This week on “The Impact”:
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of a Colorado baker who refused, on religious grounds, to make a cake for a same sex couple’s wedding. Two professors are weighing in on the implications for a similar case in Washington and the underpinning state anti-discrimination law.
“Our state civil rights law is neutrally applied part of the bitter and sweet is that if you engage in commerce you’re going to live by the laws,” said Prof. Shawn Newman, St. Martin’s University.
“Even some of the justices, particularly Gorsuch and Justice Clarence Thomas who concurred in Masterpiece Cake Shop, seemed to be very willing to go ahead and create this religious exception to public accommodation laws. So they may look at Arlene’s Flowers as an opportunity to try to do that or at least try to move the needle,” said Prof. Bryan Adamson, Seattle University School of Law.
We’ll also take you inside the legal tussle over the ballot title for Initiative 1639 to place new restrictions on certain rifles and new legal requirements for gun owners.
“This ballot title needs to represent what people are really voting on,” said Joe Wilson, Pro Se litigant.
“The term semi-automatic assault rifles we believe that assault rifles is a perfectly appropriate here,” said Nick Brown, Pacifica Law Group.
Other topics include: the sudden reversal of the Seattle “head tax”; and a U.S. Supreme Court win for tribes in a long running dispute with the state over blocked fish passageways.
Click here to watch “The Impact” – June 13, 2018