Court Opinion

ID: 9545992
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 17:23:15.060396+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:15:52.398012
License: Public Domain

Donworth, J.
(dissenting) — The majority opinion approves the issuance of these refunding bonds by the Toll Bridge Authority on the theory that they are revenue bonds payable solely from the money derived from the operation of the state ferry system and the Hood Canal bridge. The basis of this holding is that, under the eighteenth amendment, all excise taxes on the sale, distribution, and use of *52motor vehicle fuel shall be placed in a special fund to be used exclusively for highway purposes, and since the state can issue bonds for highway purposes, "... the implication is that it can covenant that the excise taxes directed by the constitutional amendment to be paid into the fund will be adequate for the payment and servicing of the bonds.”
If the bonds were payable solely from the revenues derived from the operation of the two facilities involved, I would concur with the majority, but, as I view the proposed transaction, the bondholders are being given a guaranty, at least in part, by the levy of a special tax because the bonds contain the following covenant:
“The State of Washington has agreed to continue to impose the % cent of motor vehicle fuel tax and % cent of use fuel tax required by law to be deposited in the Puget Sound Reserve Account of the Motor Vehicle Fund.”20
As pointed out in the concurring opinion in State ex rel. Hoppe v. Meyers, 58 Wn. (2d) 320, 363 P. (2d) 121 (1961), there is no % cent tax imposed for the purpose indicated; but, the legislature has distributed to the Puget Sound reserve account, for the purposes discussed in the majority opinion, a portion of the 7% cents per gallon motor vehicle fuel sales tax and the motor vehicle use tax equivalent to the amount which would be raised by a % cent per gallon tax.
By the above-quoted provision in the bonds (which is authorized by the legislature in Laws of 1961, Ex. Ses., chapter 7, §§ 1, 4, 18, 19, 20, and 21), the state obligates itself to continue to levy an excise tax on motor vehicle fuel sales and the use thereof amounting to % of one cent per gallon until all outstanding bonds have been retired. The proceeds of the % cent tax are required to be paid into the motor vehicle fund and credited to the Puget Sound *53reserve account. The sole purposes for which funds deposited in the reserve account may be used are stated in sections 19, 20, and 21 of chapter 7, as follows:
“Sec. 19. Whenever the total balance in the Puget Sound reserve account shall exceed one million dollars, a sum equal to such excess of one million dollars shall be transferred from the Puget Sound reserve account and shall be expended by the state highway commission pursuant to proper appropriation or reappropriation for state highways for other state highway commission purposes.
“Sec. 20. The Puget Sound reserve account shall be used by the Washington toll bridge authority for the following purposes:
“The authority may pledge any moneys in the Puget Sound reserve account or to be deposited in said account to guarantee the payment of principal or interest on (1) bonds issued to refund the outstanding 1955 Washington state ferry system refunding bonds and the 1957 ferry and Hood Canal bridge revenue bonds, or (2) subsequent parity bonds issued to pay costs of improving the Washington state ferry system or constructing additional transportation facilities for the crossing of any part of Puget Sound other than bridging between the east side of Puget Sound to the Kitsap Peninsula, Vashon Island or Bainbridge Island: Provided, That the authority shall not pledge any moneys in the Puget Sound reserve account to guarantee interest or principal on such parity bonds without further express authorization by legislative act.
“The authority may further pledge moneys in the Puget Sound reserve account to meet any sinking fund requirements or reserves established by the authority with respect to any new bond issues provided for in this section.

“To the extent of any pledge herein authorized, the authority shall use the first moneys available in the Puget Sound reserve account to meet such obligations as they arise.

“Sec. 21. Notwithstanding the provisions of section 19 the treasurer shall never transfer any moneys from the Puget Sound reserve account for use by the state highway commission for state highway purposes so long as there is due and unpaid any obligations for payment of principal, interest, sinking funds or reserves as required by any pledge of the Puget Sound reserve account. Whenever the authority shall have pledged any moneys in said account for the purposes authorized in section 20 of this amendatory act, *54the state agrees to continue to deposit in the Puget Sound reserve account the motor vehicle fuel taxes and use fuel taxes as provided in sections 1 and 4 of this amendatory act, and further agrees that so long as there exists any outstanding obligations pursuant to such pledge, to continue to impose such taxes.” (Italics mine.)
Thus, the state has expressly covenanted with the bondholders to continue to levy the % cent excise tax on the sale of motor vehicle fuels and to deposit the proceeds in the Puget Sound reserve account and has authorized the Toll Bridge Authority to pledge any funds in that account to guarantee the payment of principal or interest of the bonds in accordance with the statutory provisions above quoted.
In State ex rel. Washington Toll Bridge Authority v. Yelle, 54 Wn. (2d) 545, 342 P. (2d) 588 (1959), we disapproved the guaranteeing of toll bridge revenue bonds by the State Highway Commission by the pledging of not more than $750,000 per year out of the proceeds of an excise tax on the sale of motor vehicle fuels pursuant to a provision of the 1959 supplemental appropriations act. That case involved thirty million dollars of revenue bonds to be issued by the Toll Bridge Authority for the construction of the second Lake Washington bridge under Laws of 1957, chapter 266, p. 1037, which provided that the bonds “shall be payable both principal and interest solely from the tolls and revenues derived from the operation of said toll facility.” In holding that the attempted pledge of excise tax funds was invalid, the majority opinion said:
“This does not mean that the bridge across Lake Washington need be delayed. It is clear that chapter 266, Laws of 1957, gives requisite authority to proceed. The seven hundred fifty thousand dollars a year, which counsel say would probably never be used, falls far short of being sufficient to guarantee even the annual interest on thirty million dollars worth of bonds; but it is an entering wedge. If the court were to approve the method used here to make a token guarantee from tax sources of what are supposedly revenue bonds, it would afford the precedent for complete guarantees from tax sources by a similar procedure.” (Italics mine.)
*55The last sentence in the foregoing quotation is prophetic of the trend, which this court is now pursuing and of the ultimate logical result of the majority opinion in this case. I am unable to discern any distinction between these two transactions which justifies the opposite results arrived at in these cases.
Even before the adoption of the eighteenth amendment to our constitution in 1944 (which restricted the use of motor vehicle license fees and excise taxes on motor fuels to highway purposes as defined therein) the legislature had created the motor vehicle fund as a permanent fund. In 1939, the legislature attempted to appropriate a portion of this fund to pay and refund local improvement district assessments duly levied for the cost of the improvement of Aurora Avenue, an arterial highway in Seattle. After two en banc hearings, this court, in State ex rel. Collier v. Yelle, 9 Wn. (2d) 317, 115 P. (2d) 373 (1941), held that the money in the motor vehicle fund could not be used for this purpose because it was not a public purpose. In dealing with the contention that the fourteenth amendment (adopted in 1930) applied only to ad valorem taxes, this court said:
“If it be suggested that the fourteenth amendment to the state constitution applies only to taxes levied against property, as that word is defined in the amendment, and that such taxes as support the motor vehicle fund are neither property taxes nor are they levied, such an argument would be untenable. The first sentence of the amendment reads as follows: ‘The power of taxation shall never be suspended, surrendered or contracted away.’ This, of course, refers to all taxes collected by the state, including property, excise, and all other taxes. The amendment, then, in scope covers all the state’s power to levy taxes.
“In the second sentence of the amendment, above quoted, the opening words ‘all taxes’ apply to the first clause of the sentence, and also to the last clause, ‘shall be levied and collected for public purposes only.’
“In referring to privilege taxes, the state sales tax, and similar exactions, this court has repeatedly referred to such taxes as ‘levied.’ Shell Co. v. State, 113 Wash. 632, 194 Pac. 835; Morrow v. Henneford, 182 Wash. 625, 47 P. (2d) *561016; Spokane v. State, 198 Wash. 682, 89 P. (2d) 826. The legislature, in Laws of 1935, chapter 180, p. 726, § 31, relating to the compensating tax, used the word ‘levied,’ and the same word is found in Rem. Rev. Stat. (Sup.), § 8327-23 [P.C. § 7068-93] (Laws of 1933, chapter 58, p. 326, § 23), referring to the gasoline tax.” (Italics mine.)
In State ex rel. Washington State Bldg. Financing Authority v. Yelle, 47 Wn. (2d) 705, 289 P. (2d) 355 (1955), the special fund bonds provided for in Laws of 1955, Ex. Ses., chapter 12, were held to be in violation of Art. 8 of the constitution. The plan before the court in that case was described in the decision as follows:
“Chapter 12, Laws of 1955, Ex. Ses., p. 1754, is a comprehensive plan to finance, construct, and operate needed buildings and facilities for the institutions of higher learning and for the various agencies and departments of the state. It creates ‘a body corporate and politic’ to be known as the state building financing authority, consisting of three members: the Governor, or his representative; the state treasurer; and the director of general administration.
“Briefly, the plan is this. The authority is to purchase or lease land from the institutions of higher learning and the various agencies and departments of the state, erect and equip buildings thereon, and then lease them back to the institutions of higher learning and various agencies and departments for terms not to exceed thirty years; at such rentals as it shall determine. The construction is to be financed by the issuance of revenue bonds to mature at a time not to exceed thirty years from their respective dates, and to draw interest at four per cent per annum, which shall be the obligation of the authority alone, and not the obligation of the state or any of its institutions of higher learning, agencies, departments, or instrumentalities.”
The language found in the last paragraph of the decision holding these bonds to be invalid is, in my opinion, particularly significant in the case at bar. The majority there stated:
“We recognize the housing problem with which the state is confronted. Nevertheless, we can not permit the exigency of the situation to override the constitutional safeguard against improvidence and the integrity of the state’s economy. We can not resort to dexterity of judicial thinking *57in order to assist the state in its problem. We can not close our eyes to what is actually being attempted. When we strip the plan down to fundamentals, we find that it is not a leasing arrangement between landlord and tenant, but the installment purchase by the state of certain buildings and facilities with state moneys raised by taxation, far in excess of the constitutional limitation.”
My views as to the meaning and effect of Art. 8 of our constitution are well stated by Judge Hill in his dissent in Gruen v. State Tax Comm., 35 Wn. (2d) 1, 211 P. (2d) 651 (1949) (in which three judges concurred). He there said:
“The majority’s position that the eighty million dollars in bonds contemplated by chapter 180, p. 496, of the Laws of 1949 will not be a debt as that term is used in Art. VIII of our constitution, seems to me to disregard the clear intent of the constitutional provision. In that article it is stated that ‘... no debts shall hereafter be contracted by or on behalf of this state . . . ’ except as provided in §§ 1, 2, and 3 thereof. Section 1 provides that the state may contract debts, not at any time exceeding a total of four hundred thousand dollars, to meet casual deficits, failures in revenue, or expenses not provided for. Section 2 provides that the state may contract debts (and there is no limit) to repel invasion, suppress insurrection, or defend the state in war. Section 3 provides for the authorization of a debt by law (and there is no limit) if it is for some single work or object distinctly specified in the law, and if the law provides ways and means, exclusive of loans, for the payment of the interest on such debt and for payment of the principal within twenty years. Such a law cannot take effect until it has received a majority vote of the people at a general election.
“Section 1 is for casual deficits, etc., small in amount; § 2 is for great emergencies; § 3 gives the procedure which would normally be followed to incur a state debt. It was under § 3 that the World War I bonus was enacted and upheld by this court. State ex rel. Hart v. Clausen, 113 Wash. 570, 194 Pac. 793, 13 A. L. R. 580; State ex rel. Hart v. Clausen, 117 Wash. 260, 201 Pac. 30.
“It must be noted that the majority does not suggest that the act here in question comes under the exceptions referred to in §§ 1, 2, or 3. Its position is that the obligation to pay the eighty-million-dollar bond issue will not be a debt of the state of Washington within the purview of the *58declaration of Art. VIII of the constitution that ‘... no debts shall hereafter be contracted by or on behalf of this state. . . . ’ ”
Parenthetically, I note Judge Hill’s observation that the foregoing constitutional provisions do not apply to bond issues payable from revenues of self-liquidating projects such as the operation of toll bridges. However, in the case at bar, the bonds are not self-liquidating as far as the bondholders are concerned because, in addition to the revenues of the facilities as a source of payment of their bonds, they are also receiving a pledge of the proceeds of a specific tax (one quarter cent) covenanted to be levied for their benefit for 40 years.
After stating the application of Art. 8 to the facts of the Gruen case, Judge Hill, in his dissent, exhaustively reviewed the decisions from other states regarding the incurring of state indebtedness. I adopt his views therein expressed as part of this dissent.
The question arises: When are revenue bonds not revenue bonds? The answer is: When they are guaranteed in whole, or in part, by the proceeds of a state tax.
A similar question was decided by this court in Asia v. Seattle, 119 Wash. 674, 206 Pac. 366 (1922), which involved an issue of $15,000,000 of revenue bonds delivered to the Puget Sound Power & Light Company in payment for the sale of its street railway system to the city in 1919. Thereafter, there was protracted litigation in both the state and federal courts as to the rights of the power company as sole bondholder. A group of taxpayers (known as the 14 taxpayers) brought a suit in the state court against the city of Seattle to enjoin the use of general fund money to service the bonds or pay the costs of maintenance and operation of the system. The power company brought an action in the federal court to enjoin the 14 taxpayers from prosecuting their action in the state court. The trial court dismissed the action for want of equity. (The dismissal of this action was subsequently affirmed by the *59court of appeals in Puget Sound Power & Light Co. v. Asia, 277 Fed. 1.)
The power company, as sole bondholder, also brought an action in the federal court against the city seeking specific performance of the contract. The district court, after trial, entered a decree of specific performance directing the city to operate the system, charge fares adequate to produce sufficient revenues to pay the principal and interest on the bonds and, in addition, the costs of maintenance and operation of the system. It was further provided that, if the revenues should not be sufficient to service the bonds, the city must pay the costs of maintenance and operation “out of the general fund or any fund available” and, if the operation of the system would otherwise cease, the city was ordered to pay those costs out of the general fund or any source other than from the gross revenues of the system. Puget Sound Power & Light Co. v. Seattle, 282 Fed. 712. (This decree was subsequently reversed by the court of appeals and the action ordered dismissed for want of equity in Seattle v. Puget Sound Power & Light Co., 284 Fed. 659.)
While the decree of specific performance was in full force and effect, the taxpayers’ appeal in Asia v. Seattle, supra, came before this court. No constitutional question was involved, but the question of the statutory authority of the city which had issued these utility revenue bonds to use general tax funds (without submission to, and approval of, the voters) to directly or indirectly discharge its bond obligations was squarely presented to this court. The question presented was stated as follows:
“The question then is, may the city voluntarily or involuntarily encroach upon its general fund, or otherwise place upon the taxpayers the burden of meeting deficits of any kind incurred by reason of the carrying out of the plan of purchase or the operation and maintenance of the system thereunder?”
After quoting the applicable statute (then designated as § 8008, Rem. Code (P. C. §1217)), which authorized the issuance of utility bonds by a city where no general indebtedness was to be incurred (and hence no vote of the *60qualified electors was necessary) by following the procedure therein prescribed, this court continued:
“Unquestionably the statute means what it says, and says what it means, when it provides that no general indebtedness shall be created without the submission of that question to the voters, and that, in creating a special fund, the city shall have ‘due regard to the cost of operation and maintenance.’ Had it been contemplated that a general indebtedness might arise from the operation and maintenance, the language quoted would not have been used. Uhler v. Olympia, 87 Wash. 1, 151 Pac. 117, 152 Pac. 998; Schooley v. Chehalis, 84 Wash. 667, 147 Pac. 410.”
Referring to loans which the city had made from its general fund to keep the street railway system in operation in the face of a deficit in gross revenues, it was further said:
“ . . . Here we have a special fund which owes many millions, a considerable deficit appeared almost immediately, and has steadily grown. None of the efforts of the city so far have resulted in providing an income sufficient to meet the outgo. If borrowing is continued, either directly or by overdraft, the final result will inevitably be that the moneys borrowed will be permanently diverted from the fund to which they belong and appropriated to the use of the utility, just as certainly as though such an appropriation were directly made in the first place. That which may not be done directly must not be accomplished by indirection. When, cls here, the court can certainly see a final unlawful result, it should enjoin the act by which the unlawful result will otherwise be accomplished.
“We are not now concerned with questions other than the one before us, and are not called upon to advise the city how, if at all, it may solve the very serious problem which has arisen from what has proven to be the erroneous judgment of its legislative body; but we are clear that only one construction can be placed upon the statute which governs this situation, and that is that when it is proposed that any general indebtedness be incurred for such a purpose as is here considered, the matter must be submitted to the voters; and if not so submitted, all obligations arising from the acquisition, operation and maintenance of the utility must be met from its revenue, and, in any event, by no action of the city or its officials can the burden be shifted to the *61shoulders of the taxpayers, who have had no opportunity to say whether they will or will not accept the hazard. . . . ” (Italics mine.)
The analogy between the situation in the Asia case and the plan here involved, to pledge the proceeds of a tax which is covenanted by the legislature to be levied for some 40 years, seems very plain to me.
In the case at bar, we have a total disregard of the provisions of Art. 8, § 3, of our constitution, which, as already pointed out in the first dissent in the Gruen case, supra, specifically states that:
“. . . [N]o debts shall hereafter be contracted by, or on behalf of this state, unless [1] such debt shall be authorized by law [2] for some single work or object . . . distinctly specified therein . . . [3] ways and means, exclusive of loans, [shall be provided] for the payment of the interest [thereon] ... as it falls due, [4] and also to pay and discharge the principal of such debt within twenty years . . . [and 5] No such law shall take effect until it shall, at a general election, have been submitted to the people and have received a majority of all the votes cast for and against it at such election, and all moneys raised by authority of such law shall be applied only to the specific object therein stated, or to the payment of the debt thereby created, and such law shall be published in at least one newspaper in each county, if one be published therein, throughout the state, for three months next preceding the election at which it is submitted to the people.” (Italics mine.)
There is nothing in the constitution indicating an intention that this section has any application to contingent indebtedness, the pledging of tax proceeds, or the partial guaranty by the state with respect to the principal or interest of revenue bonds issued by its instrumentalities.
As said in the Asia case, supra, in applying the statute which, under certain conditions, permitted the issuance by cities of utility revenue bonds without a vote of the people:
“ . . . [B]ut we are clear that only one construction can be placed upon the statute which governs this situation, and that is that when it is proposed that any general indebtedness be incurred for such a purpose as is here considered, *62the matter must be submitted to the voters; and if not so submitted, all obligations arising from the acquisition, operation and maintenance of the utility must be met from its revenue, and, in any event, by no action of the city or its officials can the burden be shifted to the shoulders of the taxpayers, who have had no opportunity to say whether they will or will not accept the hazard. The trial court should have granted the prayer of appellants and enjoined the city and its officials from in any manner encroaching upon the general fund or placing the burden in any degree upon the taxpayers.”
The majority opinion in the present case appears to base its approval of pledging tax funds to secure, in part, the payment of the principal and interest of these refunding bonds upon the provision in the statute that the collection of tolls will continue after the bonds have been retired, and thus any tax funds which have been diverted from the highway fund created by the eighteenth amendment will be restored.
The fallacy of this reasoning is that, instead of the bondholders assuming the risk of the revenues being insufficient to service the bonds and to pay the costs of maintenance and operation of the facilities, that risk is shifted to the shoulders of the taxpayers who (as required by Art. 8, § 3, of the constitution) have had no opportunity to say whether or not they will accept the hazard. The fact that tax money unlawfully diverted from the highway fund may be restored during or after the 40-year period does not, in my opinion, cure the serious legal defect in this refunding plan.
The majority cites State ex rel. Bugge v. Martin, 38 Wn. (2d) 834, 232 P. (2d) 833 (1951), which has a material bearing on the problem before us. In that case, I wrote a concurring opinion (in which two other judges concurred) upholding the issuance of the limited obligation bonds involved in that case which were payable from excise tax revenues derived from license fees and other taxes levied on the sale and use of motor vehicle fuels, the proceeds of which were required to be placed in the highway fund created by the eighteenth amendment. In the legislative *63act authorizing the bonds, the legislature agreed to continue to impose the same excise taxes on motor vehicle fuels in amounts sufficient to pay all principal and interest on the bonds when due. In my opinion, I stated that no unconstitutional state indebtedness was created by the issuance of those bonds.
I now believe that I was in error in so stating unless there is a logical distinction between that case and the one at bar. The Bugge case did not involve any bonds payable out of the revenues received from the operation of a facility by a state agency or the pledge of tax funds to guarantee, in whole or in part, the payment of the principal or interest thereof. The bonds there issued were similar to tax anticipation warrants, i.e., they were payable solely from the proceeds of certain excise taxes which the state agreed to continue in effect during the life of the bonds. If this distinction be not valid, then I was in error in the conclusion reached in my concurring opinion in the Bugge case.
To summarize my position in the present case, there used to be two kinds of bonds at the state level — general obligation bonds and revenue bonds issued by agencies of the state. Now we approve a third kind, a hybrid bond, which is payable out of the revenues derived from the operation of a certain facility (operated by a state agency), but is also secured to a specified extent by the pledge of certain excise taxes which the state covenants to continue to levy until the revenue bonds are paid in full. By the issuance of this hybrid bond, the state assumes a contingent liability to pay interest or principal (or part thereof) without showing this item as a liability. The practical result of the continuance of this program is discussed in the dissenting opinions in Gruen v. State Tax Comm., 35 Wn. (2d) 1, 211 P. (2d) 651 (1949), and in State ex rel. Washington State Bldg. Financing Authority v. Yelle, supra.
The argument that it is necessary to have some kind of state guaranty to market revenue bonds or that a lower rate of interest may thus be obtained (if persuasive) means only that the constitution may be ignored when it is deemed *64expedient to do so. Cf. State ex rel. Eastvold v. Maybury, 49 Wn. (2d) 533, 304 P. (2d) 663 (1956), relating to the statutory authority of the state capitol committee to create a reserve fund for the payment of bonds. The legal question involved here is whether the people of this state are to have constitutional control of the incurring of state indebtedness. If the provisions of Art. 8 are considered to be too restrictive from a practical standpoint, they may be amended in the manner provided in the constitution, but such a situation does not warrant what is, in effect, a judicial amendment or repeal thereof. See Cooley, Constitutional Limitation (8th ed.), page 159.
What we said in State ex rel. Lemon v. Langlie, 45 Wn. (2d) 82, 273 P. (2d) 464 (1954), is pertinent in weighing such arguments of expediency as against the application of all constitutional provisions. We there said:
“The vice of this reasoning is that it destroys the usefulness and the very purpose of a written constitution. The function of a state constitution under our form of government is well stated in 11 Am. Jur. 651, Constitutional Law, § 44, as follows:
“ !A written Constitution is not only the direct and basic expression of the sovereign will, but is the absolute rule of action and decision for all departments and offices of government with respect to all matters covered by it and must control as it is written until it shall be changed by the authority that established it. No function of government can be discharged in disregard of, or in opposition to, the fundamental law. The state Constitution is the mandate of a sovereign people to its servants and representatives. No one of them has a right to ignore or disregard its mandates; and the legislature, the executive officers, and the judiciary cannot lawfully act beyond the limitations of such Constitution.’
“If it be a fact that public convenience and administrative efficiency can be promoted by maintaining the thirteen state agencies at Seattle or elsewhere than at the seat of government, the constitution may be so amended by majority vote of the people. They have reserved to themselves the sole power to change our state constitution. What we said in State ex rel. Banker v. Clausen, 142 Wash. 450, 253 Pac. *65805, quoting with approval from 6 R.C.L. 46, is applicable to the present case:
“ ‘ “A cardinal rule in dealing with constitutions is that they should receive a consistent and uniform interpretation, so that they shall not be taken to mean one thing at one time and another thing at another time, even though the circumstances may have so changed as to make a different rule seem desirable. In accordance with this principle, a court should not allow the facts of the particular case to influence its decision on a question of constitutional law, nor should a statute be construed as constitutional in some cases and unconstitutional in others involving like circumstances and conditions. Furthermore, constitutions do not change with the varying tides of public opinion and desire. The will of the people therein recorded is the same inflexible law until changed by their own deliberative action; and therefore the courts should never allow a change in public sentiment to influence them in giving a construction to a written constitution not warranted by the intention of its founders.” ’ (Italics ours.)
“Accordingly, we are bound, by the mandatory language of Article III and Article XIV of the constitution as adopted by the people in 1889 until such time as the people see fit to exercise their sovereign right to change it.”
Sections 29 and 32 of Art. 1 of our constitution lay down two basic principles for its interpretation:
“The provisions of this Constitution are mandatory, unless by express words they are declared to be otherwise.” §29
“A frequent recurrence to fundamental principles is essential to the security of individual right and the perpetuity of free government.” § 32
In my opinion, the people of the state of Washington are entitled to the enforcement of the constitutional provisions limiting the incurring of state indebtedness which they themselves placed in the constitution. This court should not render those provisions nugatory by holding that Art. 8, § 3, may be disregarded either in part or temporarily, and that the general taxing power of the state may be pledged to secure the payment of revenue bonds. There is no basis for such a distinction by the court where the people, in adopting these constitutional provisions, made *66no distinction between any type of debt but included all state indebtedness payable from any type of state tax.
Applying the above-quoted principles of interpretation, I would, for the foregoing reasons, afford the taxpayer the protection which the constitution was intended to give him and would enforce the provisions of Art. 8, § 3, as written. The writ prayed for by the Toll Bridge Authority should be denied.
Ott, J., concurs with Donworth, J.
Rosellini, J., concurs in the result of the dissent.

"The two outstanding bond issues which are to be refunded by the proceeds of this $38,000,000 issue are true revenue bonds payable solely from the tolls and other revenues of the respective facilities. See State ex rel. Washington Toll Bridge Authority v. Yelle, 195 Wash. 636, 82 P. (2d) 120 (1938).