Why Are There No Challengers for the State Supreme Court?

Seattle Times editors recently bemoaned the fact that no viable candidates have stepped up to run for the Washington Supreme Court. Three Supreme Court Justices are running for reelection with no challengers in sight. The Times calls on people with integrity, distinguished in law with a legal philosophy to run for office. “For democracy to work, the people need choices,” pleads the Times.

But why would distinguished lawyers want to endure a grueling race with no likelihood of garnering any support from newspapers like The Times who have traditionally endorsed all the incumbents on the Supreme Court?

There’s a reason a challenger has not defeated an elected Supreme Court Justice in nearly 100 years, and there’s a reason there are no viable challengers running today. Newspapers themselves have ensured the status quo on the Court.

Ecology Stormwater Bureaucrats Have Nothing To Do

The Washington State Department of Ecology (DOE) reports that it may have to “lay off” workers in its Water Quality division because of the construction slow down. These are the same workers who drive around in 4-wheelers looking for dirt running off jobsites. When they see dirt, which is now considered pollution by DOE, they jump out of their vehicle and shut down construction and threaten to take builders and their crews to jail.

So the goal of DOE workers is to stop development. To accomplish that goal, they have made it more difficult and more expensive to build anything because they have implemented the nation’s most restrictive stormwater regulations. How then can they be surprised when construction slows down?

Indians Receive Money and Salmon

This month, the Bonneville Power Administration gave $900 million to four Indian tribes for dropping out of a lawsuit the tribes had filed alleging that BPA dams were killing salmon. Electric rates will increase up to four percent because of the $900 million settlement.

The same week of the $900 million deal, federal and state officials cut another deal allowing the Muckleshoot Indian tribe to gillnet wild salmon.

So the Tribes, allies of Governor Christine Gregoire, accuse BPA of destroying wild salmon and BPA buys them off for $900 million. Yet, the tribes are permitted to gill net wild salmon in Western Washington. Can we, as BPA customers, receive a settlement from the tribes?

It’s Snowing in April, But Will We Have Enough Water in August?

It is snowing as I write this column in mid-April. In fact, it has snowed so much this year that the snow pack in the Cascades is at a record level, 200 percent of normal. In Eastern Washington, the story’s the same – Spokane had its second snowiest winter in history with over 90 inches of snowfall.

Yet, the first principle of weather in Washington State is you can never have enough water. It can seemingly rain every day for nine months and as soon as it’s dry and sunny for one week, politicians and DOE bureaucrats start yapping about global warming and drought conditions. (Living here, the wettest place imaginable, proves the inefficiency of government, an entity which cannot even manage a resource that falls from the sky, let alone manage the economy or the building industry.)

Here’s my prediction:

Despite the record snowpack and the frigid weather, government personnel this summer will call on citizens to reduce water usage because we’re facing a water shortage.

I’m running out of space, so you will just get the headlines on the next three ironic, absurd political stories:

• Sonics Leaving Seattle: Governor Forms a Task Force to Study the Problem
• Saddam Paid for Congressman McDermott’s Trip to Iraq; McDermott Blames the Bush Administration — “They Should Have Known”
• Evergreen State Students Riot, Overturn and Damage Police Vehicles; College Pays for the Damage.

(Editor’s Note: Tom McCabe is the Executive Vice President of the Building Industry Association of Washington.)