Ultra-wealthy conservatives are spending big to back their slate of right-wing state Supreme Court candidates, hoping to block efforts to tax the rich and level the playing field for working families.
So much of American political theory is based on the assumption that legislators would never willingly concede power, and I find it puzzling how rarely that assumption holds
The only way to depoliticize Washington’s courts is to return control over tax policy to the legislature. In 1933, five Washington Supreme Court justices seized control of taxation, delivering a political win for their wealthy supporters by overturning a popular income tax. That initial political decision created an unjust, unpredictable tax system and subsequently forced the Court to intervene in everything from school policy to capital gains taxation.