Washington is one of 23 states that require voters to choose their supreme court justices. You’d think that would mean that voters here pay extremely close attention to whom they pick for the state’s highest court. But most voters know very little about our supreme court and even less about the candidates running for it. Compounding the problem: Judicial races here are nonpartisan—meaning there’s no helpful “Democrat” or “Republican” next to the candidates’ names.
Not concerned?
You should be. In 2004, liberals in King County turned out in huge numbers to vote in the presidential election but apparently dozed off before they got around to marking their choice in a down-ballot state supreme court contest. As a consequence, King County liberals handed a spot on the high court to “the court’s most consistent and avowed conservative,” as the Seattle Times describes him. Political consultant Lisa MacLean, who has been involved in judicial races for years, explains: “The progressive community was asleep.”
Now is the time to wake up. That conservative justice, Jim Johnson, is up for reelection, and progressive leaders are vowing to take him down. Johnson’s sole challenger: Stan Rumbaugh, a Tacoma lawyer and former Planned Parenthood board member who says he’s confident he can win if liberals turn out to vote. Thanks to the convoluted rules of our state’s new top-two primary, the race for this supreme court position will not be decided in November, when more voters will show up, but rather this month, in the primary, when fewer voters will be paying attention. (Secretary of State Sam Reed predicts the primary turnout will be 38 percent of registered voters.)
Which means progressives need to get the word out about booting Johnson and replacing him with Rumbaugh. Right now.
T o understand how progressives plan to pull off unseating Johnson—and why so much of their plan hinges on the vote of people like you right here in King County—it’s necessary to understand exactly what happened last time around.
In 2004, the race for State Supreme Court Justice Position No. 1 featured two contenders with obviously partisan backgrounds. One was Johnson, a lawyer who’d previously worked for right-wing initiative peddler Tim Eyman and Republican Slade Gorton (when Gorton was attorney general). On the trail, Johnson busily blew through a total of $420,000 that the conservative Building Industry Association of Washington (BIAW) and its allies had given him as part of their multiyear effort to make him their man on the bench. The other candidate in the race was Mary Kay Becker, a respected lawyer and former Democratic state legislator who’d risen to a seat on the state court of appeals. Though she didn’t have nearly as much money as Johnson, she had other things going for her. The Seattle Times endorsed Becker, calling her a reasonable centrist. The stodgy Municipal League rated her “outstanding” (as opposed to Johnson, whom they found only “adequate”). The Washington State Labor Council, the Women’s Political Caucus, and the Washington Conservation Voters all endorsed Becker, too.
But Becker lost, outspent three-to-one by Johnson and his BIAW money. Even more dispiritingly, Becker was abandoned at the polls by hundreds of thousands of progressives. In that same election, more than 1.5 million Washingtonians voted for John Kerry for president, turning our state blue on electoral vote maps even as the country as a whole went for George W. Bush. An equal number of Washingtonians voted for Patty Murray, giving her a third term in the U.S. Senate. But only about one million Washingtonians voted for Becker, the liberal candidate for state supreme court.
She lost by just under 92,000 votes—when there were roughly half a million progressive-leaning voters who had made it their business to vote in 2004 and could have voted for Becker, but as they were marking their ballots for some reason chose not to (probably because they hadn’t learned anything about her race).
Political geeks call this phenomenon “voter drop-off.”
Here’s the direct line from that giant, preventable drop-off to a subsequent giant defeat for the Washington progressive community: Two years later, in 2006, Johnson, happily ensconced on the state supreme court, wrote an opinion strongly supporting the court’s 5–4 decision to uphold Washington’s ban on gay marriage. In that opinion, he compared gay marriage to polygamy and said that households headed by heterosexual parents are “a better environment for children” than households headed by same-sex parents.
Since the vote was 5–4, a different justice in Johnson’s seat could have meant a different ruling. Same for a raft of close court decisions over the last few years in which Johnson’s opinion tracked neatly with what the BIAW, in amicus briefs, said it wanted the justices to decide.
Supreme court justices in our state get six-year terms, which is a long time. “This is probably our last shot at getting this guy off the bench,” says MacLean, referring to Johnson. “Once he is reelected, it will be even tougher and more expensive—and it won’t come up again until 2016.”
Rumbaugh calls Johnson a bought-and-sold conservative “activist judge” (to support this, he points to Johnson’s decisions in cases his BIAW backers had an interest in and Johnson’s refusal to recuse himself from those cases). Rumbaugh disagrees with Johnson’s belief that minors have a right to possess guns (Johnson justifies his position on the grounds that 11-year-olds fought in the Civil War). And on marriage Rumbaugh says: “I don’t see anything in the Constitution that says two people of the same sex can’t marry.”
Progressives are putting out the word about the stark difference between Rumbaugh and Johnson with fundraisers, Facebook attacks, and reminders to liberals that the court will undoubtedly be ruling on issues they care about—including, perhaps, gay marriage—over the coming years, making this election urgent.
“Last time,” says Josh Friedes, executive director of the gay advocacy group Equal Rights Washington, “we learned a lesson. Washington citizens paid dearly. This time, we are doing our work.”
This time, the progressive community is determined to make a loud ruckus so that liberal voters, in Friedes’s words, come to “fully appreciate the gravity of the situation.” This time, partly in response to Johnson’s BIAW-bankrolled election in 2004, there are strict limits, enacted by the state legislature in 2006, on how much money candidates for the high court can accept from individuals and interest groups. And this time, there’s more precedent for liberals mobilizing to win in situations like this.
In 2006, progressive-backed supreme court justice Susan Owens (who was part of the minority in the 5–4 gay marriage decision) was reelected by a nearly 10-point margin, despite being far outspent by her conservative challenger. Why the reversal of fortune for progressives between 2004 and 2006? Because in 2006, there was a much lower voter drop-off in liberal bastions like King County. Meaning urban progressives were paying attention—and it made all the difference.
Then, last year, a huge push by urban progressives led to the passage of Referendum 71, which confirmed the state legislature’s decision to extend almost all of the rights of marriage to same-sex domestic partners. The measure’s margin of victory in King County alone was about 203,000 votes—almost twice the overall statewide margin of victory of 113,000 votes. “What we saw in the R-71 campaign,” Friedes says, “is that when progressive voters care passionately about an issue, they can change an outcome.”
According to polling by an independent political action committee working to defeat Johnson, 73 percent of people are undecided in this race, mostly because they don’t know much about it. Meaning the race is wide open. Have you voted yet? Right now is your only chance. 
Jim Johnson is good on the 2nd Amendment, his concurrence in part and dissent in part in the State v. Sieyes makes the argument that there is no rational basis for denying a 17 year old the right to keep and bear arms just because he is 17.
Jim Johnson is good for divorced fathers. He joined Richard Sanders and Tom Chambers in finding that suspending licenses for nonpayment of child support is so unrelated to the purpose of the licensing power as to offend the 14th Amendment.
Frankly, given the Constitution Free Zone that is family law, I am dumbfounded gays want anything to do with marriage and divorce! Because if we allow same gender marriage, we will have same gender divorce.
Should we have that, then a gay man destroyed in a divorce may need Jim Johnson and four more like him on the Supreme Court of Washington.
Could the Stranger not get some writers familiar with state election law? That the Johnson-Rumbaugh race will be decided in the primary has NOTHING to do with the Top Two primary. For decades, judicial elections have been governed by different laws than partisan races, and Top Two didn’t change anything.
If only two candidates file for a judicial position, it will be decided in the primary. It was that way in the blanket primary days, it was that way during the Pick-A-Party interregnum, and it is that way today.
If basic facts like that escape the Stranger, its writers, and its interns, wehy should I have any confidence in anything appearing in the Stranger?
Here’s another secret- if only one candidate files for Superior Court judge in King County, they don’t even appear on the ballot, but are already elected. No write-in, no nothing.
At least the single candidate in a state supreme court race, or the winner of the primary between two candidates, has to appear on the November ballot and can be opposed by a write-in. But such basic facts seem to elude the Stranger.
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But such basic facts seem to elude the Stranger.
Basic facts seem to elude the Stranger.
Basic facts elude the Stranger.
Basic facts.
#1 – So all the other pitches against gay marriage have finally come down to “It doesn’t work for the Straights; therefore, gays shouldn’t be able to marry?” Just wow.
#2 – If I read the article correctly, what they are saying is get out and vote for Rumbaugh, that way, we the voters, can vote for him in the election. Perhaps I’m a little confused over all the big words.
As a lifetime voter (well, as long as it was legal for me to vote), I say, “I don’t care who you vote for, just vote.”
Voting is not only a right, it’s a responsibility.
Here are somethings I KNOW!!!! One I am pretty sure I am enrolling in Law Classes this year. Not because I wish to become a lawyer. But because I wish to be better able to correct some really really FUCKED UP laws around here! Two…If the worlds best paper… ” The Strranger! ” says Rumbaugh then I would believe them. For supreme court. Further more although I have not studied all of Patty Murrys sp? decisions however from observing her recently compared to dino’s paid for slander on T.V. I would have to say I’ll bet she’s a better MAN for the senate job… Isn’t obama coming out to seattle this month to give her props? Or something why isnt The Seattle Times writing about that.? Where is fox news when you need them to report the president is coming to town. King 5 shouldnt those dudes over there be reporting something worth while to the people? Me… WHO AM I TO JUDGE.I am a bit more concerned/aware about things like the patriot act… ENDING WAR!!!! and ofcourse above all else the Peace and Safety of my innocent children.
Sending Love Brandi Michelle Mary Halstead
aka Ms.Killer B
This article is about State Supreme Court, not Superior court, Mr. King. My ballot contains 3 judge positions on the Supreme court, two positions on the Court of Appeals and a Prosecuting Attorney for King County.
(BTW-I voted for Becker, because I have a friend in the lawyering business who provides facts regarding all judge candidates in these elections.
Thank you Mr. Sanders for trying to get information out to the voters. I don’t always agree with the Stranger’s opinions or fact finding methods, but I always appreciate the efforts made by this paper to bring politics to the front during election time.
A google search tonight regarding these judge candidates produced your article. We can thank the rest of our media for helping keep ourselves in the dark.
Thanks again,
Monica
This article might have been helpful if it had been released before the ballots came out. I’ve already voted.
But such basic facts seem to elude the Stranger.
Basic facts seem to elude the Stranger.
Basic facts elude the Stranger.
Basic facts.
But such basic facts seem to elude the Stranger.
Basic facts seem to elude the Stranger.
Basic facts elude the Stranger.
Basic facts.
If you were to read Johnson’s opinions as I have, it would be obvious that he isn’t even an “original constitutionalist” as he claims. He is against constitutionally protected freedom of speech, he is against requirements for search warrants in situations that have always required search warrants in the past, he is against gay marriage, he is against proper citations. I followed one of his references and it didn’t say what he claimed anywhere, specifically HIS claim that marijuana intoxication is the leading contributor to fatal accidents; he cited a very biased pamphlet on marijuana (“blunts are often rolled with crack”) and that resource didn’t even attempt to claim or infer anything about driving while under the influence of marijuana. What is he for? Business, bigotry, and the conservative, puritanical church values.
So much for the endorsements from The Stranger.
(Johnson won by 61%)
So much for an endorsements from The Stranger.
(Johnson won by 61%)
Let’s not be silly here, the media is notorious for their spin with agendas and personal conflicts. Equally, if not more so, than politicians themselves. There’s no news without… NEWS. I’m pretty confident that much of what we watch and read is an edited rendition fit for the likes of a good Aaron Spelling show. Or Tupac Biggie, East vs. West built up battle. It WORKS!!!! Tell me you’re NOT a sucker, like myself, for a good 90210 episode or … (your pick here).
I EVEN saw an ad explicitly saying that Johnson was in the pockets of the tobacco industry? Seriously? They may as well have added that he was also capable of kicking water uphill. Come on now…
Gay marriage? I’m not sure why Justice Johnson doesn’t back them either… I DO know he is NOT against gay/lesbian relationships. I’m straight and I’m against marriage… for MYSELF… straight people and gays alike. Why bother? It’s USUALLY a religious ceremony anyway which should not constitutionally TOUCH our laws in the first place. Love is love and true commitment needs no spotlight in the political field, period. Who gives a high hoot? Really? Make yourself, or get someone to make a fake certificate for you, like an eighteen year old does fake id, if this is SUCH a serious deal to you… I know I don’t need ANYONE to tell me how much my love to my friends, family, or loved partner means. Nothing in ANY physical form or law will ever be able to come close to containing or defining my love so take the whole world away completely… it’s still there strong & untouchable.
As a matter of fact, when I see the cutest couple in the street or in my building, gay or straight, I think… RIGHT ON! I’m happy for them. Decriminalization in job and military is offensive to me but this silly contract of marriage recognized by the the state is as stale and fake as that young hot model marrying the old hermit sitting on millions. Why would ANYONE FIGHT to be a part of this hoax? Gay or straight. Let’s be reasonable and get back to the fundamental issues of Constitutionality that Johnson ALWAYS goes OUT OF HIS way to defend.. comment.. descent etc. on. We don’t want more rules and by making an issue of this marriage ban is a distraction of what we ALL really want. Freedom and security. We are LUCKY as Americans and we are LUCKY to have a honorary man on court who ACTUALLY takes the time to thoroughly review and remark on all the cases before him.
I’m sure the financial backing he has received has been a measure of his VALUE not as a “favor” to the pac or groups who contributed but to and for the general good of ALL the people who will reap the benefits of his sound judgement. I hate(d) the jocks too in high school… but I showed up at the games and had an excellent time watching them work their hearts out for a defeat they were, in all reality, doing in my honor too!!
Johnson’s list of backers is extensive and diverse. From the fishermen in Illwaco to large industry political heads. I get confused myself to think ONE man can REALLY be on ALL teams… Then again, I’m a humanitarian and that’s how I envision Johnson with the extensive research and background I’ve gathered as a nerd and as someone who CARES about our future and the people that WE HAVE THE LIBERTY TO CHOOSE to ensure our rights and freedoms are safe from perversion, restriction, and infringement upon our livelihoods. I’m a happy person, in general… are YOU? Why let the media tell us we shouldn’t be?