Opinion: Washington state needs to reform judicial election process

Yes, I have run multiple times for the Washington Supreme Court. I have no regrets. Anyone paying attention to reality knows that my campaigns were always run from the right place for the right reasons. Those reasons did not die with my defeats. 

I want to share some thoughts about the role of money in judicial elections and how we appoint and elect judges now that the dust has settled from last week's elections. I first proposed public financing of judicial elections in 2016 to strip away the influence of money. That same year, I wrote legislation to create a non-partisan Judicial Elections Commission to rate candidates and educate voters. I detailed the desperate need to reform our appointment and election process in the Seattle Times on December 8, 2024, and renewed that warning in a press release on June 23, 2026.

The forces that want to own our state’s judicial system have now revealed their hand in ways I never could have fully exposed on my own. The courts have been held captive by special interests and partisan politics for far too long. Change is overdue. The only question left is whether the judges, lawyers and citizens of this state will finally demand a higher standard, or if their continued silence will be deafening.

Every year I have run, a new partisan lightning rod drives the cycle. This year, the focus on the Supreme Court stems from a partisan fixation on income tax legislation and the initiative to repeal it.

Partisan opponents lined up to battle for control of the ballot box and the bench. While each side views the other as the existential threat, the actual threat already existed independent of them. It came from the justices themselves and the political operatives who have spent years turning the Court into a market commodity instead of a neutral, independent branch of government. It is no surprise that Supreme Court elections encourage the highest bidders to compete when partisan interests and the bench itself invite public policy warfare.

While running as a "slate" was never intended by any of the ten candidates this year, the media and partisan actors drew a clear line in the sand between the candidates; five on each side. Let's look at the numbers for the "Establishment" candidates and "Anti-Establishment" candidates.

As of Nov. 10, 2026, Establishment candidates raised $1,960,856.62, while Anti-Establishment candidates raised $1,427,898.11. In the shadow race by special interests, Establishment PACs spent $1,630,814.88, compared to $1,091,497.04 spent by Anti-Establishment PACs.

But who was the ultimate highest bidder? The establishment backed “Beware the Attack on Our Courts” raised $1,691,323.17 to destroy their presumptive opponents' recommended Supreme Court candidates. The same actors backed the “No on 645” PAC which raised $13,128,327.07 to defeat the income tax initiative. That is a staggering $14,819,650.24 raised with the intent to protect an income tax policy by defeating I-645 at the ballot box and hoping to protect it in the courts by making sure that their backed justices were elected. For perspective, Gov. Bob Ferguson raised $14,537,971.90 for his entire 2024 gubernatorial campaign – $281,678.34 less than what was poured into this judicial war zone. And that doesn't even include the smaller PACs supporting the new income tax.

The highest-bidding Establishment PACs weaponized their cash to systematically misinform voters. They dragged my 18 years of distinguished service as a judge and 23 years of experience as a highly rated trial lawyer through their self-serving mud puddle for their own partisan gain. They did the same with the other candidates who had the temerity to run. 

Shockingly, the lawyers who helped finance this misinformation campaign likely violated RPC 8.2(a) – the very ethical rule that bars attorneys from making false or misleading statements about judicial candidates.

To get a taste of just how compromised the current judicial election process is when it comes to who funds elections, consider this loop of ethical dysfunction:

1. The Gatekeeper: The Bar Association responsible for investigating an ethical breach featured my opponent on the front cover of its official publication – with a glowing feature story – while voters held primary ballots in their hands.
2. The Endorsements: Candidates backed by these Establishment PACs are openly endorsed by the other sitting Supreme Court justices who regulate that very Bar Association.
3. The Jury: The sitting justices, including the successful justice candidates supported by a PAC partially financed by lawyers subject to the ethical complaint, hold the authority to decide the merits of any disputed complaint or reverse any adverse decision the Bar makes.
4. The Cash: Many of the lawyers who helped finance the misinformation campaign against me and other candidates also made direct financial contributions to the exact justices who would sit in judgment over their ethical complaints.

This is why I fight. You deserve better than a judicial system that operates as a closed loop for powerful partisan special interests.

I am ready to discuss how we fix this permanently. Are you?

Dave Larson served as a trial judge for 18 years and was a previous candidate for the Washington State Supreme Court.