Tim Eyman’s dis­hon­est, incred­i­bly destruc­tive scheme to slash bil­lions of dol­lars in bipar­ti­san, vot­er-approved trans­porta­tion invest­ments at the state, region­al, and local lev­els will not go into effect on Decem­ber 5th as sched­uled, King Coun­ty Supe­ri­or Court Judge Mar­shall Fer­gu­son ruled this morning.

“In bal­anc­ing the equi­ties, inter­ests, and the rel­a­tive harms to the par­ties and the pub­lic, the Court con­cludes that the harms to Plain­tiffs result­ing from the imple­men­ta­tion of I‑976 out­weigh the harms faced by the Defen­dant State of Wash­ing­ton and the pub­lic of imple­men­ta­tion is stayed,” Judge Fer­gu­son wrote.

“if the col­lec­tion of vehi­cle license fees and tax­es stops on Decem­ber 5, 2019, there will be no way to retroac­tive­ly col­lect those rev­enues if, at the con­clu­sion of this case, the Court con­cludes that I‑976 is uncon­sti­tu­tion­al and per­ma­nent­ly enjoins its enforce­ment. Con­verse­ly, refunds of fees and tax­es impact­ed can be issued if the State ulti­mate­ly pre­vails in this mat­ter, albeit at some expense to the State.”

We have pub­lished a state­ment over at NPI’s Per­ma­nent Defense prais­ing the deci­sion and thank­ing Judge Fer­gu­son for uphold­ing our Con­sti­tu­tion.

This is great news to go into the Thanks­giv­ing hol­i­day with… tru­ly great news.

Fer­gu­son’s order declares that is:

ORDERED, ADJUDGED, AND DECREED that Plain­tiffs’ Motion for a Pre­lim­i­nary Injunc­tion is GRANTED. It is further

ORDERED, ADJUDGED, AND DECREED that the effec­tive date of I‑976 is STAYED pend­ing fur­ther order of this Court. While this stay is in effect, Defen­dant State of Wash­ing­ton, its offi­cials, employ­ees, agents, and all per­sons in active con­cert or par­tic­i­pa­tion with Defen­dant, are enjoined from imple­ment­ing or enforc­ing I‑976. Defen­dant shall con­tin­ue to col­lect all fees, tax­es, and oth­ers charges that would be sub­ject to or impact­ed by I‑976 were it not stayed, and shall dis­trib­ute those funds to local munic­i­pal­i­ties and polit­i­cal sub­di­vi­sions as appro­pri­ate pur­suant to exist­ing laws, reg­u­la­tions, con­tracts, oblig­a­tions, poli­cies, and pro­ce­dures. Any munic­i­pal­i­ty or polit­i­cal sub­di­vi­sion that accepts such funds while this Order is in effect, includ­ing those that are not par­ties to this law­suit, do so sub­ject to the like­li­hood that refunds of over­pay­ments may be required should the State ulti­mate­ly pre­vail in this action.

Read the full ruling:

The plain­tiffs — Garfield Coun­ty Trans­porta­tion Author­i­ty, the City of Seat­tle, King Coun­ty, the Asso­ci­a­tion of Wash­ing­ton Cities, Wash­ing­ton State Tran­sit Asso­ci­a­tion, Inter­ci­ty Tran­sit, Port of Seat­tle, Amal­ga­mat­ed Tran­sit Union Leg­isla­tive Coun­cil of Wash­ing­ton, and Michael Rogers — are not required to pro­vide any secu­ri­ty as a con­di­tion of the pre­lim­i­nary injunc­tion, the rul­ing states.

While this pre­lim­i­nary injunc­tion will pre­vent I‑976 from being imple­ment­ed in the near future, it is not the courts’ final word on I‑976. Judge Fer­gu­son empha­sized the plain­tiffs must still prove that the ini­tia­tive is uncon­sti­tu­tion­al beyond a rea­son­able doubt. While he has found they are like­ly to be able to do that, a prop­er judg­ment con­cern­ing I‑976’s con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty won’t come till next year.

King Coun­ty Supe­ri­or Court Judge Mar­shall Fer­gu­son hears oral argu­ments in Garfield Coun­ty et al v. State of Wash­ing­ton (Pho­to: Andrew Villeneuve/Northwest Pro­gres­sive Institute)

Fer­gu­son — who clear­ly pos­sess­es crit­i­cal think­ing and long term think­ing skills, unlike some oth­er peo­ple I could think of — also had the fore­sight to end his order with a plan for next steps. His rul­ing directs the par­ties to dis­cuss sched­ul­ing mat­ters togeth­er and to pro­vide him, no lat­er than noon on Thurs­day, Decem­ber 5th, a pro­posed time­frame for future motions, brief­ing, and hearings.

That is, of course, if they can reach agree­ment on one.

It did­n’t take long for reac­tion to Judge Fer­gu­son’s deci­sion to begin pour­ing in.

“This is good news for tran­sit, safe­ty, and equi­ty in Seat­tle,” said Emer­ald City May­or Jen­ny Durkan. “The Court rec­og­nized the severe and irrepara­ble harm to our res­i­dents that would have occurred with­out this injunc­tion. The City of Seattle
will con­tin­ue to fight this uncon­sti­tu­tion­al initiative.”

“We believe the court is cor­rect in rec­og­niz­ing that I‑976 is like­ly uncon­sti­tu­tion­al and rul­ing that the ini­tia­tive would cause irrepara­ble harm,” said King Coun­ty Exec­u­tive Dow Con­stan­tine in a state­ment released by his office.

“The City of Seat­tle has com­mit­ted that it will not cut Metro ser­vice hours fund­ed by the vot­er-approved Seat­tle Trans­porta­tion Ben­e­fit Dis­trict, so that res­i­dents can con­tin­ue to depend on fast, reli­able transit.”

“Despite today’s rul­ing, Metro con­tin­ues to face the prospect of reduced state and region­al fund­ing for bus­es, RapidRide, van­pool and oth­er ser­vices, includ­ing Access para­tran­sit, a life­line for res­i­dents with disabilities.

“We will con­tin­ue to fight to ensure this region – where I‑976 was defeat­ed by a near­ly twen­ty-point mar­gin – will face as few ser­vice dis­rup­tions as possible.”

“It is crit­i­cal that the Leg­is­la­ture act to pro­vide bet­ter, more pop­u­lar rev­enue alter­na­tives to the cur­rent vehi­cle fees, and main­tain the state’s com­mit­ment to fund its share of trans­porta­tion projects until the Supreme Court has ren­dered a final deci­sion on the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of I‑976.”

“This is not a final judg­ment, and this case is far from over,” said Attor­ney Gen­er­al Bob Fer­gu­son in a state­ment issued after a review of the ruling.

“We will con­tin­ue work­ing to defend the will of the vot­ers,” Fer­gu­son added.

“This case will ulti­mate­ly wind up before the State Supreme Court. We are work­ing now to deter­mine our imme­di­ate next steps. As my solic­i­tor gen­er­al, Noah Pur­cell, said yes­ter­day, Tim Eyman’s out­burst in court was wild­ly inap­pro­pri­ate, and it hurt our chances of suc­cess­ful­ly defend­ing the people’s initiative.”

Mean­while, of course, Seat­tle and King Coun­ty and lawyers for Inter­ci­ty Tran­sit will con­tin­ue work­ing to defend the will of *their* vot­ers. I‑976 failed over­whelm­ing­ly in King Coun­ty. It also failed in five oth­er coun­ties, includ­ing Thurston Coun­ty, home to Inter­ci­ty Tran­sit, one of the oth­er plain­tiffs in the case.

No coun­ty vot­ed more strong­ly against I‑976 than San Juan Coun­ty, where 71% of vot­ers emphat­i­cal­ly reject­ed the mea­sure. Offi­cials there are eager to sup­port the law­suit, as they should be. On Novem­ber 18th, the San Juan Coun­ty Com­mis­sion met and autho­rized Coun­ty Pros­e­cut­ing Attor­ney Randy Gay­lord to file an ami­cus brief in the Garfield Coun­ty case sup­port­ing the plaintiffs.