Editorials / Opinion

The King County Bar Association took the rare step of admonishing a district court judicial candidate Thursday.

It should come as no surprise that the candidate, Sarah Hayne, is affiliated with Citizens for Judicial Excellence, the political action committee made up of defense attorneys and dedicated to electing judges sympathetic to the plight of their many of clients caught driving under the influence.

Hayne, a former member of the group and wife of CJE co-founder Stephen Hayne, distributed campaign literature citing 22 years working as a pro tem judge, prosecutor and defense attorney. (Read the news side story by Seattle Times reporter Jim Brunner.)

“Yet she told KCBA that she worked on a limited or part-time basis during the bulk of that period,” according to a bar association news release. “As a result, KCBA finds those written statements to be misleading.”

It’s no small matter that the final stretch before Election Day comes in the build-up to, and afterglow of, Halloween.

What other holiday more accurately reflects the spirit of American elections than the ghoulish, netherworldly exaltation of All Hallows Eve?

And like the most terrifying haunted house, the dark arts of campaign politics are not for the faint of heart.

A common spooky campaign practice I’ve noticed is to put a candidate with the same name as an incumbent on the ballot. The fake candidate will invariably siphon some of the incumbents’ electoral support, thereby increasing the chances of the opponent.

It doesn’t always work, but it’ll always scare the hell out of an incumbent.

Until recently, those kinds of shenanigans rarely found their way into judicial campaigns. Typically those contests operated above the common fray of Philistine behavior, deceptive ads and big money.

But now, even judicial elections are subject to eerie campaign tactics.