Weekend Reading: All of the possible ways Tim Eyman’s I‑976 violates the Constitution

Today, the coali­tion of plain­tiffs suing to con­sign Tim Eyman’s Ini­tia­tive 976 to the dust­bin of Wash­ing­ton State polit­i­cal his­to­ry filed their Motion for Sum­ma­ry Judg­ment, request­ing that King Coun­ty Supe­ri­or Court Judge Mar­shall Fer­gu­son find the mea­sure uncon­sti­tu­tion­al and per­ma­nent­ly enjoin its enforcement.

In a 20,495 word mem­o­ran­dum, the coali­tion’s attor­neys pow­er­ful­ly lay out the case for I‑976 to be struck down, cit­ing more than a dozen ways in which the mea­sure vio­lates the Wash­ing­ton State Constitution.

“I‑976 had a decep­tive bal­lot title that mis­lead the vot­ers,” the brief’s con­cise con­clu­sion begins. “It lied about ensur­ing car tabs would be $30.”

“It com­bined mul­ti­ple unre­lat­ed sub­jects to cob­ble togeth­er enough sup­port to get the mea­sure passed, a clas­sic uncon­sti­tu­tion­al log-rolling guise.”

“I‑976 fails to set forth all statutes it amends ren­der­ing its appli­ca­tion confusing.”

“It intrudes on local home rule pow­ers of tax­a­tion for local pur­pos­es, seeks to over­turn local elec­tion results, and requires diver­sion of local­ly approved taxes.”

“I‑976 impairs con­tract oblig­a­tions by seek­ing to elim­i­nate Burien’s VLF [vehi­cle license fee] that have been pledged to secure its bonds.”

“Each of these mat­ters are con­sti­tu­tion­al vio­la­tions requir­ing that I‑976 be struck down,” the brief con­cludes. “Plain­tiffs respect­ful­ly request that this Court grant them sum­ma­ry judg­ment and declare I‑976 unconstitutional.”

The brief itself clocks in at six­ty-five pages, and exhaus­tive­ly dis­cuss­es the defects that make I‑976 the lat­est fatal­ly flawed Tim Eyman mea­sure. There are also a sig­nif­i­cant num­ber of pages of sup­port­ing documentation.

This is whol­ly inten­tion­al. It’s the respon­si­bil­i­ty of the plain­tiffs to prove beyond a rea­son­able doubt that I‑976 vio­lates the Con­sti­tu­tion. They have the bur­den of proof. Accord­ing­ly, the coali­tion suing to defeat I‑976 has thor­ough­ly exam­ined the ini­tia­tive under a micro­scope, and left no stone unturned in its legal analysis.

This is eas­i­ly one of the most com­pre­hen­sive and sat­is­fy­ing briefs I’ve ever read. Kudos to King Coun­ty, the City of Seat­tle, and Paci­fi­ca Law Group on a job well done. By far, my favorite part of the brief is the state­ment of issues, which nice­ly serves as an author­i­ta­tive, defin­i­tive list of all of the ways in which this dump­ster fire of an ini­tia­tive like­ly vio­lates the Wash­ing­ton State Constitution.

Here is that list, for your read­ing enjoy­ment on this sec­ond week­end of January.

III. STATEMENT OF ISSUES

1. Does the I‑976 bal­lot title vio­late arti­cle II, sec­tion 19 sub­ject-in-title require­ments because it deceives vot­ers with the mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tions that “vot­er approved charges” are an excep­tion to the $30 cap on motor vehi­cle license fees, and that vot­ers will pay no more than $30 when licens­ing a vehicle?
2. Does the I‑976 bal­lot title vio­late arti­cle II, sec­tion 19 sub­ject-in-title require­ments because it fails to include numer­ous nec­es­sary sub­jects and does not prompt inquiry into those omit­ted subjects?
3. Does I‑976 vio­late the arti­cle II, sec­tion 19 sin­gle sub­ject require­ments because it com­bines mul­ti­ple sub­jects that are not ger­mane to each other?
4. Does I‑976 vio­late arti­cle II, sec­tion 37 by amend­ing exist­ing statutes with­out set­ting the amend­ments forth in full, there­by result­ing in con­fu­sion as to the effect of the new law?
5. Does I‑976 vio­late arti­cle XI, sec­tion 12 by depriv­ing munic­i­pal gov­ern­ments of vest­ed local tax­ing author­i­ty for local pur­pos­es pri­or to expi­ra­tion of the local tax?
6. Does I‑976 vio­late arti­cle I, sec­tion 19 by using a statewide vote to over­ride exist­ing local votes and dilut­ing the voice of local vot­ers on mat­ters of local concern?
7. Does I‑976 vio­late arti­cle VII, sec­tion 5 by divert­ing tax dol­lars from the pur­pos­es approved by local voters?
8. Does I‑976 vio­late arti­cle I, sec­tion 23 by impair­ing bond obligations?
9. Does I‑976 vio­late Washington’s sep­a­ra­tion of pow­ers doc­trine by intrud­ing on the exec­u­tive func­tion of admin­is­ter­ing bond repayment?
10. Does I‑976 vio­late Washington’s sep­a­ra­tion of pow­ers doc­trine by uncon­sti­tu­tion­al­ly del­e­gat­ing leg­isla­tive func­tions regard­ing the effec­tive dates of laws and the legal force of cer­tain statutes to the dis­cre­tionary deci­sions of a munic­i­pal government?
11. Does I‑976 vio­late arti­cle I, sec­tion 12 by con­fer­ring a spe­cial priv­i­lege on a pri­vate cor­po­ra­tion by requir­ing DOL [Depart­ment of Licens­ing] to use the Kel­ley Blue Book val­u­a­tion product?

That’s eleven total poten­tial vio­la­tions of the Con­sti­tu­tion iden­ti­fied by the plain­tiffs. With cer­tain kinds of vio­la­tions, sev­er­abil­i­ty does not come into play, owing to the nature of the vio­la­tion, so a sin­gle strike against a mea­sure can be suf­fi­cient to void it in its entire­ty. (Logrolling would be a good example.)

Back in 2015, when we were work­ing against the last Tim Eyman mea­sure that appeared on the bal­lot (I‑1366), I often described it as “uncon­sti­tu­tion­al every way to Sun­day.” In 2016, the Supreme Court emphat­i­cal­ly agreed that I‑1366 was uncon­sti­tu­tion­al, unan­i­mous­ly strik­ing down the mea­sure in its entire­ty.

I‑976 shares the same char­ac­ter­is­tics as I‑1366. Giv­en how bad­ly writ­ten it is, I don’t think it stands much of a chance of with­stand­ing con­sti­tu­tion­al scrutiny.

Tomor­row, we’ll have anoth­er install­ment of Week­end Read­ing that excerpts anoth­er one of my favorite pas­sages from the motion for sum­ma­ry judg­ment filed by the coali­tion of plain­tiffs in Garfield Coun­ty et al v. State of Wash­ing­ton et al.