief rivals are incumbent Justice Susan Owens and Stephen Johnson, a lawyer and 12-year veteran of the state Senate.

Johnson is a credible challenger. Despite his political background, he demonstrates a clear understanding of where politics ends and the judicial role begins.

Johnson's experience in the Legislature would be an asset in a court that reviews legislative acts. But Owens has important assets of her own, including a rural Washingtonian perspective gained as a small-town lawyer and tribal judge on the Olympic Peninsula, Owens holds her own as a member of the court, and we see no reason to dump her.

One candidate in this race – Seattle attorney Michael Johnson – is not campaigning and appears to have filed to confuse his name with Stephen Johnson's in an attempt to help Owens get through the primary. That's inexcusable. Voters inclined to cast their ballot for Stephen Johnson should make sure they have the right candidate.

The special-interest money comes into play in the race for Position 8, which pits Chief Justice Gerry Alexander against private attorney John Groen. Alexander is highly regarded but greatly outfunded by Groen, whose campaign has been been lavishly financed by the real estate and development industries.

Groen styles himself as a champion of "property rights," a posture that commonly connotes ideological opposition to even reasonable land-use planning and restrictions on development. He's campaigning openly as an advocate. We'll stick with the respected chief justice.

In the race for Position 9, incumbent Justice Tom Chambers is challenged by Jeanette Burrage, a former King County Superior Court judge. Intellectually, this is no contest: Chambers is far and away the superior candidate. Although he is no maverick on the court, he has a propensity to protect individual rights.

Less well known than the supreme court is the state Court of Appeals, which stands between the trial courts and the high court.

Chris Quinn-Brintnall, current chief judge of the court's Tacoma-based Division II, faces a challenge this year from Beth Jensen. Jensen is a seasoned private attorney with no judicial background.

Quinn-Brintnall – a longtime former prosecutor and six-year veteran of the appellate court – has much stronger qualifications for the position she now holds. Jensen makes no case for removing her from the bench.

While most primary elections are a prelude to the November election, at least three of these four contests will be final: In appellate court races, a candidate who wins a majority in September wins the seat outright. Voters shouldn't sit this one out.

VotingforJudges.org, P.O. Box 1460, Silverdale, WA  98383
Write to [email protected] or fill out our form.

Votingforjudges.org includes ratings and endorsements from numerous organizations. We provide this information so that voters will be better informed about the candidates. We do not rate or endorse any candidates; the ratings and endorsements of organizations included at this site reflect the views of those individual organizations and not necessarily the views of votingforjudges.org or its sponsors.