Commentary: Disbarred lawyers have no business on high court

Yakima Herald-Republic

Elected officials in our democratic system must meet minimum qualifications that the voting public understands, accepts and even appreciates. For many offices, it starts with the basic age and residency standards of a registered voter. From there, the qualification level rises for positions such as county sheriff, for which the office-holder must complete a basic law-enforcement training program. The age and residency requirements rise even further for those seeking to serve in the U.S. House, Senate or White House.

And so it is for the state’s loftiest judicial positions, those of the Washington State Supreme Court. Justices may — and do — disagree, but those differences are grounded in intensely schooled interpretations of intricate statutes and the state Constitution. To be blunt, this isn’t a layperson’s job. To that end, the state Constitution stipulates that a state Supreme Court justice must “have been admitted to practice” law in Washington.

A problem arose last month when candidates filed for the three Supreme Court positions on the fall ballot. Incumbents Susan Owens, Sheryl Gordon McCloud and Steve Gonzalez are running, and all drew challengers. But unlike two years ago, when the three on the ballot had opponents with serious legal backgrounds, this year’s crop of would-be justices is seriously compromised — two of them to the point of being unqualified. So it was welcome news this week when those two, Stan Lippmann and John Scannell, were kicked off the ballot because they had been stripped of their law licenses due to misconduct as lawyers. The decision on Lippmann came Monday, Scannell’s on Friday of last week.

The two claimed that their once-upon-a-time admission to the state bar still qualifies them despite the loss of their privilege to practice law — a lawyerly argument that discredits the term “lawyerly argument.” Separate Thurston County judges, each citing a 1916 state Supreme Court decision, properly determined their reasoning to be absurd.

Running for a court seat with the nickname “Zamboni” doesn’t automatically disqualify someone for the ballot, but it does tell you something. John “Zamboni” Scannell — his name taken from a former job driving an ice-treatment machine — was disbarred in 2010 for conflict of interest and for deliberately obstructing the state bar association’s investigation into his misconduct. In 2014, Scannell ran against Supreme Court Justice Debra Stephens, who wrote the decision to disbar him. No one challenged his candidacy; he remained on the ballot and garnered 22 percent of the vote. Lippmann, a perennial candidate for King County elected positions, was disbarred in 2008 for misusing clients’ money; he said the issue stemmed from accounting mistakes and he never stole any money.

It’s no secret that the nominally nonpartisan court skews strongly to the left, with rulings that Democrats frequently cheer. But one of the lawyers who brought the Lippmann case was former Republican Attorney General Rob McKenna, now in private practice in Seattle. You can cite this as an example that the integrity of the court is not a partisan issue. Owens and McCloud are now considered unopposed, though Lippmann is talking about conducting a write-in campaign.

All this still leaves an ostensibly competitive race for Gonzalez. His opponent, Bellevue attorney Nathan Choi, has some issues, too, though he at least he hasn’t lost his law license. Last year, after an unsuccessful campaign for the state Court of Appeals, the King County Bar Association admonished him for misleading campaign ads that implied he was already a judge. In February, Attorney General Bob Ferguson filed a lawsuit accusing Choi of campaign finance violations.

There’s a reason our system imposes minimum requirements for elected positions. In the case of the state Supreme Court, a person who isn’t qualified to practice law likewise isn’t qualified to rule on the law. The Thurston County judges made legal decisions well-grounded in the state Constitution — and in common sense.