The Yes for SeaTac Prop 1 campaign sent out a press release this afternoon saying that they "fully expect" King County Superior Court Judge Andrea Darvas to toss out the historic $15 an hour minimum wage initiative at a Friday hearing.

We fully expect the county judge, who previously ordered SeaTac Prop 1 off the ballot and was quickly overruled by the state appeals court, to rule in Alaska Airlines' favor again. If the judge agrees with Alaska Airlines to take away paid sick days, living wages and tip protection for 6,000 people, we intend to file an emergency appeal to the WA Supreme Court on Monday.

Alaska Airlines and other plaintiffs have attacked the initiative with a kitchen sink full of legal arguments, from challenging whether it truly qualified for the ballot to arguing that the Port of Seattle preempts the authority of SeaTac to regulate airport wages to challenging the power of municipalities to regulate wages at all. Darvas already has one poorly reasoned and inevitably overturned pro-Alaska/anti-minimum-wage ruling to her credit, and the plaintiffs have given her plenty of ammunition to deliver another.

So don't fret too much about her ruling. This issue will ultimately be decided by the state Supreme Court.

As to what this court case ultimately means for Seattle, well, it depends on the arguments that she accepts. The only issue likely to impact the effort to pass a minimum wage in Seattle would be the question of whether municipalities have the authority to set a minimum wage. They probably do, but it's not entirely settled law. So if Judge Darvas does not find this issue grounds for tossing out SeaTac Prop 1, then the subsequent legal proceedings might have little legal impact here.