Although many bal­lots remain to be count­ed, the bat­tle over Tim Eyman’s Ini­tia­tive 976 appears set to shift to the legal arena.

King Coun­ty Exec­u­tive Dow Con­stan­tine announced today he has asked Pros­e­cut­ing Attor­ney Dan Sat­ter­berg to pre­pare a legal chal­lenge to I‑976, which threat­ens bil­lions of dol­lars in bipar­ti­san, vot­er-approved trans­porta­tion funding.

Con­stan­tine did not spec­i­fy a timetable for com­menc­ing the legal chal­lenge, but the law­suit could be filed with­in days or weeks. Bar­ring a court-ordered injunc­tion, Ini­tia­tive 976 would oth­er­wise take effect in ear­ly December.

I‑976 is fail­ing in King Coun­ty, just like Eyman’s pre­vi­ous mea­sures to slash vehi­cle fees (I‑695 in 1999 and I‑776 in 2002). Eyman repeat­ed­ly declared with absolute con­fi­dence that King Coun­ty and even Seat­tle would sup­port I‑976.

“The pas­sage of I‑976 under­scores the ongo­ing need for com­pre­hen­sive state tax reform, but for in the short term we must clean up anoth­er mess that Tim Eyman has cre­at­ed for our state, our region, and our econ­o­my,” Con­stan­tine said.

“There will be many dis­cus­sions in the weeks and months ahead to deter­mine how to over­come the loss of safe­ty and mobil­i­ty caused by this irre­spon­si­ble ini­tia­tive, but the impact of I‑976 to trans­porta­tion is – in a word – devastating.”

“We and the City of Seat­tle share a set a prin­ci­ples with which we will approach mobil­i­ty reduc­tions,” the Exec­u­tive added, allud­ing to Seat­tle’s invest­ment in expand­ed Metro bus ser­vice hours, an invest­ment I‑976 attempts to repeal.

“These prin­ci­ples include: min­i­miz­ing impacts to vul­ner­a­ble pop­u­la­tions, espe­cial­ly those with low-incomes and peo­ple of col­or; main­tain­ing the ten and fif­teen minute ser­vice fre­quen­cy when­ev­er pos­si­ble; and min­i­miz­ing overcrowding.”

Tim Eyman’s ini­tia­tives typ­i­cal­ly have con­sti­tu­tion­al defects, and King Coun­ty will attempt to prove that Ini­tia­tive 976 is uncon­sti­tu­tion­al in order to bar it from being imple­ment­ed. Attor­ney Gen­er­al Bob Fer­gu­son’s office will be in the awk­ward posi­tion of hav­ing to defend the ini­tia­tive at the same time prepar­ing for tri­al against Tim Eyman over his many cam­paign finance law violations.

Fer­gu­son will like­ly direct his office to have sep­a­rate teams work­ing on each case that do not com­mu­ni­cate with each oth­er about the respec­tive cas­es. The cam­paign finance unit will undoubt­ed­ly con­tin­ue to han­dle the Eyman lit­i­ga­tion while anoth­er team attempts to defend I‑976.

Oth­er local gov­ern­ments — like Seat­tle — could poten­tial­ly join King Coun­ty in suing to over­turn I‑976. Seat­tle has a lot to lose if I‑976 is imple­ment­ed, and its city-lev­el vehi­cle fee is vot­er-approved. Exec­u­tive Con­stan­ti­ne’s office pro­vid­ed this map show­ing all of the Metro bus routes that could be affect­ed by the loss of fund­ing com­ing from Seat­tle’s trans­porta­tion ben­e­fit district:

A map of bus routes that are sup­port­ed by vehi­cle fees paid by Seat­tle taxpayers

“Our state’s tax sys­tem is inef­fi­cient, unfair, volatile, inad­e­quate, and bad for busi­ness,” Exec­u­tive Con­stan­tine argued. “Local gov­ern­ments have few tools at their dis­pos­al to pro­vide all of the infra­struc­ture and ser­vices on which suc­cess­ful com­mu­ni­ties and a thriv­ing econ­o­my depend. Today, our econ­o­my is gen­er­at­ing unprece­dent­ed pros­per­i­ty, while at the same time gov­ern­ments are forced to cob­ble togeth­er tran­sit and road sys­tems from anti­quat­ed, inad­e­quate and unpop­u­lar fund­ing sources. We can and must do better.”

Exec­u­tive Con­stan­tine is cor­rect that we need mean­ing­ful and com­pre­hen­sive tax reform. The Leg­is­la­ture needs to stop talk­ing about reform­ing our tax code and actu­al­ly start tak­ing action. Until that becomes a pri­or­i­ty, we will con­tin­ue to be ham­strung by an inequitable, sales-tax depen­dent sys­tem of rais­ing rev­enue that Tim Eyman can exploit to under­mine peo­ple’s con­fi­dence in their government.

Exec­u­tive Con­stan­tine is also whol­ly jus­ti­fied in mov­ing for­ward with a legal chal­lenge. Wash­ing­ton can­not afford Ini­tia­tive 976. It’s irre­spon­si­ble and immoral. It must be defeat­ed. If it is not defeat­ed in this elec­tion, it must be chal­lenged in court. If the courts do not strike it down, there will need to be a leg­isla­tive response to ensure that it can­not be imple­ment­ed as designed.

The fight against I‑976 must and shall con­tin­ue until I‑976 is vanquished.