Court Opinion

ID: 9548262
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 18:00:41.916366+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:18:43.809284
License: Public Domain

Andersen, J.
(concurring) — I concur with the majority that this State's public purchase preferences statute contains a special law which renders it invalid. I write separately, however, to emphasize that properly drafted purchase preference statutes are not unconstitutional.
The majority decision, as I perceive it, concludes that the purchase preference statute at issue (RCW 39.24.020) is invalid because it contains a special law. The statute mandates that no fuel shall be purchased for facilities owned or operated by governmental units "unless the same shall have been wholly mined or produced within the state of Washington".2 A proviso to the statute, however, exempts, under certain conditions, facilities using fuel mined or produced out of state "at the time of the passage of this act".3 This unchangeable, time-based classification creates a special law.4 It is this special law aspect of the purchase preference statute that violates article 2, section 28(6) and (15) of our State Constitution and renders it invalid. I concur with the majority opinion so concluding.
*126The majority opinion does not, however, declare purchase preference statutes to be per se unconstitutional. Indeed, they are not. The overwhelming weight of authority supports the validity of such statutes. Several jurisdictions have enacted them,5 and they have generally been upheld in the courts.6
The ends supported by purchase preference statutes are appropriate ones and the Legislature may enact such statutes without apology. As we recognized in Equitable Shipyards, Inc. v. State, 93 Wn.2d 465, 479, 611 P.2d 396 (1980), such statutes can support the legitimate interest of strengthening state and local economies. They can also serve the valid purpose of offsetting the subsidization of foreign industries by foreign governments. This, for example, was a primary purpose behind the federal Buy American Act,7 our nation's preeminent purchase preference statute.8 The Buy American Act is similar to Washington's *127public purchase preferences statute;9 in fact, both were enacted in the same year.10
Washington's purchase preferences statute also served to offset foreign subsidization. Specifically, the requirement of a preference for purchasing in-state fuel tended to offset Canada's practice of subsidizing the Canadian coal industry.11 This then is yet another legitimate reason supporting the appropriateness of properly drafted preference statutes.
With this caveat, I concur with the majority's opinion affirming the trial court.

RCW 39.24.020.

RCW 39.24.020.

See Nicholls v. Spokane Pub. Sch. Dist. 81, 195 Wash. 310, 80 P.2d 833, 82 P.2d 857 (1938).

 10 E. McQuillin, Municipal Corporations § 29.47, at 341 (3d ed. 1981).

 64 Am. Jur. 2d Public Works and Contracts § 27 (1972). See also Gary Concrete Prods., Inc. v. Riley, 285 S.C. 498, 331 S.E.2d 335 (1985); Galesburg Constr. Co. v. Board of Trustees, 641 P.2d 745 (Wyo. 1982); State ex rel. Collins v. Senatobia Blank Book & Stationery Co., 115 Miss. 254, 76 So. 258 (1917); In re Gemmill, 20 Idaho 732, 119 P. 298 (1911); Allen v. Labsap, 188 Mo. 692, 87 S.W. 926 (1905).

 P. Gantt & W. Speck, Domestic v. Foreign Trade Problems in Federal Government Contracting: Buy American Act and Executive Order, 7 J. Pub. L. 378, 381 (1958).

 41 U.S.C. § 10a. This section of the federal Buy American Act states in pertinent part: "unless the head of the department or independent establishment concerned shall determine it to be inconsistent with the public interest, or the cost to be unreasonable, only such unmanufactured articles, materials, and supplies as have been mined or produced in the United States, and only such manufactured articles, materials, and supplies as have been manufactured in the United States substantially all from articles, materials, or supplies mined, produced, or manufactured, as the case may be, in the United States, shall be acquired for public use.

See RCW 39.24.020.

See 41 U.S.C. § 10a (Buy American Act enacted in 1933). Washington's public purchase preferences statute was originally enacted in 1933 (Laws of 1933, ch. 179, § 1). Our statute was then amended in 1937 (Laws of 1937, ch. 164, § 1).

See, e.g., The Economist 75-76 (May 4, 1985); R. Bott, King Coal's Comeback Faltered a Few Years Ago But Now It Looks for Real, Canadian Business (June 1982, Supp. at 4) (both discussing Canadian government investments in transportation for British Columbia mined coal).