Category: Litigation

Posted inBreaking News, Litigation, Party Politics

Right wing U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia dead at seventy-nine

Andrew Villeneuveby Andrew Villeneuve

Unit­ed States Supreme Court Jus­tice Antonin Scalia, the most senior jus­tice on the Roberts Court and a reli­able vote for the Court’s right wing bloc, has died, accord­ing to a state­ment released today by Chief Jus­tice John Roberts. “On behalf of the Court and retired Jus­tices, I am sad­dened to report that our col­league Justice […]

Posted inLitigation

Schedule set for Supreme Court appeal of Judge Downing’s decision in Lee v. State

Andrew Villeneuveby Andrew Villeneuve

The Wash­ing­ton State Supreme Court has set­tled on a sched­ule for hear­ing the appeal of King Coun­ty Supe­ri­or Court Judge William Down­ing’s deci­sion in Lee v. State, the legal chal­lenge to Tim Eyman’s I‑1366, accord­ing to an order signed by Chief Jus­tice Bar­bara Mad­sen ear­li­er today. Wrote Mad­sen: On Jan­u­ary 25, 2016, Appel­lant, the State […]

Posted inElections, Litigation

Tim Eyman can expect state Supreme Court to uphold ruling striking down Initiative 1366

Andrew Villeneuveby Andrew Villeneuve

Yes­ter­day, to the sur­prise of almost nobody except for Tim Eyman, King Coun­ty Supe­ri­or Court Judge William Down­ing struck down Ini­tia­tive 1366, the uncon­sti­tu­tion­al atroc­i­ty that Eyman qual­i­fied for the bal­lot last year with the back­ing of hedge fund man­agers and real estate devel­op­ers. I‑1366 was an attempt by Eyman to coerce Demo­c­ra­t­ic leg­is­la­tors into […]

Posted inElections, Litigation

Tim Eyman backtracks on brash predictions of victory in Initiative 1366 legal challenge

Andrew Villeneuveby Andrew Villeneuve

Some­time tomor­row, King Coun­ty Supe­ri­or Court Judge William Down­ing is expect­ed to issue a rul­ing in the case of Tony Lee, et al. v. State of Wash­ing­ton, et al., the legal chal­lenge to Tim Eyman’s incred­i­bly destruc­tive Ini­tia­tive 1366. Down­ing heard oral argu­ments from lawyers rep­re­sent­ing the plain­tiffs and defen­dants yes­ter­day morn­ing, and promised he’d […]

Posted inElections, Legislative Advocacy, Litigation, Policy Topics

New legal challenge filed against Tim Eyman’s hostage-taking I‑1366 in Superior Court

Andrew Villeneuveby Andrew Villeneuve

With Wash­ing­ton’s 2015 gen­er­al elec­tion on the verge of being cer­ti­fied, the time has come to con­tin­ue the fight against Tim Eyman’s I‑1366 in the courts. Accord­ing­ly, attor­neys with Paci­fi­ca Law Group have filed a new law­suit seek­ing a declara­to­ry judg­ment that I‑1366 exceeds the scope of the ini­tia­tive pow­er and vio­lates mul­ti­ple pro­vi­sions of […]

Posted inElections, Litigation, Live Coverage, Open Government, Policy Topics

Worth noting: Washington State’s elected justices can’t personally solicit campaign cash

Andrew Villeneuveby Andrew Villeneuve

On Tues­day, The Seat­tle Times ran a col­umn from Dan­ny West­neat titled “The trou­ble with union dona­tions, school cas­es”, which expressed dis­com­fort over the fact that the Wash­ing­ton Edu­ca­tion Asso­ci­a­tion has pre­vi­ous­ly donat­ed mon­ey to the cam­paigns of sev­er­al of the jus­tices who now sit on our state Supreme Court. Almost from the moment that […]

Posted inElections, Litigation

State attorneys go after Tim Eyman’s bank records to help PDC finish I‑517 investigation

Andrew Villeneuveby Andrew Villeneuve

Late Thurs­day night, just a few hours before the Wash­ing­ton State Supreme Court released its order allow­ing Ini­tia­tive 1366 to pro­ceed to the Novem­ber 2015 bal­lot, The Her­ald of Everett pub­lished a remark­able sto­ry break­ing the news that state author­i­ties are final­ly, final­ly tak­ing action to com­plete the stalled inves­ti­ga­tion into Tim Eyman’s cam­paign to […]

Posted inBreaking News, Education, Elections, Litigation, Policy Topics

Washington’s Supreme Court strikes down I‑1240 (charter schools) in its entirety

Andrew Villeneuveby Andrew Villeneuve

Once again, the Wash­ing­ton State Supreme Court has rid­den to the res­cue of Wash­ing­ton’s belea­guered pub­lic schools sys­tem. In a mon­u­men­tal­ly impor­tant 6–3 deci­sion released late this after­noon, the Court struck down Ini­tia­tive 1240, a char­ter schools mea­sure vot­ers nar­row­ly passed in 2012, as uncon­sti­tu­tion­al in its entire­ty. The deci­sion means that Wash­ing­ton’s exper­i­ment with […]

Posted inBreaking News, Elections, Litigation

Washington’s Supreme Court allows Eyman’s I‑1366 to proceed to November 2015 ballot

Andrew Villeneuveby Andrew Villeneuve

This morn­ing, the Wash­ing­ton State Supreme Court ren­dered a pre­lim­i­nary ver­dict in Huff v. Wyman, the scope chal­lenge to Tim Eyman’s I‑1366. The Court has ruled unan­i­mous­ly that plain­tiffs’ request for an injunc­tion should be denied, which we under­stand means that I‑1366 will appear on the Novem­ber 2015 bal­lot. The Court entered the fol­low­ing order: This […]

Posted inElections, Litigation

Judge Dean Lum finds Eyman’s I‑1366 is beyond scope, but won’t remove it from ballot

Andrew Villeneuveby Andrew Villeneuve

This is a break­ing news post. In a writ­ten deci­sion hand­ed down moments ago, King Coun­ty Supe­ri­or Court Judge Dean Lum has found that Tim Eyman’s I‑1366 is indeed beyond the scope of the peo­ple’s ini­tia­tive pow­er… but has nev­er­the­less declined to grant plain­tiffs’ motion for a pre­lim­i­nary injunc­tion block­ing it from the bal­lot because, […]

Posted inElections, Litigation

Reporting, commentary on lawsuit against Eyman’s I‑1366 misses mark, distorts history

Andrew Villeneuveby Andrew Villeneuve

Last week, with­in the span of twen­­ty-four hours, Tim Eyman’s odi­ous I‑1366 received its fis­cal impact state­ment from the Office of Finan­cial Man­age­ment, was cer­ti­fied for the bal­lot by Sec­re­tary of State Kim Wyman, and then was sub­ject­ed to a legal chal­lenge by King Coun­ty Elec­tions Direc­tor Sher­ril Huff, Thurston Coun­ty Audi­tor Mary Hall, and […]

Posted inElections, Litigation

Elected leaders, activists file lawsuit to remove Tim Eyman’s I‑1366 from 2015 ballot

Andrew Villeneuveby Andrew Villeneuve

This morn­ing, at a press con­fer­ence at Paci­fi­ca Law Group’s offices in down­town Seat­tle, sev­er­al friends of the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute announced the fil­ing of a legal chal­lenge to block Tim Eyman’s incred­i­bly destruc­tive I‑1366 from the Novem­ber bal­lot because it exceeds the scope of the peo­ple’s ini­tia­tive pow­er as set forth in Wash­ing­ton’s Constitution. […]

Posted inCivil Liberties, Litigation, Policy Topics

FREEDOM WINS!!! U.S. Supreme Court makes marriage equality law of the land nationwide

Andrew Villeneuveby Andrew Villeneuve

This morn­ing, in a his­toric and ground­break­ing deci­sion, the Unit­ed States Supreme Court ruled 5–4 that states may not pro­hib­it cou­ples from mar­ry­ing on the basis of their sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion. The court’s major­i­ty opin­ion in Oberge­fell v. Hodges means that mar­riage equal­i­ty is sud­den­ly and final­ly the law of the land in all fifty states […]

Posted inBreaking News, Litigation, Open Government, Policy Topics

House Republicans authorize John Boehner to file baseless lawsuit against President Obama

Andrew Villeneuveby Andrew Villeneuve

John Boehn­er and his cau­cus con­tin­ued their polit­i­cal the­atrics on a grand scale today by forc­ing the Unit­ed States House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives to vote on a res­o­lu­tion autho­riz­ing John Boehn­er to ini­ti­ate lit­i­ga­tion against Barack Oba­ma for fail­ing to prop­er­ly dis­charge his duties as Pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca. All but five Republicans […]