David Postman at The Seattle Times is reporting that Governor Christine Gregoire has proposed a public financing pilot project for statewide judicial elections modeled on the public financing systems in place in North Carolina, Arizona, and Maine.

In an effort to curb the influence of special interest money on judicial elections - an influence made especially apparent in 2006 - Gregoire has put together an intiatl draft of what she is calling the Judicial Independence Act which calls on candidates to raise a set number of qualifying contributions of between $10 and $50 (at least 100 contributions for Court of Appeals candidates and 500 for Supreme Court candidates) and agree to a campaign prohibition against "disparaging or disrespectful communications."

We'll be keeping an eye on this one.