John E. Bridges is a Chelan County Superior Court Judge in Washington state. He presided over the high-profile legal challenge to the 2004 Washington gubernatorial election in which he upheld the election of Christine Gregoire. He grew up in Chelan County, and graduated from Seattle Pacific University and the Gonzaga University School of Law. He was admitted to the Washington State bar association in 1976, and appointed to the bench by Gov. Booth Gardner in 1988.
Five years prior to the high-profile 2004 Washington gubernatorial election case, Judge Bridges presided over another trial in which he voided an election result. [1] On December 29, 1999, Bridges invalidated the certified results of the November 2, 1999 Wenatchee, WA mayoral elections, because the certified winner, Gary Schoessler, did not meet the residency requirements for candidacy. [2] The case had been brought by two local ministers, Sanford Brown and Kel Groseclose. Bridges' decision was upheld by the Washington Supreme Court in a unanimous decision on April 20, 2000. [3]
The 2004 Washington gubernatorial election was held on November 2, 2004. The race gained national attention for its legal twists and extremely close finish, among the closest political races in United States election history. Republican Dino Rossi was declared the winner in the initial automated count and again in a subsequent automated recount, but after a second recount done by hand, Democrat Christine Gregoire took the lead by a margin of 129 votes.
The Oregon Supreme Court (OSC) is the highest state court in the U.S. state of Oregon. The only court that may reverse or modify a decision of the Oregon Supreme Court is the Supreme Court of the United States. The OSC holds court at the Oregon Supreme Court Building in Salem, Oregon, near the capitol building on State Street. The building was finished in 1914 and also houses the state's law library, while the courtroom is also used by the Oregon Court of Appeals.
Kenneth C. "Kenny" Hulshof is an American politician and lawyer who represented Missouri's 9th congressional district in the United States House of Representatives. He was the unsuccessful nominee of the Republican Party for Governor of Missouri in the 2008 election.
Ballot Measure 58 was a citizen's initiative that was passed by the voters of the U.S. state of Oregon in the November 1998 General Election. The measure restored the right of adopted adults who were born in Oregon to access their original birth certificates. The measure passed with 609,268 votes in favor, 454,122 against. It was immediately challenged by several birth mothers who had put children up for adoption, which delayed instituting the measure for a year and a half.
An election petition refers to the procedure for challenging the result of a Parliamentary election.
Roy Stewart Moore is an American politician, lawyer, and jurist who served as the 27th and 31st chief justice of the Supreme Court of Alabama from 2001 to 2003 and again from 2013 to 2017, each time being removed from office for judicial misconduct by the Alabama Court of the Judiciary. He was the Republican nominee in the 2017 U.S. Senate special election in Alabama to fill the seat vacated by Jeff Sessions, but was accused by several women of sexual misconduct and lost to Democratic candidate Doug Jones. Moore ran unsuccessfully for the United States Senate in 2020.
The Montana Supreme Court is the highest court of the state court system in the U.S. state of Montana. It is established and its powers defined by Article VII of the 1972 Montana Constitution. It is primarily an appellate court which reviews civil and criminal decisions of Montana's trial courts of general jurisdiction and certain specialized legislative courts, only having original jurisdiction in a limited number of actions. The court's Chief Justice and six Associate Justices are elected by non-partisan, popular elections. The Montana Supreme Court meets in the Joseph P. Mazurek Building in Helena, Montana, the state's capital, an international style building completed in 1982 and named in the honor of former Montana Attorney General, Joseph P. Mazurek.
The South Carolina Supreme Court is the highest court in the U.S. state of South Carolina. The court is composed of a Chief Justice and four Associate Justices.
W. Michael Gillette is an American attorney and retired judge in the state of Oregon. He was an associate justice of the Oregon Supreme Court, where he served from 1986 until 2010. A graduate of Harvard Law School, he was previously a judge on the Oregon Court of Appeals from 1977 to 1986.
Sanford "Sandy" Brown is a travel writer, tour guide, and United Methodist minister from the Seattle, Washington area. He was formerly senior pastor of First United Methodist Church, the oldest church in the Seattle area.
Uttecht v. Brown, 551 U.S. 1 (2007), was a case dealing with jury selection in capital cases in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that appeals courts must defer to a trial judge’s decision on whether a potential juror would be able to overcome demur about capital punishment and be open to voting to impose a death sentence.
The Washington Court of Appeals is the intermediate level appellate court for the state of Washington. The court is divided into three divisions. Division I is based in Seattle, Division II is based in Tacoma, and Division III is based in Spokane.
James Louis Robart is a Senior United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington.
Edward Terry Sanford was an American jurist who served as an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court from 1923 until his death in 1930. Prior to his nomination to the high court, Sanford served as a United States Assistant Attorney General under President Theodore Roosevelt from 1905 to 1907, and as a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee and the United States District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee from 1908 to 1923. As of 2021, he is the last sitting district court judge to be elevated directly to the Supreme Court.
Taylor v. Beckham, 178 U.S. 548 (1900), was a case heard before the Supreme Court of the United States on April 30 and May 1, 1900, to decide the outcome of the disputed Kentucky gubernatorial election of 1899. The litigants were Republican gubernatorial candidate William S. Taylor and Democratic lieutenant gubernatorial candidate J. C. W. Beckham. In the November 7, 1899, election, Taylor received 193,714 votes to Democrat William Goebel's 191,331. This result was certified by a 2–1 decision of the state's Board of Elections. Goebel challenged the election results on the basis of alleged voting irregularities, and the Democrat-controlled Kentucky General Assembly formed a committee to investigate Goebel's claims. Goebel was shot on January 30, 1900, one day before the General Assembly approved the committee's report declaring enough Taylor votes invalid to swing the election to Goebel. As he lay dying of his wounds, Goebel was sworn into office on January 31, 1900. He died on February 3, 1900, and Beckham ascended to the governorship.
Mary Isabel Yu is an American jurist and Associate Justice of the Washington Supreme Court and former judge of the King County Superior Court. She is the state's first openly gay, Asian American, and Latina Justice. She is also the 6th woman currently serving and the 11th woman ever to serve on Washington state's Supreme Court.
Troy Xavier Kelley is an American attorney, businessman, and politician who served as the 10th Washington State Auditor from 2013 to 2017, and is a member of the Democratic Party. He is a lieutenant colonel JAG officer in the Washington National Guard. Kelley was a member of the Washington House of Representatives, representing the 28th Legislative District from 2007 to 2013. In 2017 he was convicted of multiple counts of possession of stolen property, making false declarations in a court proceeding and tax fraud.
David Alan Domina is an American lawyer and politician from Nebraska. A member of the Democratic Party, he was involved in a number of high-profile legal cases, including the impeachment of Nebraska Attorney General Paul L. Douglas in 1986, and that of University of Nebraska regent David Hergert in 2006. Beginning in 2012, he represented opponents of the Keystone XL pipeline in contesting a legislative measure relating to the use of eminent domain for the pipeline.
The Montana Green Party is a state-level political party affiliated with the Green Party of the United States. It formed in 2001–2002 following Ralph Nader's run for president in 2000 as the Green Party nominee.
Chiafalo v. Washington, 591 U.S. ___ (2020), was a United States Supreme Court case on the issue of "faithless electors" in the Electoral College stemming from the 2016 United States presidential election. The Court ruled unanimously, by a vote of 8–0, that states have the ability to enforce an elector's pledge in presidential elections. Chiafalo deals with electors who received US$1,000 fines for not voting for the nominees of their party in the state of Washington. The case was originally consolidated with Colorado Department of State v. Baca, 591 U.S. ___ (2020), a similar case based on a challenge to a Colorado law providing for the removal and replacement of an elector who does not vote for the presidential candidate who received the most votes in the state, with the electors claiming they have discretion to vote as they choose under the Twelfth Amendment to the United States Constitution. On March 10, 2020, Justice Sonia Sotomayor recused herself in the Colorado case due to a prior relationship to a respondent, and the cases were decided separately on July 6, 2020. Baca was a per curiam decision that followed from the unanimous ruling in Chiafalo against the faithless electors and in favor of the state.