As Laura notes today, the battle for the State Supreme Court seat held by Jim Johnson is rallying LGBT interests. Johnson (seen at right) famously wrote an opinion upholding the state legislature’s ban on gay marriage. But he’s also gotten unions and consumer groups peeved with decisions they don’t like. (The Stranger’s cover today declares Johnson to be a conservative “tool.”) Understandably, these groups are seeking an alternative. Johnson’s challenger, Stan Rumbaugh, runs a small law firm in Tacoma representing the employee side in workers’ comp disputes. He’s been on the board of Planned Parenthood, Tacoma Housing Authority, and Bates Technical College. A search of court records indicates he has participated (alongside other attorneys) in exactly two previous cases before the state Supreme Court. And he’s now the beneficiary of attack ads against Johnson, funded by the teachers union, government employees’ union, and the labor council, who think he’ll be more friendly to them. He is, in other words, pretty much the definition of a tool.Rumbaugh’s allies, however, seem blind to the irony. Johnson shows a clear “pattern of ruling in favor of the interests who have funded his campaigns,” complains Lisa MacClean, spokesperson for union-funded PACs, in the Spokesman-Review today. MacClean and her allies say it’s time for a change. They instead want a man who will also show a clear pattern of ruling in favor of the interests who have funded his campaign–namely them.It’s Tool vs. Tool. May the best impartial upholder of the law win.