This  concurring opinion, by Justice Richard T. Sanders of the Washington Supreme Court, speaks volumes.

I understand that the majority’s view to be the state legislature is virtually unrestrained except insofar as the legislative action countervenes some express prohibition in the state constitution.  Although this claim has been repeated by rote in several of our decisions, I am unable to find a single one which explains its rationale, much less critically examines its premise.  I challenge the majority to either do so here or dispense with this careless rhetoric.  The assertion seems to be based on an erroneous presumption that state governments have inherent powers — a presumption that contradicts the basic premise of all American governance that all power resides in the people except insofar as it has been delegated to the government.  As such, the claim flies in the face of article I, section 1 of the state constitution, which plainly and expressly provides: All political power is inherent in the people, and governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, and are established to protect and maintain individual rights.

This section hardly evidences our state government has the inherent power to do anything.  Rather, it stands for precisely the opposite.

From here, it just gets better:

I also note with alarm the seditious doctrine sometimes embraced by our majority that even our Declaration of Rights is itself trumped by exercise of the state’s police power, a power which a majority of my colleagues seems to believe with their new-found wisdom has no limits whatsoever.

How long has it been since there was a majority decision that recognized that the United States doesn’t exist as a vessel for the exercise of police power over the rights of the governed?  By the way, as Eugene’s people point out, it would seem “pernicious” would be a better word choice than “seditious”, but I’m not complaining.

I have often explained that the police, the state, the government, has no “rights”.  Only people have rights.  The government has only as much authority as the people grant it to do the job asked of it.  And yet, America has become a nation of government sycophants, believing that it’s patriotic to comply with whatever the government demands, following the instructions of those in power, or well armed, because that’s what good Americans do.

As Justice Sanders explains, they got it all backwards.  The government exists for us, not us for it.

Update:  Note also Justice Tom Chamber’s concurring opinion.  Here’s the majority opinion.

H/T. Eugene