B. Private parties cannot invoke the judiciary’s inherent power

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 Also, if courts frequently ruled in favor of their own funding, they could undermine “the judiciary’s image of impartiality and the concomitant willingness of the public to accept its decisions as those of a fair and disinterested tribunal.” Id. at 249. As the Washington Supreme Court reiterated just last year, funding “concerns are best resolved in the legislative arena.” Rocha v. King County, 195 Wn.2d 412, 432, 460 P.3d 624 (2020). In sum, courts must strictly “limit their incursions” into the Legislature’s funding powers to instances where doing so is “actually necessary to the purpose of self-protection.” In re Mowery, 141 Wn. App. 263, 282, 169 P.3d 835 (2007).

B. Private parties cannot invoke the judiciary’s inherent power

Private plaintiffs lack standing to pursue an alleged constitutional right to statewide court funding because, to the extent that an extraordinary power to compel funding outside the constitutional appropriations process exists, that carefully circumscribed power belongs exclusively to the judicial branch. First and foremost, Plaintiffs are not within the “zone of interests”

protected by the purported constitutional rights to judicial funding that they invoke because—as discussed in Part III below—the constitutional provisions on which they rely establish no such rights. Plaintiffs misread these provisions to establish State funding requirements, when in fact they do no such thing. Infra § III.

Even if Plaintiffs had identified a colorable constitutional claim, the

judiciary is the only party that could assert a claim of constitutionally inadequate

court funding. Cf. Lakehaven Water & Sewer Dist. v. City of Fed. Way, 195 Wn.2d

MOTION TO DISMISS Case No. 21-2-06462-7 SEA 14

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