As the political cogs ramp up towards this November, and next, let's take a look at some crucial issues about the functioning of the public interest.
Regardless of what the media tells you about Iraq being the big issue the credibility of our government is the big issue - with the President's, and Congress's, aproval ratings at all time lows.
The typical partisan approach would have Republicans telling you that the public does not matter and Democrats telling you that the group rules over all. The fact is that we are a Constitutional Democracy with very strong guarantees of individual rights. Our society is built up of RESPONSIBLE individuals making lawful decisions, all of which have some impact on the greater good. No more, no less we are all spinning around the gravitas that is the United States.
The Washington Supreme Court appears to be ignoring the responsibility with their recent ruling regarding the responsibility of candidates to tell the truth.
Curiously, some of these same issues are at play in State AG McKenna's defense of the top two primary system at the U.S. Supreme Court.
I've done some research on an aspect of this issue. Did you know that, by law, no County can even tabulate the votes of independents or crossovers? As for me, I've no objection to the parties selecting their own candidates, but to block the First Ammendment rights of indepedents in a government funded matter strikes this commenter as criminally seditious.
I think most of the local cognoscenti would agree that the center of legal practice in Washington State is downtown Seattle. This makes the current, 'open seat' race for King County Prosecutor very important. There has been a well executed effort to portray the 50 year Republican control of this office as above Partisan politics. David Postman comments on this dynamic on his blog.
Prominent Democratic Attorney Jenny Durkan, counsel to Gregoire in her electoral 'challenge' has endorsed Republican Satterberg. She herself addresses the subjects on non-partisanship and the public interest in an op-ed.
Although Durkan makes a case for the law being non-partisan the FAILURE of the profession to defend the rights of the public against transgressors of the right and left groups seems to be the only thing furthered. Ms. Durkan appears to be responding, in part, to arguments I've made about the profession's responsibility to the public in a Washington State Bar filing against her pal, John McKay. Now this was definitely a case of tagging along on a high profile case, but I do think the issue merits it, as here, here, and here.
Meanwhile Governor Gregoire accuses Ron Sims of lying, Repulican's attack party switcher Richard Pope, and Senior Republican Jim Ellis proclaims to be the embodiment of the public interest.
Heyo!
