What legislative session would be complete without somebody trying to inject partisan politics into the judicial process?
And we know about the passion Anthony Brown’s House Commerce Committee has for stacking the deck against working families.
So, the opportunity for a litmus test double-whammy must have been too good to pass up!
Brown’s committee heard testimony today that HB 2558 (read full text here) — which makes some seemingly mundane changes to the Work Comp Act — will let Karin Brownlee’s Director of Work Comp ignore complaints of work comp judge bias. Under the law, as it exists today, the worker can appeal to the district court — and for good reason.
By its very nature, the judiciary is designed to be free of political influence. That’s exactly why workers ought to be able to appeal to the district court, and why the district court ought to be able to evaluate whether of not a work comp judge should recuse themselves from a case for obvious reasons of political influence, bias or other conflict of interest.
But the change in HB 2558 allows Karin Brownlee’s political appointee make that decision. And what kind of bias do you think Karin Brownlee’s political appointtee is going to be looking for? With Karin Brownlee’s record on “taking care” of workers, we can only imagine.
There was some mention of amending the bill as it is now when it is worked in committee, we will keep you up to date on what develops.
