Special delivery, courtesy of @pokemon!

Appreciate our friends Charlie @KIROCharlie and Minty Hawk @minty_hawk highlighting the inadequate process for challenging a PIID and ballot wording. But there is something more going on with this judge that, I think, needs some clarification and context. Warning TLDR 1) Judge Lanese is known among lawyers familiar with Thurston county as an activist for his willingness to make up rules from the bench that often reflect his personal political beliefs rather than the law. He is the same judge who determined that a citizen/taxpayer/voter (Todd Myers) had no standing before the state to challenge the Department of Ecology on their refusal to release information about carbon reduction mandated by state law. 2) The case being argued in the video was over an entirely separate issue. Mr. West was suing the state on the grounds that he believed the entire PIID is unconstitutional election interference by the state and therefore the entire PIID should be stricken rather than modified. Our case involved a challenge simply to the untruthful wording we felt was being forced on the ballot. 3) Our case challenging the 15 word PIID statement that goes on the ballot was schedule for later in the day. LGW had prepared briefs and had legal council scheduled to attend the later hearings. 4) Judge Lanese knew these other hearings were scheduled for later in the day. Mr. West who is not a lawyer was arguing pro se for his case. Judge Lanese, perhaps knowing that Mr. West would not understand the nature of his question, asked Mr. West if he was arguing for the PIID Ballot language as well. Mr. West said yes. 5) The Judge gave Mr. West a false choice that appears to have been a trap. Judge Lanese told Mr. West that he could combine the two cases but that if he was ruling on the PIID ballot statement then he would rule right then and there. The implication seemingly missed by Mr. West was that this would pre-empt the LGW and other parties from having a chance to make their case on the wording challenge. 6) I am told that a non activist judge would have more appropriately stated that because the other cases were pending later in the day, he would not rule on the ballot wording case but simply address Mr. West’s constitutionality claim. But Judge Lanese chose not to do this. 7) Instead, Judge Lanese ruled from the bench that the wording stands and once he had done that, he made it impossible for the later judge to hear our case. And as noted by both @KIROCharlie and @minty_hawk our illustrious legislature decided that there can be no appeal on ballot language cases. 8) We were effectively silenced and not allowed to defend ourselves or present our case. This seems to be a deliberate act by an activist judge. We do not believe Judge Lanese was acting in good faith. 9) Think about this… an activist Judge allowed a non related case to be expanded to a cover our challenge. An unrelated party was given standing by a judge (famous for not giving standing to citizens agains the state) to argue his interpretation of our case. And then the judge preemptively eliminated any chance we had to be heard in court. Can you imagine, say, you are suing an insurance company for their denial of your claim and a judge allows a completely unrelated party to come in early and make a case on your claim, then rules against you based on the other parties claims, and you never get a chance to even go before the judge and be heard! This is what happened here. Yes, the legislature designed a system that makes it difficult. Yes the deck seems stacked. Yes the legislature designed it so that there is no appeal possible once a judge rules. But this judge took it a step further and locked us out of the process entirely. I agree the only solution left is for record numbers of voters to turn out and make their voice heard. For the 11th time, we do not want an income tax in WA state. Vote Yes, Repeal the Income Tax

Talent can get you there, but Julio Rodríguez knows what it takes to STAY where you want to be 😤 (MLB x @Gatorade)

Stop the Washington Income Tax. Vote YES on i-645. Voting begins on October 16th this year and ends November 3rd. Mark your calendar NOW. Retweet if you want to stop the WA income tax.

Juan Soto (and Mr. Met!) starred in a new Spider-Man commercial 👀 The world may no longer know the man behind the mask, but Soto and New York still have love for Spidey 🕸️