Washington Supreme Court

Washington's Public Disclosure Commission said it will stop enforcing the state's $7,500 cap on individual donations to political action committees during the final three weeks before an election. The cap had applied from Oct. 13 through Election Day, Nov. 3. Commissioners voted Thursday and announced the change Friday, after ballots had already gone out to voters. Direct contribution limits to candidates remain unchanged; only the restriction on large late donations to PACs is affected.

The timing raises the stakes for five contested Washington Supreme Court seats and Democrats' push for legislative supermajorities, since PACs can now accept unlimited sums from single donors in the campaign's closing days. Large contributions must still be publicly reported, generally within 48 hours, though officials acknowledge some donations may not surface until after votes are counted. The PDC said it acted over constitutional concerns about the cap's enforceability, not political considerations.

The Washington State Supreme Court struck down Initiative 2066, a 2024 voter-approved measure protecting consumer energy choices (including natural gas access), ruling 6-3 that it violated the state constitution's single-subject requirement for initiatives. The initiative was a response to House Bill 1589, legislation critics say imposed multiple unrelated energy restrictions.

In dissent, Justice Salvador Mungia argued courts should interpret initiatives to sustain their validity where possible rather than void them, calling the initiative power a fundamental constitutional right. Critics of the ruling, including Building Industry Association of Washington officials, called the decision an insult to the roughly 546,000 citizens who signed the initiative petition and the 1.9 million voters who approved it.

The ruling continues a pattern: since 1992, the court has invalidated five of nine reviewed initiatives on single-subject grounds, with invalidated measures generally aimed at limiting taxes or government authority. The decision raises broader questions about judicial scrutiny of direct democracy versus legislative action, and about the future viability of citizen initiatives aimed at curbing government policy in Washington state.

Indiana is scheduled to execute Jeffrey Weisheit on Nov. 5 at the Indiana State Prison, part of a broader national uptick in executions under the Trump administration, which has actively encouraged capital punishment even as death sentences remain historically rare. Weisheit was sentenced to death in 2013 for killing his girlfriend's two young children in a 2010 house fire in Evansville. The Indiana Supreme Court cleared the way for the execution in late August, and his attorneys filed a clemency petition citing brain injuries, lifelong impairments, and childhood trauma they say were inadequately presented at trial. The Indiana Parole Board has scheduled clemency proceedings for Oct. 16 and 19; Gov. Mike Braun denied clemency in two prior 2025 executions.

Nationally, 24 people have been executed in 2026 so far, trailing last year's 47, while death sentences remain well below 1990s-2000s levels. There has been no federal execution since 2021, though Trump has directed the Justice Department to pursue capital punishment more aggressively, reversing the Biden administration's moratorium.