Upisode 32: University of Washington Law School professor Hugh Spitzer stopped by the bookstore for a free-flowing discussion on how Washington State’s founding history played into the national populist, and then progressive, movements popular in the state’s earliest years, and how state constitutions don’t only reflect political culture, they create it, too. After a brief history on the follies of Seattle transit, Professor Spitzer sets Ian straight on the distinction between a “home-rule” and a “Dillon-Rule” state, although Ian remains unconvinced that Seattle has sufficient leeway to tax itself.
About the Hugh Spitzer
University of Washington law professor Hugh Spitzer researches and teaches a wide array of legal subject matters ranging from heady topics like Comparative Law, Constitutional Law, Legal Ethics and Professional Responsibility to practical topics for would-be policymakers like Legislative Process, Local Government and Municipal Law, and Washington State Constitutional Law. A prolific writer on all of the above topics, it is said he “wrote the book” on the Washington Constitution — which he literally did — and he has also written seminal papers on the right to bear arms, ethics in government, and so-called sanctuary cities. His Crosscut takedown of the rightwing “Sagebrush Rebellion” laid bare these “rebels'” complete ignorance of the interstate legal issues governing public lands.
Professor Spitzer is a longtime advocate for labor, transit, and various municipal issues in the State of Washington, who would have worked for President Jimmy Carter had he only beat Reagan!
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