Ian Birk: What Judges Owe You and What They Don't
Judge Ian Birk is running for the Washington State Supreme Court after 20 years representing ordinary Washingtonians as a lawyer and his current service on the Court of Appeals — and he's the first candidate in the SMN interview series to refuse to define what "property" means under the state constitution, a question that goes straight to the legal challenge against the millionaires tax.
His reasoning is deliberate: a judge's job is to decide cases based on the arguments and facts presented by the parties, not to preview rulings in advance, even when the public wants an answer. "If I start weighing in now on what I think the meaning of a word like 'property' is, one or another party who later has to argue that in front of me could feel like they're at some kind of a disadvantage because I've already started to form an opinion — not in a court based on arguments and a record before me, but here on a radio show."
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