Politics Jamie Pedersen Was For Accusing Justices of Playing Politics Before He Was Against It
Jamie Pedersen, candidate in the 43rd District, said something remarkably impolitic a few months back. Pedersen’s entire campaign for Ed Murray’s old seat is based on his work on the gay marriage issue, and we’ve been waiting for a Washing State Supreme Court decision on gay marriage for what seems like years. Pedersen told the AP back in May that the justices were holding back their decision for purely political reasons.
A number of participants think justices will sit on it until after the election, because it’s such a hot-button issue, bound to anger the losing side and some voters.“They’ll see the controversy and some will worry about re-election, and that’s a shame,” Pedersen says…
Last week Pedersen told the AP the exact opposite:
Jamie Pedersen, a lawyer representing the gay couples in the case, said he doesn’t fall into the camp of those who believed the court might delay the opinion for political reasons, and that he appreciates the care the court appears to be taking with the ruling. As a former law clerk, he said he knows how complex opinion-writing can be.“Anytime somebody changes something in one opinion, the others get a chance to change what’s in their opinions,” he said. “They’ll issue the decision when they’re done writing it.”
That said, he’s eager to see the result.
“Obviously, we have all of our plaintiff couples and thousands of others in the state who live every day without the benefit of legal protection,” he said. “The sooner we get the ruling the better.”
So way back in May of 2006 Pedersen was solidly in the camp of folks who believed—perhaps correctly, although it’s impolitic to say so—that the court was delaying the gay marriage decision for purely political reasons. By July of 2006 Pedersen was the leading critic of “those who believed” the court is dragging this out for political reasons. Either Pedersen did his law clerking—which gave him so much perspective on the whole opinion-writing business—between May and July of 2006 or someone told Pedersen back in May that accusing WA’s Supreme Court justices of playing politics wasn’t a smooth political move.
I have a great solution for this whole Jamie Pedersen dilemma: don't vote for Jamie Pedersen. Problem solved.