David Shelvey

How this candidate is likely to rule, and why.

The public record on David Shelvey is thin to the point of near-absence, and the honest assessment is that he is not a serious contender for the seat.

He raised exactly $0 in campaign contributions as of late April 2026, has no reported endorsements, and his campaign website includes content on skeletal similarities between T. rexes and kangaroos, which led journalists covering the race to describe it as a curiosity rather than a candidacy.

Shelvey is a solo practitioner based in Sumner, Washington, practicing family law, estate planning, and tax law; he earned his law degree from Western Michigan University Cooley Law School and is licensed in both Washington and North Dakota.

He ran for the Position 2 seat in the 2024 primary and received 3.7% of the vote in a four-candidate field. His stated campaign platform focuses on term limits, judicial accountability surveys, and open-mindedness.

He obtained an LL.M. in IP, tax, and economics through online coursework at Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University, which is a Federalist Society-affiliated institution, but there is no evidence he holds a Federalist Society membership or has made any public statement about Culliton, income taxes, or Article VII.

Without a campaign, endorsements, or any substantive legal record, assigning a lean is not analytically defensible.

• 2024 primary performance: 3.7% of the vote

  In the 2024 Position 2 primary, Shelvey received 33,258 votes out of 907,131 cast, finishing fourth in a four-candidate field with 3.7% of the vote. Sal Mungia won with 41.9%, and David Larson came second with 37.1%. That result is consistent with a candidacy driven by filing fees rather than a realistic electoral strategy. His 2026 filing for Position 4 appears to follow the same pattern.

• Scalia Law School coursework as partial signal

  Shelvey began online coursework in antitrust and global law at Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University in January 2023. GMU Law's Scalia School is strongly associated with Federalist Society methodology and was renamed to honor Scalia after his death.

  Whether Shelvey has absorbed or endorses that methodological approach is unknown; he has made no public statements linking his coursework to a judicial philosophy. The Scalia Law School connection is a weak signal at best, and without corroborating evidence it is insufficient to assign a lean.

• Tax law practice before the IRS

  Shelvey's Justia and campaign profiles indicate he has practiced tax law, including before the IRS, and that he has obtained a PTIN and CAF number to practice as a tax attorney.

  That background means he has some engagement with tax doctrine, though at the level of individual tax compliance and appeals rather than constitutional tax policy.

  His prior Cooley Law School degree, solo practice in family law and estate planning, and the absence of any identified appellate brief or constitutional litigation makes it very unlikely he has engaged with Article VII or the Culliton framework.

• No campaign infrastructure, no institutional backing

  As of the filing deadline in May 2026, Shelvey had no campaign manager, no fundraising apparatus, no identified endorsers, and no institutional support from any legal, bar, or political organization. By every observable metric, this is not a viable candidacy for the state's highest court. The most honest reading of his participation in this race is that he chose to file, as he did in 2024, without the resources or support structure to mount a competitive challenge.

An analytical read on public signals. Not a prediction of any individual vote.