Sound politics. Former Washington Gov. Dixy Lee Ray and former U.S. Sen. Warren G. Magnuson are both departed but the political battle they waged almost 30 years ago lives on.

And Magnuson has won again.

When a provision in the Gasoline for America’s Security Act of 2005 threatened to repeal a 1977 ban Magnuson put on supertankers in Puget Sound, several members of Washington state’s political delegation went into action. For three decades, the ban has helped protect Puget Sound from the potential of a catastrophic oil spill, but the House of Representatives was steaming ahead with a repeal.

No, said U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell, the Democrat who now holds Magnuson’s seat. No, added Congressmen Norm Dicks (a Magnuson protégé), Jay Inslee and Dave Reichert.

Reichert is a Republican, for what it’s worth, but when it comes to safeguarding Puget Sound, partisanship is a ship that founders. Democrat Magnuson’s harshest critic in 1977 was Democrat Ray. But his actions were harmonious with the views of Republicans Dan Evans and Slade Gorton.

When a tug boat experienced an oil leak in Puget Sound this week, officials said there was no way to clean it up, so they let it evaporate. But tug boats hardly pose the same risk as waterborne behemoths larger than 125,000 deadweight tons.

That’s why he’s the judge. First District Judge Fred Gibler made a tough but correct decision Wednesday when he ordered the state to provide defense attorneys with copies of graphic child pornography videos allegedly filmed by murder suspect Edward Joseph Duncan III.

Kootenai County Prosecutor Bill Douglas, who objected to sharing the sick videos, had reasonable concerns about “inadvertent or accidental dissemination” of the material which he fears would further harm 8-year-old kidnapping victim Shasta Groene and her family. Duncan is accused of murdering three members of the girl’s family including her 9-year-old brother, Dylan, whom he allegedly kidnapped along with her.

In this age of the Internet, any accidental release of the information would be devastating to the young victim. But Gibler addressed those concerns by limiting who can see the material and ordering that it be encrypted and stored in a locked safe. The judge’s decision removes a ground that might later result in a retrial.