Opinion ID: 2564099
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Referendum Veto Consistent with GMA Procedures

Text: ¶ 78 Operating akin to an executive veto, the people's exercise of the right of referendum on GMA-related local ordinances is entirely permissible. Referenda calling for a yes or no vote on nonmandatory, local ordinances passed pursuant to the GMA are consistent with GMA procedural requirements. ¶ 79 Whereas there are many similarities between initiatives and referenda, important differences are relevant. An initiative involves the drafting and adopting of legislation initiated by voters. It is the people's exercise of legislative power. Initiatives regulating critical areas would not involve the GMA's adoptive procedures. ¶ 80 By contrast, referenda most clearly fit into GMA's process for critical areas ordinances. A referendum, in this context, occurs after the county has presumably complied with its preliminary procedural requirements. Such a referendum is a people's veto. As amicus Washington State Attorney General rightly points out, [a]s long as the process followed by the legislative authority complies with the GMA, the addition of referenda to approve or reject ordinances does not create a conflict with the GMA. Amicus Br. of Att'y General at 10. If a referendum succeeds, the Council could adopt new regulations consistent with the comprehensive plan and the GMA. ¶ 81 The majority insists that an opportunity for public participation at hearings somehow precludes the right of referendum. Majority at 624. There is no basis for this unusual rationale which would bar any referenda. It violates fundamental principles above-stated to suggest that public involvement may operate as a sub silentio repeal of the people's right of referenda. ¶ 82 The dissent in Whatcom County v. Brisbane, 125 Wash.2d 345, 884 P.2d 1326 (1994) strongly rejected the assertion that public participation operates as the equivalent of referenda: A referendum is not simply an effort to participate in, or contribute to, discussion; rather, the enactment of a referendum measure is an exercise of the same power of sovereignty as that exercised by the legislature in the passage of a statute. Philip A. Trautman, Initiative and Referendum in Washington: A Survey, 49 Wash. L.Rev. 55, 66 (1973). Initiative and referendum provisions reserve to voters the fundamental right of a governed people to exercise their inherent and constitutional political power over governmental affairs. Paget, [78 Wash.2d] at 352, 474 P.2d 247. Therefore, to say that public discussion of the proposed content of an ordinance is somehow equivalent to the right to challenge that ordinance by referendum, and that the public must be contented with such discussion, is a mischaracterization of the significance of the referendum power. Id. at 359, 884 P.2d 1326 (Madsen, J., dissenting). To treat public participation as the equivalent of referenda or to allow hearings to preclude the people's rights was as wrong when Brisbane was decided as it is today. ¶ 83 Furthermore, this court has even affirmed the authority of a non-GMA entity to veto GMA development regulations. In City of Bellevue v. East Bellevue Community Council, 138 Wash.2d 937, 983 P.2d 602 (1999), this court reviewed whether community councils, pursuant to RCW 35.14.040 (not part of the GMA), could continue to exercise a veto authority over development regulations adopted by cities. This court rejected claims that such a veto over GMA zoning regulations was impermissible. East Bellevue Community Council should control here, not Brisbane.