This morning, LEV announced its first-ever endorsements for the state Supreme Court. We endorsed Tacoma trial attorney Stan Rumbaugh for Position 1 and former Appeals Court Judge Charlie Wiggins for Position 6.
Below is the press release.
Today the League of Education Voters announced endorsements in two sharply contested state Supreme Court Cases. LEV endorsed Tacoma trial attorney Stan Rumbaugh in his bid to unseat incumbent Jim Johnson (Position 1). And LEV endorsed former Appeals Court Judge Charlie Wiggins in his three-way race with Tacoma Superior Court Judge Bryan Chushcoff and incumbent Richard Sanders (Position 6).
“This is the first time in our nine-year history that LEV has made endorsements in Supreme Court races,” said LEV founding-board member and attorney Steve Miller.
These two races are likely to be decided in the August 17th primary. Judicial candidates who win 50% +1 in the primary appear alone on the November general election ballot.
“Washington public schools face a crucial turning point. Washington’s constitution makes ‘ample provision’ for the basic education of students the ‘paramount duty’ of the state. The question will be posed to the state Supreme Court: do these words have real meaning? If the state Legislature is not required to live up to its constitutional duty to fully fund basic education, local school districts will be left to struggle with inadequate, non-uniform and unstable funding,” Miller said.
“What’s at stake is whether all students, regardless of their zip codes, have equal opportunities to get a first-class high school education,” said Miller.
“Incumbent Justices Jim Johnson and Richard Sanders are widely perceived to allow their personal, political agendas to guide their decisions. The public and the students of Washington would be better served by replacing them with impartial, independent candidates Stan Rumbaugh and Charlie Wiggins,” said LEV’s Legislative and Political Director, George Scarola.
“Stan Rumbaugh and Charlie Wiggins would each bring to the state’s highest court broad community experience, an impartial mind-set and impressive legal credentials,” Miller said. “Rumbaugh also has first-hand experience with public education. He served as a Trustee at Bates Technical College and sent his two children to public schools.
“Charlie Wiggins is widely recognized for his work to preserve judicial independence, and received an ‘Exceptionally Well Qualified’ rating from the King County Bar Association. Wiggins, whose children also graduated from public school, has made it a practice to speak to high school classes about the judicial system.”
I want you to know that we find Robo Calls like the one I just got (2:50PM) from an anonymous Rumbaugh and Wiggins supporter highly offensive. I can be expecting an important call and do all kinds of scrambling to get to the phone only to get a computer driven message fragment the first of which has been lost because it ignores and talks over my “no solicitors” message that I pay the phone company to put up in hopes of preventing unwanted calls.
If you want a real person to talk to me, I can negotiate how much interruption seems appropriate. To attack me with a machine is insulting, demeaning, and, I believe, will come to be seen as unethical. Please don’t base your politics on sending spam.
In my household, robocalling costs my vote.