1998 & 2004
Dissembling by the court re: the significant 14th Amendment limits on the states' authority when they provide a voting right over local government legislators.
http://caselaw.findlaw.com/wa-supreme-court/1189466.html
The justices in this opinion ignore the conflicts of interest. The lawyers who brought the claims were from Anderson Hunter, the largest Everett law firm. It regularly represents municipalities north of Seattle, so its lawyers have an apparent conflict in bringing "individuals vs. government" municipal law claims like these.
A very limited set of governmental powers had been delegated by the state to that library board. Accordingly, under longstanding 14th Amendment precedents it was legal for that entity to have an appointive board. The reason for that is the board's powers were limited so that it only could administer governmental policies the state legislature established for it.
Instead of analyzing that issue correctly, the opinion addressed the defective claims the complicit lawyers framed. The 14th Amendment claims the Anderson Hunter lawyers raised were specious. Moreover, those federal constitutional claims failed to reference any of the SCOTUS precedents that address the issue of when states must provide equal, effective voting rights. The flawed analysis from this opinion was used as precedent in opinions addressed below.
2004
This opinion allowed excessive taxing and spending because the court feigned ignorance of a $3.9 billion capital cost spending limit in the 1996 ballot measure.
http://caselaw.findlaw.com/wa-supreme-court/1389055.html
City Councilmember Sally Bagshaw’s husband brought and prosecuted these claims. Sally Bagshaw was the top civil law attorney for King County, so there is no way her husband would raise anything but specious claims against Sound Transit. The justices ignored this conflict of interest.
Bradley Bagshaw raised claims that were certain to lose. He claimed that legal limits existed in the ballot proposition, pursuant to which 1) capital construction had to end ten years from approval of the ballot measure, and/or 2) commencing work on a 14-mile light rail line was prohibited, and/or 3) imposing taxes for more than 10 years was prohibited. The text of the "Sound Move" resolution voters approved did not require any of those things.
It's easy for lawyers to get judges to reject claims when those claims are devoid of merit. What's "special" about the justices of this state is how they elaborate on meritless claims in lawsuits implicating massive "tax and spend" policies.
Bagshaw's briefing ignored the tax revenue spending limit of $1.98 billion (it is in Table 2 of the resolution known as “Sound Move”). The justices took their cue from this omission, and they also pretended it did not exist. That bench knew full well the transit interests (especially Sound Transit's financiers) wanted out from under that spending cap.
Bagshaw and his partner Jurca were tapped by government lawyers to represent the public's interests in other lawsuits, including when claims against Seattle/City Light were at issue (both before and after this "Sane Transit" litigation). The governments’ attorneys really like how these private firm lawyers operate when "individual vs. government" claims are at stake.
Bagshaw then was selected to again bring incorrect, sure-loser claims implicating the RTA’s interests in 2011. Here’s the resulting opinion:
https://www.leagle.com/decision/inadvwaco140419000157
A legitimate claim to invalidate the purchase by the Port under those facts would have been based on RCW 53.08.290. That statute would have been the basis for a legitimate, strong claim that the Port's purchase of the limited freight rail use rights from BNSF was not authorized. That is because the Port of Seattle never had any intention of using such limited rights in that 42-mile strip of land in relation “to the intermodal movement of interstate and foreign cargo”. Instead, the Port only bought what BNSF wanted to sell as an accommodation to five other local governments for them to use those interests for their purposes.
