In an editorial today calling this year's U.S. Supreme Court docket "one of the most important terms in years for defining the constitutional scope of freedom of expression," The New York Times cites this week's upcoming case from Washington state—the R-71 case in which GOP State Attorney General Rob McKenna is arguing that the names of people who sign initiative petitions should be public.

Yesterday, LawNerd wrote about McKenna's SCOTUS brief (which LawNerd read). He wasn't impressed. That's bad news because I trust LawNerd's, aka, Advokat's, opinion (he works at a pretty fancy law firm), and I want the Court to rule in favor of disclosure.

Perhaps McKenna should download the NYT's concise argument into his presentation. I had never heard the pro-public disclosure argument spelled out so crisply before. The NYT writes:

Putting an initiative on the ballot is an important governmental act, and we hope the court does not decide that there is a right to do so anonymously.

That plain line of thinking challengs the gall of initiatve activists who, by virtue of their business, demand accountability and transparency from lawmakers, but don't want to meet the same standards themselves. (When the legislature suspended I-960 this session, one of initiative maven Tim Eyman's biggest gripes was that the legislature had gotten rid of transparency requirements governing the process of passing tax increases.)

In one of the biggest disappointments from this year's legislative session in Olympia, a bill proposed by State Sen. Joe McDermott's (D-34, W. Seattle, Burien) to add transparency to the other half of the petition process—requiring paid signature gatherers to register with the state—failed. The bill passed the Senate along partisan lines—with the majority Democrats voting 'Yea' and the Republicns 'Nay.' But it did not come up for a vote in the House, dying in the Rules Committee.

Here's hoping Republican AG Rob McKenna makes up for this Washington's  failure on Wednesday in the other Washington.