Legislatures legislate, and courts adjudicate.
Washington law requires DNR to manage state-owned trust lands for the financial benefit of schools, other state institutions, and counties in some cases (if they gave land to the state). Think logging.
That policy goes back to statehood, when the federal government gave the state millions of acres, in order to support public institutions.
Environmentalists sued for less logging, claiming the trust lands were more than meeting revenue goals, and other values should be considered.
They lost in the state supreme court by a vote of 0-9 (read story here). I haven’t read the opinion, but don’t need to, I’m pretty sure the justices wrote in their opinion something like “if you want to change the policy, ask the legislature.”
Photo: A hiker in the Capitol Forest near Olympia, Washington
