The Constitutional Law PAC was a center-right political action committee formed in the state of Washington to help elect candidates to the Washington State Supreme Court and

Washington State Court of Appeals The Washington Court of Appeals is the intermediate level appellate court for the U.S. state, state of Washington (state), Washington. The court is divided into three divisions. Division I is based in Seattle, Division II is based in Tacoma, Wash ...

. Conservatives expressed concerns that the group's leadership was too liberal, while liberals criticized the committee as a conservative attempt to influence judicial elections. The center-left FairPAC was started in response.

Candidate Evaluation Committee

The Candidate Evaluation Committee was chaired by Former

King County King County is located in the U.S. state of Washington. The population was 2,269,675 in the 2020 census, making it the most populous county in Washington, and the 13th-most populous in the United States. The county seat is Seattle, also the st ...

Prosecutor Christopher T. Bayley a moderate Republican. Members of the committee were Seattle labor attorney Jerry Rubin of the law firm

Stoel Rives Stoel Rives LLP is a U.S. business law firm with 10 office locations in seven U.S. states and Washington, D.C. Headquartered in Portland, Oregon, in the Park Avenue West Tower, it is the largest law firm in the state of Oregon, having 391 attorn ...

(Democrat), Chehalis attorney Renee’ Remund of the firm Vander Stoep, Remund and Blinks (Republican) and Senior Pierce County Deputy Prosecutor Phil Sorenson (Democrat). In 2006 the committee formed a bi-partisan Candidate Evaluation Committee to issue rating for appellate level judicial candidates in Washington State. The committee issued two ratings for each candidate: "Judicial Qualifications" and "Judicial Philosophy".

Judicial Qualifications

The Judicial Qualifications rating relied on similar criteria to those used by the King County Bar Association and other bar associations. The possible ratings were “Very Well Qualified”, “Well Qualified”, “Qualified” and “Unqualified”.

Judicial Philosophy

The committee based its "Judicial Philosophy" rating reflects on their understanding of a candidate’s “deference to the law, constitution and established legal precedent.” An “A” was used to indicate that the candidate showed complete deference to the law, constitution and established legal precedent. A “B” was awarded for significant deference, a “C” for partial deference, a “D” for insufficient deference and an “F” for little or no deference.

Ratings

The committee rated four incumbent judges as “Very Well Qualified”, Chief Justice

Gerry L. Alexander Gerry L. Alexander (born April 28, 1936) is the former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the U.S. state of Washington. He was elected to the court in 1994 and re-elected in 2000. Following this election, his colleagues elected him to a fou ...

, Judge

Ronald E. Cox Ronald is a masculine given name derived from the Old Norse '' Rögnvaldr'', Hanks; Hardcastle; Hodges (2006) p. 234; Hanks; Hodges (2003) § Ronald. or possibly from Old English '' Regenweald''. In some cases ''Ronald'' is an Anglicised form ...

of the Court of Appeals, Judge

Marlin Appelwick Marlin Jon Appelwick (born July 2, 1953) was a judge of the Washington Court of Appeals, Division I, who served from 1998 until his retirement in 2022. Biography Judge Appelwick first ran for election to the Washington Court of Appeals in 1998 ...

of the Court of Appeals, and Judge

David Armstrong David or Dave Armstrong may refer to: Politicians *David H. Armstrong (1812–1893), US Senator from Missouri * David L. Armstrong (1941–2017), American lawyer and politician * David Malet Armstrong (1926–2014), Australian philosopher * David ...

of the Court of Appeals. State Senator Stephen Johnson was the only non-incumbent rated Very Well Qualified. Two candidates were rated “Unqualified”, conservative Supreme Court challenger

Jeanette Burrage Jeanette, Jeannette or Jeanetta may refer to: * Jeanette (given name), a given name (including a list of people and fictional characters with the name) Places * Jeannette, Ontario, Canada * Jeannette Island, Russia * Jeannette, Pennsylvania, U.S ...

and Joel M. Penoyar who was appointed to the Court of Appeals in 2005.

Leadership

*Chairman of the Board: Former Republican

Senator A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the el ...

Slade Gorton *Board Members: Christopher T. Bayley,

Anthony Sternola Anthony or Antony is a masculine given name, derived from the ''Antonii'', a ''gens'' ( Roman family name) to which Mark Antony (''Marcus Antonius'') belonged. According to Plutarch, the Antonii gens were Heracleidae, being descendants of Anton, ...

Marianne Jones Marianne () has been the national personification of the French Republic since the French Revolution, as a personification of liberty, equality, fraternity and reason, as well as a portrayal of the Goddess of Liberty. Marianne is displayed in ...

and

Alex Hays Alex is a given name. It can refer to a shortened version of Alexander, Alexandra, Alexis. People Multiple *Alex Brown (disambiguation), multiple people *Alex Gordon (disambiguation), multiple people *Alex Harris (disambiguation), multiple peop ...

*Executive Director:

*Chairman, Candidate Evaluation Committee: Christopher T. Bayley.

References

{{reflist Politics of Washington (state) Washington (state) political action committees