The Columbian Editorial Board is pleased to welcome candidates for state Supreme Court. I'm Greg Jane. I'm the editorial page editor at the Columbian and a member of the editorial board.
And as I mentioned previously, we are recording this. We will post it unedited on our website and our YouTube channel. And I think that's all the housekeeping. And with that, we will move on to the candidates. Please take just one.
one to two minutes, introduce yourself and explain why you are running for this position, and then we'll get into some specific policy questions. And we'll start with Dave. Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity.
I'm Judge Dave Larson. I've been a judge now for 16 years, a trial judge, and before that I was a trial lawyer for 23 years. In law school, I worked in the legal field for three years while I was going to law school.
So it's been 43 years, 39 as a lawyer and judge. I'm running because I do believe that I can be a value added to the Supreme Court and to the courts of our state. I've been in the courts I have been in.
I've done a lot of work to try to improve the court system. We're both working with the legislature and otherwise. There's a couple things that the court does. They make decisions about what the law is based on the cases brought before them. Plus, they're also the administrator, kind of the prow of the ship when it comes to how courts are run.
Being in the trial courts and seeing some of the impacts that we've had in the trial courts, I think that my voice on the court will be a voice for the trial courts and the communities that we serve, especially in the area of addiction and mental illness, which is kind of the paramount thing right now that we're dealing with in the courts. There's many other things that we deal with, too. But I do believe that me being on the court will add some diversity of thought and also a voice for our... trial courts and our communities and the people that need us in the justice system.
So thank you. Great. Thank you. And Sal.
Thanks, Greg. I'm Sal Mungia. I'm an attorney in my 40th year.
In fact, I just completed my 40th year of practicing law with 38 of those years in private practice with the law firm of Gordon Thomas Honeywell in Tacoma. I've argued appeals at every level of state and federal court, including the U.S. Supreme Court, have been listed as a quote, a best lawyer in best lawyers in America in appellate practice since 2011, been listed as a quote, super lawyer since 2008 by Washington Law and Politics, endorsed by over 130 active and retired judges around the state, and rated exceptionally well qualified by seven different bar associations for this position.
I'm running for this position to ensure that everyone in the state is treated equally and fairly, that the laws are applied accurately, that we follow the federal and state constitution, and that we ensure that justice is promoted throughout this state. And that's the primary reason that I'm running. Great.
Thank you. And thanks again to both of you. I wanted to try and get a sense of where you might stand and what you see as the court's role. I want to ask about a couple of relatively recent decisions by the court and get your thoughts on the reasoning behind those decisions and whether or not you agree with it.
And let's start with the Blake decision. And Sal, what were your thoughts on that? So for people, well, of course, you know what the Blake decision is. Go ahead.
Yes. And so let me just start off right there. I thought that. all three decisions, or at least the three ways that the court came out on that thing, were at least logical ways, and then I'll explain why.
As you know, there were five justices who said, look, this law is unconstitutional. No other state has a law with strict liability for the possession of drugs where they make it a Class C felony, which means imprisonment up to five years. The last court that looked at this thing was New Orleans, and I forget how many years before Blake, but I'm going to say about eight or ten, and the New Orleans court struck it down. South Dakota was the last state that had a strict liability drug possession law on its books, and its legislature amended that.
So no other state had that, and it was faced by our state's Supreme Court. So five justices are looking at both the federal and state. constitutions, this violates due process. And the court went through a very good analysis showing why, in fact, strict liability for possessing drugs violated the Constitution when there was no requirement that the prosecution show intent.
In other words, that you intended to have those drugs. That's what I mean by strict liability. So that was the decision of five. One justice was.
Deborah Stevens said, look, you know, I know this law has been on the books for a lot of years, and I know that we've upheld it, saying that it is permissible to have strict liability. And the legislature has gone along with it. The legislature has amended the law numerous times.
However, according to Deb Stevens, Justice Stevens, what we should have done from the very beginning and what we've done in other contexts is held that you have to have. an intent requirement. We should have done that back then, and I know we haven't done it throughout the years, but we should go back and put that gloss on it.
I understand her position, and that makes sense. Three justices said, you know what, we've upheld this law for, what, 40 years, 30 years, I can't remember how long it was. Everybody knows that we've upheld it. It's within the power of the legislature to do it. So we should uphold it once again.
Those are the three dissenting opinions. Now, I haven't gone through and read all the briefs. I didn't listen to the oral arguments.
I will say this, you know, I understand where all three, if you will, all three positions are coming from. I likely would have come out, just because you asked me where, would have come out even without hearing the oral arguments, without reading the briefs, either in the majority or with Deb Stephens. That's a close call with... come out on that decision. Great.
Thank you. And Dave? That case is really an example of how we can learn about the role of judges, because somebody as a judge could think it's unfair not to have an intent provision in state law, and I'm one of them, right? I believe that probably the idea of intent is probably necessary.
Our law didn't have that in it, and it was upheld twice before by two different Supreme Courts. The U.S. Supreme Court, even though Sal mentioned that, I think he said New Orleans was Louisiana, I'm not sure, but had struck down theirs. And then the South Dakota had amended their statute. The Supreme Court has done this before in cases where they've kind of encouraged the legislature to act. And this is one of those things that's a legislative issue.
And what... But the thing that's so striking about the case is in the majority, the five that wrote in the majority opinion, and Justice Stevens referred to this in her concurring opinion, is they came up with arguments the lawyers didn't even come up with to strike down the drug law. So it was a result they wish to have because of their personal predilection, their personal feelings, which is not what a judge is supposed to do.
And I like the five. I mean, I know them, but I don't agree with that approach in the judiciary where the. where the judiciary ultimately substitutes itself for the legislature. Where I would have been is upheld the statute and likely endorsed some language that was more editorial comments to the legislature, like they did in the same sex marriage case where they encourage the legislature to do something about it, even though they didn't think they could act.
The effect of the Blake case has been devastating in the trial courts. It's really undermined what we've tried to do because it essentially made drugs legal in Washington. And the legislature's initial response was to have the three referrals to treatment, and then you could be charged with a misdemeanor approach, which is basically unenforceable.
There was no way to track it from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. And basically, drugs were legal in Washington, and the effects of that are significant to our communities. The impacts we're seeing is probably directly related to that. decision.
The inside baseball stuff is even worse in some cases. There was felons that had drug law convictions for this that was included in their offender score. So I don't know exactly how many defendants, and my understanding is in the thousands, had to be resentenced because that law could no longer be considered in their offender score.
So they'd be resentenced. People that were in prison ultimately got released because of that and everything else. The other thing, the economic impact was bad enough for local jurisdictions and the legislature had to put millions of dollars in a pot of money for reimbursements to people that were entitled to reimbursements of their fines. We're talking about trust and confidence in the judiciary when the judiciary goes that extra mile and basically comes up with arguments that lawyers don't even come up with. That's a sign that we need to put a check on that and start being judges again.
And the thing is, is that, again, I'm not being critical of them personally. I think their heart is in the right place. They felt it was an unfair law and everything else. I get it. But that's where judicial restraint comes in, the ability to check your opinions at the door and make a decision based on the law.
And I know in the trial courts what I've seen and the impacts of the Blake decision are significant in our communities. Now, but should the court be considering those impacts or should they just rule on the law? They should just rule on the law.
I mean, certainly impacts play a role. Depends on what context. But they should rule on the law and the things that Sal's talking about. And again, personally, Dave Larson thinks there should be an intent element.
And the legislature did in 2023 adopt an intent element in the new statute that made it a gross misdemeanor. But as a judge, my personal opinions get checked at the door. And I have to apply the law. And then the Supreme Court upheld it twice before.
Now. Again, the idea of come up with arguments the lawyers didn't come up with, that's not fair to the lawyers either. When I'm sentencing somebody, if I'm going to go against a recommendation made by the attorneys that they've agreed to, I will tell them what I'm thinking and give them an opportunity to be heard before I make that decision because I might be wrong versus making a decision where the lawyers didn't have a chance to rebut or do anything about those arguments you've made in your decisions unfair to counsel too. So just on that alone, it's problematic.
But the outcome that's happened, you know, the one thing we're missing now is the infrastructure, and that's where I've written papers and everything else, the infrastructure to deal with the people that are charged with those crimes and other crimes associated with behavioral health. And that's a whole different topic. But I saw it as opportunity to kind of really address those, and I went down and testified in the legislature to try to get them inspired to help us in the courts.
Great. Thank you. And then what about do you think that the capital gains tax is an excise tax? What are your thoughts on that, Dave?
I would have been with Justice Gordon McLeod. And the way to explain it is Justice Gordon McLeod ruled in the dissent in the excise tax case. The way I look at it is an excise tax is when you buy a car, it's a set tax on the value.
When you sell a house, there's a set. tax on the value. If you're selling stocks or bonds or anything subject to capital gains, if you were charged on the value of that sale, so if you sold $300,000 of stock and were taxed on the value of that sale, that would be an excise tax.
But what we have here is that if you bought stock at $100,000 and sold it for $300,000, and I bought it for $200,000 and sold it at $300,000, I show $100,000 gain and you show a $200,000 gain, you're taxed on the income from that investment. And so it's income. Now, it doesn't kick in until $250,000.
So my analogy isn't completely accurate. But it points out that logically, it's a tax on the income. Sal, what are your thoughts? So if that one I did not follow as closely, but what I did look at, I'd be with the majority on that.
But in fact, it was. proper tax from what I just glossed over. So that one I have not analyzed as much as Blake, but from my reading, without reading all the briefs, without hearing oral argument, that was my gut instinct. What about Dave's argument that that is income? Well, I understand that that was the argument made.
That was not the argument that prevailed. A couple of things just regarding the court and the court's role. First of all, you're running for an open seat.
And Susan Owen, sorry, I couldn't find the name. She is retiring under state law. Justices have to retire at the end of the year of their 75th birthday, I believe, if I have that correct. What are your thoughts on that? Is that constitutional to have such a rule?
It's in the Constitution. Well, which one was that directed to me or so? Go ahead, Dave. It's in the Constitution for the Supreme Court that it's 75. Sure. Yeah, and the, they require a constitutional amendment.
There's some people like Justice Alexander, that was an example of somebody that was a significant part of the judiciary that was timed out of the judiciary because of that particular provision in the Constitution. A constitutional amendment would fix that. But I think at the time it was adopted, people that were 75 probably weren't in good condition back in those days. They were a little bit healthier now.
But that's just something, again, the legislature would have to consider. Every level of court, either by statute or by constitution, has a limitation at 75 except municipal courts. we don't have a limitation. In Washington, you mean? In Washington State, yeah.
Sal, what are your thoughts? Is it constitutional that we tell people they can't perform their job anymore? Two answers to that. One is yes, it is constitutional.
Two, I actually love that law, that requirement, and here's why. Yeah, you may have some cases where people who are over 75 completely good about staying on the bench. Their minds are still working. But let me tell you this.
No one is going to tell a judge, judge, you're losing it, right? That's the danger. And don't tell me we don't have enough younger people to serve on the bench who are under 75 who can just do as good, if not better job.
Okay. So let's not kid ourselves. It's a great tool, especially for judges where no one's going to say your time is up. No one's ever going to tell a judge that.
The dangers of having those on the bench who don't or can't serve as well as when they were younger outweighs the risk of losing some good people because they're not irreplaceable. No one's irreplaceable for those positions. And don't get me wrong.
I'm not advocating for a change. I'm just suggesting that it would be a legislative type issue. And all those things Sal talks about would have to go in the mix.
I brought up Justice Alexander, but I don't want to name names of people that fit into the category that Sal's talking about. Hopefully I won't be one of those someday. What are your thoughts about Supreme Court justices being elected?
Is that a good system? What do you think, Sal? Yeah, actually, I do think it's a good system, and here's why.
It gives the people the opportunity. and the authority and the power to decide who's going to be in the judiciary. It gives people the chance to hear.
I mean, I'll tell you, Dave and I have different positions, as you're already seeing, and it gives us a chance to go out and educate people and let them decide what type of people do they want on our bench. I think it's worthwhile. It's something that we value within our state, and I know the people within Washington State take this role seriously.
I do think it's a very productive way of being determined who's going to be occupying the bench. Dave, what are your thoughts? Oh, I wholeheartedly agree. In fact, I've written legislation that will create what's called the Judicial Elections Commission because we need to do a better job in the judiciary, educating people about what to look for in judges because people are lost a lot of times.
And Sal could probably echo that, that people are lost when they're trying to pick a judge. We don't have a we're not partisan. and I'm glad we're not.
So people have, they want to know, and then some of the rules prevent us from talking about some of the issues that people care about. So it's very difficult. So getting education out there to the people on what to look for in judges.
And then also I'm in favor of public financing of judicial elections, not by giving money to candidates, but we have the technology. to where we can push in from a lot of information about candidates so candidates would be able to raise a limited amount of money to pay for uh branding and and and content for like a give an example like a mailer that you would normally mail out but those things would be gathered together and mailed out in bulk not mailed out but pushed out electronically with the option of getting them paper in paper to people And then also have this sponsor forums throughout the state for both for Superior Court, Court of Appeals and Supreme Court. And just really spend some time trying to get people to be educated on how it works.
The influence of money in the judicial races is. It's troublesome in a lot of cases that we have a recusal rule, but it first requires a party to object. And then the judge is still at an option to not recuse if they've been given money by a party in the case or a lawyer in the case.
And I'm in favor of also a mandatory recusal type thing. So there's things we could do to reform the system, both to make it more. more accessible to the public in terms of the knowledge, plus also more accessible to candidates that couldn't otherwise run because of the finance requirements.
Would you favor a system such as that for other elected offices? That would have to be for those folks to advocate. I think the thing about the judiciary is that the presence of money, give me an example in 2016 with McCleary and charter schools who were in front of the Supreme Court.
And the Washington Education Association gave maximum donations to the incumbents. I ran in that race. That's why I know this. Maximum donations to the incumbents and spent over $400,000 on independent expenditures to keep them elected. And McCleary resulted in some of the largest pay increases in state history for teachers.
And I'm not saying there was anything corrupt about it. But from the outside looking in, it's just not appropriate. Now, in that particular election, there was $900,000 of independent expenditures that I had no control over. favored me.
But the point is, is the presence of money in judicial races, I think, is troublesome as far as maintaining the independence of the judiciary. Now, Sal, Dave talked about educating voters what they should look for in a judge. What kind of things would you tell people they should look for in a Supreme Court candidate? Just a list of five real quick here.
One, I think you look at what that person's experience is. How much, you know, we have different and we have to realize the different levels of court. So we have the courts of limited jurisdiction, such as district and municipal court, where they're dealing with misdemeanors and traffic infractions.
Then we go up to Superior Court, which is courts of general jurisdiction. And so I'd say for those courts, especially for superior court judges, hopefully you have someone with trial experience who's actually been in the courtroom, at least doing at least plaintiffs or defense. And what about for Supreme Court?
For Supreme Court, I would say have someone obviously with appellate law experience who knows what that process is, who's handled constitutional issues, argued constitutional issues. I haven't. analyze constitutional issues is one thing that you want to look at. So that experience.
Two, I think you look at another indicator because you want to kind of triangulate on this. What does the legal community think? And again, you know, look at the judges, both on the state Supreme Court, who do they think should be occupying that seat? And the judges throughout the state, because those are probably the ones most in tune with what it takes to be on the state Supreme Court.
I think three, look at. whether that person has put themselves before different bar associations to undergo the rating process, to see, again, from an independent viewpoint, whether that person is qualified to serve on that. I will say that I've gone before nine different bar associations.
Two of them have rated me well-qualified. Seven of them have rated me as exceptionally well-qualified to be serving on that bench. And then I think that you look at...
Kind of intangible is kind of hard to say, you know, but whether that person has the same values that would be reflective of the community. Does that person care about the community, care about the legal process, the legal system? So I think those are some of the things that I think for an appellate court judge you want to be looking at.
And now, Sal, have you ever served as a judge? No, I have served as a neutral. So I've been an arbitrator for over 30 years.
where the limits of what that disputes are is $100,000. So I've handled all sorts of disputes within that context, including medical malpractice disputes, personal injury disputes, commercial disputes, construction disputes, as an independent. Okay. Dave, from the sales list, is there anything you would add that people should look for in a justice? Well, I think that the number one.
aspect, regardless of all the other criteria that Sal's mentioned, is the ability to make decisions based on the law and the Constitution without regard to a personal agenda. The test for a judge is not what our personal opinions are. It's our ability to check them at the door. The other thing, the reason that trial court experience, being a trial judge, is so important is that the Supreme Court is sitting in judgment of errors made by trial court judges.
And like in the NFL, we don't have former players looking at challenges in the booth. The same would go for judges. The.
The level of experience that somebody has as a trial lawyer, for instance, I was rated AV preeminent as a trial lawyer before becoming a judge. But the things I see, the perspective once you get on the bench, because I was an advocate. I was a good advocate. But when you get on the bench, the perspective you have to have is you can't even comprehend it until you're actually sitting there and making decisions. to then and we've there's been several times because of that uh that fault with some of some of the the perspective at the supreme court that that my myself and my colleagues have had to go to legislature to fix decisions they made there's a case called blondstrom versus trip that would would have prevented us from requiring pre-trial alcohol monitoring and dui cases uh the perspective and in that particular case the the reason of the decision was completely wrong because they didn't look at all the law And they didn't take into consideration any of the issues we face in the trial courts.
We're able to go down to the legislature in the next session and get that fixed. But it's just an example of if you don't have that day-to-day trial experience as a judge, you make mistakes in those decisions. And the appellate law that Sal talked about, I think it's certainly a factor that should be considered. But when you're sitting in an appellate jurisdiction as a judge, as a justice, the procedural portions of it are less important than the substantive understanding the different dynamics that are occurring. Also, there's a lot of things that the court makes decisions on with court rules that affect the management of courts.
The most recent example is they have an emergency order. that requires us to have local rules in all of our jurisdictions, and there's hundreds of courts in our state, when you consider in the courts of limited jurisdiction, that require us to have local rules on redaction of documents that are given to defendants. So you're going to have, under their reasoning, you're going to have a local, every court will have a different rule for how to redact. So it's just an example of not having any perspective about what we're dealing with in the trial court. So in addition to what Sal talked about, I would say that.
And I also think that it's important for people to look at whether people are willing to challenge the status quo. And that's one thing I've done in terms of trying to deliver better service because I'm very consumer-oriented. Every time I'm asked about getting rid of the bar exam, the first thing I do is I ask, instinct is to say, what impact is it going to have on consumers? And if we can eliminate the impact on consumers, then it's not going to have a big impact in terms of whether we eliminate it or not.
But it always has to be the end users of our system. And I think being a judge and being in the judiciary, sometimes the people we serve are the last people we consider. We're more interested sometimes in how it affects us rather than how it affects the people we serve. And having a voice like that, for people to have that. Looking for that criteria that they're willing to stand up, even if they're the only one standing up saying something, that should be something that people should look forward to.
And so Sal's idea of how the legal community feels about them, I think he's right. But the other side of that coin is, is that person somebody that's standing up for what's right and therefore maybe not getting as much support as somebody else because they aren't willing to just go along to get along. Now, regarding state initiatives that show up on the ballot, should the courts consider the constitutionality of those before they appear on the ballot or only after they're passed? What are your thoughts, Sal? Only after they're passed for two reasons.
One, you don't want to give advisory opinions as to whether a law is going to be constitutional or not. Two, you don't even know whether it's going to pass. So, again...
Courts don't like to use their scarce resources on things that may never come about. So give it up to the people. And then it goes through. If it is going to get challenged, and that's another thing you wanted to do, you wanted to go through the trial court level where at least a trial judge will hear the arguments, make a decision, go up to the court of appeals, again, have those arguments made before it gets up to the state Supreme Court. So that gets well vetted if there are constitutional challenges to a law.
Dave, your thoughts? I agree with Sal, but there are, right now, there are currently writ processes and everything. There's processes where the Supreme Court can... can get direct review of things but i agree with sal from a from from from his standpoint that he meant the two factors he mentioned plus say for instance the supreme court upholds the initiative it's almost like a comment on the value of that initiative for the voters and i think it would it would it would kind of indirectly influence the outcome of elections uh in an unfair way so i do believe uh for the reason sal stated and that reason it should be after Now, Dave, you've addressed this a little bit, but you've said we need to get back to our main purpose, decisions that are consistent with the laws and not your personal opinion. You mentioned Blake is one example where you feel personal opinion.
Give me some other examples, briefly, some other examples where the Supreme Court may have leaned toward personal opinion rather than what the law says. I couldn't cite you the name of the case, but there's a recent case where they were dealing with actually a case, a problem they created in 2020 when they ruled against some nurses in eastern Washington. That they sued together through their association, and they said they didn't have associational standing because it was hard to prove damages, even though they proved $2.3 million damages at trial, right?
Supreme Court reversed and made those nurses sue individually for their losses. And they were being forced to work overtime, work through lunches, breaks, everything else, all in violation. It was clear there was violations. What ended up happening, though, is because it has taken so long for the litigation, when the nurses went to bring the lawsuits, they were time barred by the statute of limitations, right?
So the Supreme Court had the cleaning up that mess from the... Because I would have been... That case would have been 5-4 the other way.
The nurses'decision would have been upheld. They would have kept their money because the nature of an association or collective bargaining is exactly for that purpose of protecting the individuals. So they don't have to sue individually.
But nevertheless, the Supreme Court had to do some cleanup. So they bent over backwards to create this strained... And... way to make sure these nurses'cases could stay alive.
Now, is it fair that the nurses'cases stay alive? Yeah, but it should have been done in 2020 instead of trying to clean up a mess. There's a recent decision, again, I couldn't cite it, on Department of Ecology where the Supreme Court has basically, in my opinion, given regulatory agencies carte blanche, as long as they're not doing something that affects the broader picture, they're able to, in the permitting process.
puts restrictions in that case it has to do with nitrogen in the in the water and there are problems with that but they didn't go through the rulemaking process and then just required i think tacoma and pierce and king county and some other groups that were doing sewage treatment through the permitting process created this essentially a rule and i think in king county it's going to cost 8 to 12 billion dollars and the supreme court the court of appeals said no you can't do that you got to go through the rulemaking process and the supreme court reversed essentially saying that, no, if it doesn't affect everybody, you're going to have to go through the rulemaking process, even though it's basically a change of the way we're doing things. So I'm sure I can come up with other examples, but on the spot, those are the ones I can think of. And, of course, the capital gains tax, I think, was driven by the resolve that the justices wanted.
And again, I'm not suggesting that there was ill will or evil intent or anything else, because I think in their mind, that's their role. But I disagree with that role. And Sal, you've spoken about fighting for justice and combating bias within the legal system. How do you foresee doing that on the Supreme Court?
And is that the role of the Supreme Court? One definitely is the role of the Supreme Court, both as a body and as justices themselves. So let's take on each one as far as access to justice. That is something that our state Supreme Court can promote in at least two main ways, other ancillary ways. But one is by court rule.
And the court's been doing really a great job about doing that. Waiving fees, certain filing fees for people who are indigent in the civil legal context. so that they have access to justice.
So it's in their rulemaking capacity. Two, really getting both the legal community, I'm going to start off with two, with the legal community, doing pro bono work and promoting civil legal aid. And again, that's something that I've been committed to ever since I started private practice with my law firm in 1986. Going to the legislature, encouraging our state legislature to increase funding for civil legal aid. Going back to Washington, D.C., lobbying our federal lawmakers to increase funding, federal funding for civil legal aid, which I will note our justices have done individually and has given their time to do both, which I think that's exactly what our justices should be doing.
And I'll say this, especially in Washington state, I am so happy to say that that is a bipartisan effort in our state legislature to increase. continue to increase funding for civil legal aid. I think a number of players have been in there, including the State Supreme Court.
Three, and I think it's really using the power of the pulpit, is to go out within the legal community for lawyers and making sure, I mean, I think it's one of our core values doing pro bono work, supporting civil legal aid. But I really do think it's important for the judges to do that, to get out in the community. And luckily, I've done that.
I've done pro bono work. I've done this. So I can't, you know, when I go out there, if I get elected, I won't just be talking the talk, but hopefully I walk the walk and it makes a difference.
So that's civil legal aid. As far as fighting racism and bias within the legal system, exactly kind of the same thing. The court can do it by court rule. And, you know, General Rule 37 was one example, was a leader, not just within the state, but in fact, in the nation. to combat racism and implicit bias within the jury selection process.
The court was really a leader in that. The court was a leader by issuing a letter in, what was it, 2022, I remember the year right, saying that everybody has to take responsibility to address racism and bias within the legal system, including us judges. That resonated not only throughout the state, but throughout the country. Three, you know, having boards and commissions to do this.
We have the Minority and Justice Commission, which is a state Supreme Court, both created and led commission. And again, going out into the community and general community. So I'm trying to give you the 20,000 foot overview.
But I would say a definite yes, it is a responsibility, duty and an opportunity for our justices on the state Supreme Court. Okay, great. Thank you.
And so why don't you both just take a minute, give us your final pitch for voters, why they should support you, and feel free to mention any prominent endorsements you would like to bring up. Sal, I'll start with you. Thanks, Greg.
So here's just a few thoughts to leave everybody with. One, I've been committed to the justice system for my entire career. I have represented people who've been taking advantage of other people. And I'm talking those with power and those without power over amounts like a thousand dollars or less.
I mean, that's what drove me becoming a lawyer to see how my parents were treated or mistreated because we didn't have much money, because my parents were immigrants, because of the color of their skin. And I was committed that I'm going to become a lawyer because that wasn't going to happen to me or my family. And ever since then, I've been. making sure that it doesn't happen to other people.
I've gone down and given my time, so this is time out of my schedule, which let me tell you, private practice is very busy. I've always made time for pro bono work. I've represented people incarcerated in Pierce County Jail in a class action federal lawsuit because of overcrowding and inadequate health care.
Just finished a lawsuit against King County over their jail. I've represented people at the Northwest Detention Center. to protect their First Amendment rights because those people don't have a voice. I've gone down and spent nights at the legal clinics so that working class people can talk to a lawyer and at least know what their options are and hopefully give them some help.
And occasionally I've taken those cases on, even though I've told people I don't take cases on because I've seen how the powerful can abuse those without power. So I'm lucky. Again, I've been endorsed by judges throughout the state on both sides of the aisle. I've endorsed by eight of the nine current state Supreme Court justices.
These are the justices who knows what this takes. And I'm really happy because I'm a former union member to be endorsed by so many labor unions. I'm endorsed by the Washington Labor Council, by the Washington Education Association, Washington Federation of State Employees, Washington State Council of Firefighters.
nurses associations, you name it. Those working people have endorsed me because they've learned about what I stand for, which is ensuring that our federal and state constitutions are going to be applied to everyone fairly and equally throughout the state. So I'll just leave everybody with those thoughts. Great. Thank you.
And Dave, your final pitch. Well, um, I think it's important for the people of this state to have public trust and confidence in their judiciary. The reason I'm running is to provide, to make the judiciary more independable, really, when it gets down to it.
To have it be about reason, about the law, about, rather than advocacy, rather having the law dictate the result and not the result dictating the law. I want it to be a system that is dignified for people. I'm endorsed.
I haven't really sought a lot of endorsements. The people I'm doing this for are voiceless. They're the people that I see every day in my court that are affected by the fact that we have a fragmented approach to criminal justice and everything else. But balance is where I'm at.
I'm endorsed by the president of the NAACP for Washington, Alaska, and Oregon, as well as the Washington Council of Police and Sheriffs. So I'm endorsed by prosecutors and defense attorneys. So the balance is what I bring to this court.
But basically a desire, a passion to follow the law and the Constitution the way it's written and to check my personal opinion at the door. That's how people are going to have confidence in the system. When something's in the courts, the people, all people across the state, regardless of their political belief, regardless of where they live. need to have a sigh of relief that it's in the courts. And I can't say that that, whether at the federal level, that people don't have confidence at the federal, the Supreme Court.
And in this state, some people don't have confidence in our state Supreme Court. Everybody deserves to have confidence in our court. And that's where my passion is. The other thing when it comes, and this is a lot of inside baseball stuff, our Supreme Courts remain silent as our community struggle with addiction and mental illness. They have a Gender and Justice Commission.
They have a minority injustice commission, and there's a lot of effort in working in the trial courts trying to influence what we do in the trial courts. But there is no behavioral health injustice commission. It's not a priority, and it needs to be a priority because that's the number one issue facing our communities. And the number one issue I see, the Blake decision you brought up initially, is something that completely undermined our communities.
And that's something that needs to be somebody on that court that's going to follow the law the way it's written. And. and support those that want to do it that way.
Again, I don't attach evil intent. I believe that everybody has the right, their belief in what they need to do. But that's where the diversity of thought comes in.
There needs to be somebody that says, wait a minute, we shouldn't do that. And that person doesn't exist right now. The fact that Sal's endorsed by eight of the nine justices, I think if people are satisfied with the way the Supreme Court is, they probably should vote for Sal. If people think there needs to be somebody on there that says, wait a minute.
and somebody that's willing to not be endorsed by them, then that's me. So I think the people of the state deserve better when it comes to our judiciary, and I want to be part of making it better. The things I've done with the legislature, the things I've done to help our communities, it's a whole other session we could talk about in terms of all the things that I've done that I want to continue to do. So that when...
If you're a trial judge trying to go to the legislature versus a Supreme Court justice, there's a big difference in terms of the influence. Plus, Sal talked about the bully pulpit. We need to bring our communities together because what we're doing is we're passing people back and forth with this addiction to mental illness with no strategy and no uniform approach to proceed.
And one of the things I've done in the legislature that's been funded is a thing called Regional Resource Network, or networks. where we can have our individual courts and that's the way i think it should be but we use a common network of services so that people are are served in a continuum there's all kinds of things that you're you're you glaze over on if i started to talk to you about some of the policy wonk stuff but there are answers to this and they're not being pursued because we need the leadership on the supreme court to do that and that's why i'm running um and uh i i I can't, none of us can make political promises, but the only promise I can make to voters is I'm going to follow my oath. And the simple oath that we have is to follow the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the state of Washington. I'm also getting a war, I'm also very involved in civics education, and I want to use it as an opportunity to kind of help us understand how we can better govern ourselves overall in the state.
I work at Denny Heck as Lieutenant Governor, for instance, has an initiative that I'd like to be involved in at the state level with him if I'm elected to help voters and people in elected office understand that we're servants, not masters. I'll end by telling a story about how I see elected office. Again, I'm very involved in civics education, so I was with some high school students along with some other legislators and mayors and that type of thing.
And they asked, one of the students asked, when did you feel closest to your position? And I was last and all the elected officials went down and talked about something in their official capacity. What it got to me, I said, I told a story about being at the end of the line at a chili cook-off.
And somebody came up and spoke to me and said, hey, judge, how you doing? And then they talked to me for a couple minutes and left. The person behind me said, hey, you're a judge.
You can just cut up in front of the line. And I said, actually, when I don't have my robot, I'll make anybody else. And the reason I told the students that is my number one job as citizen.
I play a role as a judge. I am a servant, not a master. I seek responsibility, not power. There's a big difference between seeking responsibility and power.
When you're seeking power, it's all about you or about the people that you represent. When it's about responsibility, it's about everybody. It's the duty you owe to others. It sets a whole tone for how we govern ourselves. And that's what I want to see our state go to, both in our courts and in the other branches.
I don't have any control over the other branches, but when we're talking about civics education and those kind of things, that's something that getting the voters educated, just like my initiative on Judicial Elections Commission. I think Sal and I are wholehearted agreement that the people of the state own this state and they have a right to decide who their elected officials are. But I do think they need some help understanding what principles to look for in those people.
so i very much appreciate the opportunity and and i look forward to to see how the results come out and just hope the best for the people of the state thanks well thank you thanks to both of you best of luck thanks