High-court seat going Owens' way

Although it's not yet official, Clallam County District Judge Susan Owens appears to have won a seat on the Washington Supreme Court.

Her opponent, Yakima County Prosecutor Jeff Sullivan, conceded defeat yesterday afternoon, after thousands of ballots were counted in counties across the state and the margin between him and Owens widened.

Last night, she was winning with 53 percent of the vote.

Owens, who was at work yesterday at Clallam County District Court in Forks, where she's been the judge for 19 years, said the election "has been thrilling."

If the outcome holds, she will begin in January as the successor to Richard Guy, who is retiring.

Also new to the court will be Tom Chambers, a trial lawyer from Issaquah who defeated Olympia attorney Jim Foley in the race for the Position 9 seat being vacated by Phil Talmadge.

Justice Gerry Alexander was unopposed for Position 8. Justice Bobbe Bridge also won approval to complete her four-year term.

In Owens' race, Sullivan had outpaced her in fund raising, collecting $113,000 to her $31,000, and had entered the race with an impressive resume: a high-profile legal career as Yakima County prosecutor and endorsements from dozens of judges and prosecutors.

"Obviously, I wish the outcome was different," Sullivan said. "But I'm resigned to the fact that it's not going to change. I feel good about the campaign we ran."

Sullivan said he thinks Owens' gender "weighed heavily in her favor."

"The Democratic Party's push to get the women's vote was very beneficial to her," he said.

Owens will become the fourth woman on the nine-member court.

She had few endorsements at the beginning of the campaign, but that changed after the September primary when she gained the support of retired Justice Robert Utter and Justices Barbara Madsen and Richard Sanders. She also won endorsements from the Washington State Labor Council, the National Women's Political Caucus and the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League.

When she entered the race, Owens was not well known outside Clallam County. The race between her and Sullivan was fairly subdued until last week, when minority bar associations demanded that Sullivan apologize for using an ethnic slur against Latinos 12 years ago.

The incident was made public in an Oct. 16 article by the Washington Journal.

Sullivan acknowledged using the slur at a judicial conference when discussing crowding at the Yakima County jail but said he immediately apologized when a judge in the room complained and has not used the slur since.

"It was a personal attack on me which was grossly unfair," Sullivan said of the controversy.

The election for the Position 9 seat was smoother for Chambers, a former Washington State Bar president. He raised $355,947 and was running radio advertisements in recent weeks, concerned that his name wasn't as familiar as Foley's.