Court Opinion

ID: 9633376
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 11:44:51.412435+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:29:11.757098
License: Public Domain

McGovern, J.
(dissenting) — I find the law clear in its adherence to the rule that the powers of the initiative and referendum are applicable only to acts which are legislative in character. For good and valid reasons, the initiative and referendum processes are not available to executive or administrative acts. And the decision on the site selection for *360the multipurpose stadium was an administrative decision which could not he decided by the popular vote of the people.
Although “[e]ven the most ardent advocates of direct legislation have seldom contemplated that the initiative and referendum be used for every type of measure that might normally go before a . . . council”,3 the majority here completely ignores that basic premise. They say that the underlying state law makes an unrestricted grant of authority to the county and that the King County home rule charter, under that grant, excludes only initiative ordinances providing “ ‘for the compensation or working conditions of county employees’ ”. They thus imply that every other executive decision is within the operation of the provisions for direct legislation. Thus, even the architectural design of the multipurpose stadium will be subject to the initiative processes if and when a site for construction is ever legally settled.
Surely the majority cannot advocate such a proposition. To allow a popular vote by initiative or referendum action on administrative or executive conduct, as distinguished from legislative action, is to authorize a destruction of the very efficiency necessary to the successful administration of government. For example, to follow the rule of the majority is to say that every losing bidder for King County municipal work may now invoke the machinery of the initiative process and thus suspend the operation of the work effort being assailed.
Only the legislature can extend the initiative right into actions of an administrative nature, and certainly no court should do so by implying a legislative intent. See Annot., 122 A.L.R. 769, 770 (1939); Keigley v. Bench, 97 Utah 69, 89 P.2d 480, 122 A.L.R. 756 (1939).
■ What constitutes legislation, and what is an administrative act, is yet another matter for consideration. It has been said that “The crucial test for determining what is legisla*361tive and what is administrative is whether the ordinance is one making a new law or one executing a law already in existence”. Whitbeck v. Funk, 140 Ore. 70, 74, 12 P.2d 1019 (1932). It has also been said that “‘Acts constituting a declaration of public purpose and making provisions for ways and means of its accomplishment may be generally classified as calling for the exercise of legislative power’ ”. State ex rel. Boynton v. Charles, 136 Kan. 875, 877, 18 P.2d 149 (1933). Also, see Limitations on Initiative and Referendum, 3 Stan. L. Rev. 497 (1951).
Under either of the foregoing tests, the decision by the Board of King County Commissioners was an administrative decision. New law was not made. The legislative decision was made when the people of King County earlier decided by popular vote to erect a multipurpose stadium and approved the issuance of general obligation bonds to finance the construction. The building site was merely an implementing decision.
A case directly on point is Simpson v. Hite, 36 Cal. 2d 125, 222 P.2d 225 (1950). There a proposed initiative called for the repeal of resolutions of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors which had, among other things, designated a site for the construction of certain municipal and superior court buildings. The California State Supreme Court issued an order which prohibited the proposed initiative ordinance from being placed upon the ballot. In holding that the matter of the site selection was an administrative act and therefore not susceptible to an initiative vote, the court said, at page 133:
If the selection of sites of courts buildings were subject to referendum, the electors could nullify every determination of the board of supervisors to erect buildings for the courts and thereby nullify the legislative policy and prevent execution of the duty imposed upon the board of supervisors. Furthermore, a small group, or various small groups, of electors, by repeated initiative proposals for a change of site, could interfere with the supervisors’ attempts to furnish quarters for the courts at any time, even when the period for referendum had passed.
*362See, also, Noble v. Lincoln, 153 Neb. 79, 43 N.W.2d 578 (1950).
The order of the trial court should have been affirmed.
Neill, J., concurs with McGovern, J.
December 7, 1970. Petition for rehearing denied.

Crouch, Municipal Affairs — The Initiative and Referendum in Cities, in 37 American Political Science Review 491, 494 (1943).