News broke yesterday that the Washington State Supreme Court had upheld the King County Superior Court’s injunction against Initiative 976 causing transit backers to rejoice. The 6-3 decision agreed with the lower court that the plaintiffs (which include Garfield County, King County, the City of Seattle, and Intercity Transit) had demonstrated an immediate harm from the transit cuts that I-976 set in motion that outweighed the harms to motorists. Moreover, the constitutional case against I-976 is “debatable,” the majority diplomatically grants in its ruling.
This sets the stage for the King County Superior Court Judge Marshall Ferguson to see the case though and issue his final ruling–which may be appealed again to the State Supreme Court. While an upheld injunction doesn’t guarantee the case’s ultimate success, it is a promising sign and for both courts.
Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson, who is representing voters in defending the initiative as is his office’s duty, announced the emergency appeal directly to the State Supreme Court on November 27th. The maneuver intended to overturn the injunction and ensure that I-976 went into effect on December 5th as stipulated in the initiative. Attorney General Ferguson noted he had directed his team to work over the Thanksgiving weekend to get the paperwork ready. They filed that paperwork Monday.
Unconstitutionality is a problem perennial initiative backer Tim Eyman has run into before. It appears Eyman hasn’t boned up on the state constitution in the interim, as I-976 tripped up prohibitions on misleading ballot language and the single-subject rule, which had been a problem for him before, including on previous $30 car tab iterations.
