He presided over the legal challenge of the historic 2004 gubernatorial election.
She led the statewide campaign to preserve Washington’s gay marriage law in 2012.
Now John Bridges and Anne Levinson will put their legal acumen and political knowledge to work enforcing the state’s labyrinth of campaign spending laws as members of the Public Disclosure Commission.
Gov. Jay Inslee made the appointments Tuesday.
Bridges will begin Dec. 8 and fill the vacancy created when Barry Sehlin of Oak Harbor completed his term in December 2014. Bridges will serve the remaining four years of that five-year term.
Levinson will join the commission Jan. 1 and succeed Commissioner Kathy Turner who is stepping down. Levinson will serve a full five-year term.
Bridges, an attorney, was the Chelan County Superior Court judge who presided over the lawsuit which sought to overturn Democrat Chris Gregoire’s defeat of Republican Dino Rossi in 2004.
Rossi and the state Republican Party had sued to set aside the closest governor’s race in the nation’s history, which Gregoire won by 129 votes after a hand recount of more than 2.8 million ballots.
They argued there were enough disputed votes to change the outcome of the election but after a two-week trial Bridges ruled in June 2005 that there had been enough evidence of deliberate acts of election sabotage.
Levinson, a Seattle attorney and former Municipal Court judge, chaired the Approve Referendum 71 campaign in 2009 which defeated the attempted repeal of the state’s domestic partnership law. In 2012, she chaired the committee for the Approve Referendum 74 campaign which turned back the attempted repeal of the state’s marriage equality law.
Commissioners receive $100 for any day they work and can be reimbursed for travel.
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