A lot of you probably saw or heard the headlines the other day that a Snohomish County Superior Court judge had ordered I-18 onto the ballot without the technical changes added by the King County Council. As you can imagine, Tim Eyman made a big deal of this, emailing his supporters and the media a press release titled: “Huge legal victory! Judge orders original I-18 on ballot.”
What a fucking liar.
As the Puget Sound Business Journal dispassionately explains, the judge merely set an August 24 hearing for the two sides to argue whether the initiative should go on the ballot as originally written. Shame on those members of the media who repeated Tim’s spin on this story without getting the facts straight.
Now I’m not an attorney (much to my mother’s chagrin,) but does it strike anyone else as odd that a Snohomish County resident has appealed to a Snohomish County judge, to rule on a King County initiative? I’m sure I’ve seen the terms “standing” and “venue” bandied about in legal documents from time to time.
So if you, gentle reader, have made your mother proud by acquiring a legal degree, could you please add a comment explaining how one county gets to interfere in the affairs of another?
