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Write-in candidate's Web site highlights past court decisions
10/28/02
Alexander has established a Web site he calls "Supreme Power Web Site, a Resource for Washington Voters." It can be found at www.judgestevealexander.com. The Web site describes Supreme Court decisions on eight subjects and says how Johnson voted. Sometimes Johnson was in the majority; in two decisions, he wasn't. Alexander said the eight votes were chosen to illustrate differences in his judicial philosophy and Johnson's. He disagrees with Johnson's vote in each of the eight, he said. But criticism of the votes is presented in the words of justices who voted otherwise in the same decisions. "The Supreme Power Web Site allows voters to draw their own conclusions about these controversial cases," Alexander said in an introduction. "Did the court overreach?You be the judge." Johnson said Thursday that he hadn't seen the Web site. "I've authored about 250 opinions and sat on 1,500 in 12 years and that record speaks for itself," he said. "To understand the issues involved in the cases, you have to read the cases and I'm bound to follow the constitutional mandates and not my personal belief or what I think the law should be," he said. Alexander tossed his name into the race between Johnson and Pam Loginsky of Port Orchard three weeks ago, well after the primary election narrowed the field to those two. Only their names will appear on the Nov. 5 ballot. Alexander's must be written in to cast a vote for him. He was encouraged to run by Kitsap County associates, notably Ellen and Bruce Craswell of North Kitsap, upset that both Johnson and Loginsky have the backing of pro-choice abortion advocates. One of the eight cases on the Web site touches on that issue. It shows Johnson voting with an an 8-1 majority that authorized the destruction of frozen embryos caught in the middle of a divorce case in which each party sought custody. "The dissenting justice noted that neither 'party even argued for that unimagined result ... the destruction of unborn human life,'" the Web site says. Other decisions deal with the state's "three strikes" life-in-prison law, the release of a mental patient who had killed his roommate, a business owner whose expansion was hampered by the state Department of Ecology long after the project started and the granting of a person's claim to share in the estate of his partner in a same-sex relationship. The final three deal with the high court's voiding of three initiatives approved by state voters: Initiatives 695 and 722, limiting taxation, and Initiative 573, establishing term limits for elected officials. "As guardians of the state and national constitutions," says an introduction by Alexander, "judges must take proper steps to insure the judicial role does not encroach upon the other branches of government.This web site documents how the Washington Supreme Court is performing this crucial task." |