The battle against Tim Eyman’s I‑976 goes on as local governments, ATU file suit to stop it

The sec­ond round of the fight to defeat Tim Eyman’s Ini­tia­tive 976 is offi­cial­ly under­way. Today, a coali­tion of plain­tiffs led by King Coun­ty and the City of Seat­tle filed suit in King Coun­ty Supe­ri­or Court seek­ing an order strik­ing down the ini­tia­tive as uncon­sti­tu­tion­al. The plain­tiffs are also ask­ing for an injunc­tion bar­ring I‑976’s imple­men­ta­tion until the legal chal­lenge is resolved.

“Here in King Coun­ty – where Sound Tran­sit 3 was over­whelm­ing­ly approved and I‑976 was defeat­ed by near­ly 60 per­cent – we fol­low the will of the peo­ple and the rule of law,” said King Coun­ty Exec­u­tive Dow Constantine.

“We join with oth­ers across the state to chal­lenge the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of I‑976, even as we renew our long-stand­ing demand that the leg­is­la­ture reform the tax sys­tem and pro­vide bet­ter fund­ing options to local gov­ern­ments across the state. The only respon­si­ble choice is to push ahead, build­ing a trans­porta­tion sys­tem and econ­o­my that gives every per­son access to a bet­ter future.”

It’s impor­tant to know that the plain­tiffs in this law­suit include local gov­ern­ments all over the state, rep­re­sent­ed through the Asso­ci­a­tion of Wash­ing­ton Cities and the Wash­ing­ton State Tran­sit Association. 

Here’s an intro­duc­tion to all of the plain­tiffs, cour­tesy of King County:

• Garfield Coun­ty Trans­porta­tion Author­i­ty, which pro­vides tran­sit to the small­est coun­ty in the state. With an annu­al bud­get of about $350,000, it relies heav­i­ly on state grants. If allowed to take effect, I‑976 could reduce tran­sit ser­vice in Garfield Coun­ty by at least fifty percent.
• Inter­ci­ty Tran­sit pro­vides ser­vices in Lacey, Olympia, Tumwa­ter, Yelm and sur­round­ing areas. I‑976 would reduce fund­ing for shut­tles, van­pool ser­vices, and ser­vice for peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties, among oth­er cuts.
• King Coun­ty, the state’s largest coun­ty, could lose $52 mil­lion in Region­al Mobil­i­ty Grant Pro­gram awards that fund RapidRide expan­sion and reli­a­bil­i­ty improve­ments, $36 mil­lion for tran­sit serv­ing per­sons with dis­abil­i­ties, and oth­er crit­i­cal trans­porta­tion funding.
• City of Seat­tle would lose about $35 mil­lion that funds approx­i­mate­ly 8,000 week­ly trips in addi­tion to fund­ing for 14,000 ORCA pass­es for stu­dents, low income res­i­dents and seniors. Routes fund­ed by the Trans­porta­tion Ben­e­fit Dis­trict pro­vide off-peak tran­sit options crit­i­cal to reduc­ing con­ges­tion and increas­ing equi­table access to trans­porta­tion. Also at jeop­ardy is more than $8M in road main­te­nance, tran­sit cor­ri­dor and bike and pedes­tri­an safe­ty projects.
• The Port of Seat­tle, which con­tends that increased region­al con­ges­tion would inter­fere with car­go ter­mi­nals, Sea-Tac Air­port, indus­tri­al lands, and oth­er facilities.
• Asso­ci­a­tion of Wash­ing­ton Cities rep­re­sents 281 cities and towns. Six­ty cities and towns have adopt­ed vehi­cle license fees, rais­ing $58.2 mil­lion for local trans­porta­tion needs. I‑976 would elim­i­nate this funding.
• Wash­ing­ton State Tran­sit Asso­ci­a­tion rep­re­sents thir­ty-one tran­sit sys­tem that pro­vide 238 mil­lion pas­sen­ger trips annu­al­ly on bus­es, para­tran­sit, van­pools, light and com­muter rail. I‑976 could elim­i­nate essen­tial fund­ing for these services.
• Amal­ga­mat­ed Tran­sit Union Leg­isla­tive Coun­cil of Wash­ing­ton advo­cates on behalf of employ­ees who oper­ate pub­lic trans­porta­tion. I‑976 would like­ly elim­i­nate hun­dreds of mil­lions of dol­lars from trans­porta­tion bud­gets, result­ing in the loss of fam­i­ly wage jobs.
• Michael Rogers is a Lacey res­i­dent with cere­bral pal­sy. He relies on para­tran­sit and tran­sit ser­vices, and faces sub­stan­tial harm from I‑976, which would like­ly elim­i­nate fund­ing for ser­vices upon which he relies.

Here’s the complaint:

The City of Seat­tle and King Coun­ty are rep­re­sent­ed by in-house coun­sel (head­ed by City Attor­ney Pete Holmes and Coun­ty Pros­e­cut­ing Attor­ney Dan Sat­ter­berg, respec­tive­ly) while the remain­ing plain­tiffs are rep­re­sent­ed by Paul Lawrence, Matthew Segal, Jes­si­ca Skel­ton, and Shae Blood of Paci­fi­ca Law Group.

Although we are not a plain­tiff in this law­suit, NPI is among Paci­fi­ca Law Group’s clients and we have the high­est con­fi­dence in their abilities. 

Senior lit­i­ga­tion part­ner Paul Lawrence is a recip­i­ent of NPI’s high­est hon­or, the Lynn Allen Award, for indis­pens­able con­tri­bu­tions to pro­gres­sive caus­es. Paul was the lead coun­sel in the suc­cess­ful lit­i­ga­tion against Tim Eyman’s last awful ini­tia­tive, I‑1366, which was struck down in its entire­ty by the State Supreme Court.

There’s no one I trust more to han­dle this lit­i­ga­tion than Dan Sat­ter­berg, Pete Holmes, and Paul’s team at Paci­fi­ca Law Group. If any­one can prove that I‑976 is uncon­sti­tu­tion­al (and our team at NPI emphat­i­cal­ly believes it is), they can.