The Pacific Legal foundation and the Northwest Legal Foundation are two right-wing, tax-exempt, non-profit organizations that have played a substantial role in the legal actions surrounding Wise Use in the Puget Sound area. Both are part of a loose-knit network of legal foundations that undertake litigation, both directly and as "friends of the court", in support of attempts to undermine both civil rights and regulatory powers. The Pacific Legal Foundation has participated in lawsuits for both SNOCO PRA and CLUE. Northwest Legal Foundation has worked with both SNOCO PRA and the (King County) Property Rights Alliance.
In The Coors Connection, investigative journalist Russ Bellant writes:
Coors and other wealthy Western business owners were inspired by a novel idea from the California Chamber of Commerce. The Chamber had founded the Pacific Legal Foundation in 1973 to bring lawsuits on behalf of the business community as "public interest" actions. Coors and others took the idea and created the pro-business National Legal Center for the Public Interest. With Joe Coors on its board and with Coors funds, the National Legal Center sought to create multi-state, regional legal groups modeled on the California group. ...In 1976, the National Legal Center put up $50,000 and Coors put up $25,000 to create the Mountain States Legal Foundation (MSLF) in Denver. ...James Watt was hired as the MSLF's first president.
Coors has provided funding for the Pacific Legal Foundation and several other ultraconservative legal foundations. An article in the July 1984, Yale Law Journal, "With Charity For All," by Oliver Houck, questioned the legitimacy of the corporate-sponsored legal foundations. Houck found 70 of the 132 Pacific Legal Foundation court cases that he evaluated to be invalid or inappropriate for a public interest legal foundation. An additional 16 were found to be "questionable." Houck writes, "To qualify firms as public charities that are funded and directed by business interests and that act substantially on their behalf stretches the concepts of charity and public interest beyond meaningful definition."
In 1986, the Pacific Legal Foundation appeared as a friend of the court in Bethel School District vs. Fraser, a free speech case that drew national interest. At issue was whether schoolchildren partake of the same free speech rights as adults. The National Association of School Administrators, the Reagan Administration's Department of Justice and the Pacific Legal Foundation, which gathered more than a dozen signatories to its brief, sought to strip the protection of the First Amendment from students. The student, Matt Fraser, whose mildly suggestive remarks supporting a friend's candidacy for student body president got him suspended for two days, felt that he had the right on his side. He sued the district in U.S. district court and won a ruling that found his speech not obscene and the district's rule under which he was suspended to be unconstitutionally vague.
The school district decided to appeal the ruling and the battle went all the way to the Supreme Court. Among those supporting Fraser's case were the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Education Association, the Freedom to Read Foundation, the National Booksellers Association and the Student Press Law Center, which lobbies for the rights of high-school and college journalists.
The Pacific Legal Foundation justified its attack on first amendment rights by claiming that previous rulings in support of free speech in the schools must be overturned because they put a "straightjacket" on school officials.
The PLF has loudly trumpeted its actions in support of property rights as part of its "defense" of civil rights.
The confusion of property rights, which are alienable (can be bought, sold, given away or transferred) and civil rights which are unalienable has been a major component of Wise Use propaganda. A typical expression of these beliefs was captured by one woman at a county secession meeting who stated, "Those city people think they have the same rights as us and they don't own one stick of property."
The Northwest Legal Foundation also has a record of exalting property rights over civil rights. Jeannette Burrage, NLF's director, lobbied against just-cause eviction ordinances in both Seattle and Kent in 1991. The ordinances required landlords to show just cause before they could evict tenants who were paying their rent, not disturbing other tenants and not engaged in unlawful activities. In a letter to the Seattle Times, Burrage attacked the ordinance with unsupported and untrue claims, such as that the city would have to provide attorneys for tenants, that the just-cause ordinances are "likely legally invalid anyway," while noting that the ordinance in Seattle has existed unchallenged for ten years. When Burrage ran for a seat on the Washington Supreme Court, both the King County Bar Association and the Washington Women Lawyers rated her "unqualified." As one of the few Wise Use candidates to be exposed as a stealth candidate in the 1994 elections, Burrage's vote tallies in both the primary and general election should make her an indicator species for Wise Use political activism.
See table of election results for a county by county breakdown.
The 1990 IRS 990 report (a public document required to be available for inspection at the offices of any tax-exempt organization) for the Northwest Legal Foundation lists Jim Klauser as a board member, as well as Richard Welsh of the National Association of Reversionary Property Owners. Klauser has served as the executive director or president of the Northwest Property Rights Network, SNOCO PRA, and (Snohomish) Citizens for Referendum 93-1. The National Association of Reversionary Property Owners (NARPO) and the Northwest Legal Foundation both contributed position papers to Alan Gottlieb's book that launched the Wise Use Movement, The Wise Use Agenda.
Since the 1994 Snohomish election, Jim Klauser has assumed the position of NLF's executive director. SNOCO PRA supported the election of Jim Krider as the new Snohomish Prosecutor. The key issue in the campaign was the referendum lawsuit -- another example of the "lose (in court) to win (at the polls)" strategy.
Immediately after assuming office, Krider appointed Jeannette Burrage as Snohomish County Assistant Prosecuting Attorney.
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