Hunt for Appeals Court

In the Court of Appeals, Division II — Kitsap, Thurston and the Olympic Peninsula — we endorse Judge Robin Hunt for a third, six-year term.

We do not agree with Hunt's rulings on public disclosure, particularly her ruling that the Northwest Pipeline Co. could cite "terrorism" as a reason to deny pipeline documents to The Bellingham Herald newspaper.

On the other hand, she ruled courageously on the teachers' union paycheck-protection case, siding with individuals and freedom of choice. That case went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which agreed with her.

Hunt's challenger is Tim Ford, the open-government ombudsman for Attorney General Rob McKenna and was deputy state solicitor. Before working for McKenna, he was the in-house counsel for the Building Industry Association of Washington, which paid for some of the nastiest ads in previous judicial races.

We have seen no such ads in Ford's race, and don't expect any.

We like Ford's emphasis on protecting the individual citizen and his enthusiastic support of public disclosure, but he has no judicial record and no jury-trial experience. It's not enough to dislodge Judge Hunt.