Washington Courts

The Supreme Court heard the Referendum 71 signature and address disclosure case yesterday.  The eminences on the Supreme Court were not very cordial to the attorney for the people who seek signature privacy. 

The disclosure was not sought for the purpose of verifying the legitimacy of the signatories.  It was sought for the purpose of outing people so that political pressure could be brought to bear on them, so that they could be the targets of what — general knowledge, or was it something else, something that might have something to do with ridicule and recrimination, bad stuff.  Bad stuff not good stuff, not neutral stuff.

The people placed on the dais of the Law Palace were not very kind to Mr. Bopp.  That was not surprising, one goes before the court with the sense that one is exposing oneself to fellow law students and professors who like a good argument.  Mr. Bopp got a bit of meanness, in addition to argument.  But that is all right too.  Especially when one understands the childishness of the work of the eminences.

When one reads the transcript of the oral argument one gets the impression that the Justices were a bit petulant.  That’s a good word for it.

The upshot of all this is that the signatures and addresses of the people who sign initiative and referendum and recall petitions in those states which allow for such participation are going to find that their petitioning of the government is no longer going to have any sort of zone of privacy.  You are now fair game you citizens of the revolution, you citizens who question your government! 

I was wondering whether these highly placed people who have been anointed with extraordinary power (Justices of the United States Supreme Court)  are thinking to themselves something like — “that will show those upstarts who would like to start a revolution against the Government Party!”