Opinion ID: 1405270
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 17

Heading: constitutional right to referendum

Text: Article II, section 1(b), of the Washington Constitution plainly provides a referendum may be ordered on any act, bill, law, or any part thereof passed by the legislature, except such laws as may be necessary for the immediate preservation of the public peace, health or safety.... The first question before us, therefore, is whether sections 606 and 607 of the subject legislation fit within the constitutional exception to the general right of referendum. See Laws of 1997, ch. 220, §§ 606, 607. Section 606 [1] exclusively vests in the Seahawks the option to pay for, and thus hold, a special election; whereas section 607 [2] details the subject of and procedure by which an the election might be held. The majority opines the requirements of the constitutional exception to the people's right of referendum has been met based upon (1) the emergency clause in the legislation itself, [3] and (2) a statement in the record that Football Northwest's option to purchase the Seahawks would expire shortly after the legislation was passed. Majority at 58. The majority also claims its result is required by our holding in CLEAN v. State, 130 Wash.2d 782, 792-93, 928 P.2d 1054 (1996) ( CLEAN -I). I disagree. Although profound reservations about the CLEAN -I decision were expressed in the dissent to that majority opinion, its dictates were followed in CLEAN v. City of Spokane, 133 Wash.2d 455, 947 P.2d 1169 (1997) ( CLEAN -II), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 119 S.Ct. 45, 142 L.Ed.2d 35 (1998), as they must be followed until, or unless, overruled. See CLEAN -II, 133 Wash.2d at 478, 947 P.2d 1169 (Sanders, J., concurring) (Once the constitutional well has been poisoned, we all must drink from it lest the incentive to correct our mistakes in a principled fashion be lost by inconsistently imposing them.). But in this case the majority goes beyond the holding of CLEAN -I to achieve its result. The dissent to the majority in CLEAN -I opined the court there had abdicated its judicial role by deferring to legislative excess at the expense of the people who have the constitutional right to themselves legislate through initiative and referendum. See CLEAN -I, 130 Wash.2d at 821, 928 P.2d 1054 (Sanders, J., dissenting). However such deference, not of constitutional origin, persuaded the CLEAN -I majority to credit the so-called emergency clause affixed to the baseball stadium tax bill with a status of objective truth neither present in nature nor otherwise apparent from even the face of the legislation. But here we go one step beyond CLEAN -I by actually discounting a legislative declaration incompatible with the existence of the alleged constitutional emergency at issue; i.e., The legislature neither affirms nor refutes the value of this proposal, and by this legislation simply expresses its intent to provide the voter of the state of Washington an opportunity to express the voter's decision. It is also expressed that many legislators might personally vote against this proposal at the polls, or they might not. Laws of 1997, ch. 220, § 605. Compare CLEAN -I, 130 Wash.2d at 807, 928 P.2d 1054 (In reviewing legislative declarations of emergency we are to give substantial deference to the Legislature.). Moreover the majority focuses upon whether a real emergency existed (Majority at 58), although the operative constitutional provision never uses the word emergency, but rather references the need for immediate preservation of the public peace, health or safety.... Const. art. II, § 1(b). The majority's analysis thereby erroneously collapses the operative constitutional text into simply a requirement for immediacy without regard to the particular nature of the problem in substance; e.g., does the problem threaten the public peace, health or safety or, rather, the financial expectations of the privileged few? While the majority finds immediacy in the specifics of the Seahawks option, it elsewhere defends against the claim of unconstitutional special legislation by asserting that this legislation applies to a class of counties and team affiliate[s], not just the Seahawks only. Majority at 52-53. But if such is the case, how can we credit an emergency to the class by exclusively relying on the specific facts fortuitously unique to but one of its members? Beyond that I wonderif, indeed, the legislature acted with courage to avert a pending catastrophe at the last possible momentwhat was the exact nature of the catastrophe so nearly avoided? In CLEAN -I it was the specter that the Mariners might leave town to make more money elsewhere which prompted the crisis which was solved through public financing of a new stadium. [4] However here the fate of that indispensable institution for public peace, health, or safetythe Seahawksis not similarly secured by this legislative action but rather its future is simply referred to the whims of the electorate, with a declaration that the very legislators enacting this emergency measure may not even vote for new stadium taxes in any event. How the act of simply holding an election without regard to result can qualify under the plain language of the constitutional imperative (immediate preservation of the public peace, health or safety ....) is something which the majority does not explain and I cannot fathom. If the prospective loss of the Seahawks is an emergency which must be promptly solved by the legislature, an election would not necessarily approve the new taxes. At most an election is a means, not an end in itself. I would prefer the good sense of schoolchildren who, if asked, Is an election to consider public funding of a new football stadium `necessary for the immediate preservation of the public peace, health or safety?' , undoubtedly would answer no, to the circumlocutions of the majority.