OLYMPIA, Washington – The Freedom Foundation on Friday issued the following statement in response to the Washington State Supreme Court’s announcement on Thursday that it would fine the Legislature $100,000 a day until it meets the court’s standards for funding K-12 education:

By ordering the Legislature to pay a $100,000-per-day fine until it meets its “paramount duty” to provide for basic education, the Washington Supreme Court has not only fallen prey to the ultimate judicial temptation – hubris – it has unapologetically embraced it.

The court forgets it is a co-equal, not preeminent branch, of state government. In their ruling, the justices castigate the Legislature for its failure to comply with its “constitutional obligations,” but strangely fail to see how its own actions throw our constitutional government into chaos.

Repeatedly, the court states it will not make new law outlining the Legislature’s exact constitutional obligations as it relates to education, but then it proceeds to boldly declare that the Legislature has failed in its obligations. Our Constitution gives the court judicial power, but the Court’s McCleary decisions exhibit an open attempt at legislative fiat.

Besides the fact that it really has no teeth, this is a dangerous precedent because it aggrandizes the court and ultimately weakens the people’s control over their own government.

“This is just the latest lawless action on the part of a lawless court willing to trample the constitution in the mud in its headlong rush to embrace the radical teachers’ union agenda,” said Freedom Foundation CEO Tom McCabe.

“This is, quite obviously, the court not only writing its own budget but imposing the taxes to pay for it,” he said. “There is no basis whatsoever in the state’s constitution for this brazen power grab. If this isn’t a ‘jump-the-shark’ moment that completely erodes any credibility the court had left, I don’t know what it would take.”