Court Opinion

ID: 9633397
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 11:45:53.17647+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:08:34.472908
License: Public Domain

Rosellini, J.
(dissenting) — The majority opinion concludes that amendment 17 does not directly or indirectly result in the debasement or the dilution of the vote. This conclusion distorts reality, defies all logic and rewrites the law of mathematics. Where a negative vote against a proposition counts' one and one-half times as great as a positive vote, it results in the dilution and debasement of the positive vote. This is constitutionally impermissible, as I shall demonstrate.
To fully understand the invidious effect of amendment 17, it will be necessary to discuss not only the provision that the tax limitations imposed by law may be exceeded only by a taxing district when it is authorized to do so by *437the majority of at least three-fifths of the electors voting upon the excess levy, the so-called “60 per cent” provision, but also to discuss the provision that the number of persons voting must constitute not less than 40 per cent of the total number of votes cast in the taxing district at the last preceding general election. This 40 per cent provision was not involved in this case, as the bond issue did receive the 40 per cent. However, the whole constitutional scheme must be discussed to demonstrate that the purpose of the amendment was to debase the vote of those citizens favoring the bond issue or tax levy and to discriminate against citizens because of the way they might vote.
The inevitable result of any requirement of a majority of more than 51 per cent is to give one group of voters a greater influence on the outcome of an election than another group of comparable size but of the opposite conviction. The 60 per cent voting limitation has the effect of assigning a greater weight to negative votes than to favorable votes. Unlike the situation in which a simple majority is required and each vote is given the same weight, the 60 per cent requirement gives a negative vote a weight one and one-half times as great as that of a favorable vote. One negative vote is 50 per cent more effective in defeating a proposed bond issue or excess tax levy than a favorable vote approving it. Thus, the constitutional provision requires a popular referendum on bond issues and tax levies but only on the basis which tips the scales in advance very substantially against those who will vote for approval.
It is also quite obvious that this grossly unequal weighting of votes is accomplished through a classification of voters according to whether they might favor or oppose the tax or bond proposition. For purposes which I shall later describe, the constitutional and statutory provisions here at issue disable all those persons who might favor the adoption of bond or tax propositions by diluting and debasing the effectiveness of their votes and at the same time single out all those persons who might oppose those propositions and grant them special advantage by increasing the effectiveness of their votes. Departures from the rule of simple *438majority within the electoral process must be recognized for what they truly are. In this case the 60 per cent voting limitation assigns grossly unequal influence to voters on bond or tax propositions simply on the basis of whether they oppose or favor the issue.
The following statement from Gray v. Sanders, 372 U.S. 368, 379, 9 L. Ed. 2d 821, 83 S. Ct. 801 (1963), illustrates more readily the effect of the 60 per cent limitation:
If a State in a statewide election weighted the male vote more heavily than the female vote or the white vote more heavily than the Negro vote; none could successfully contend that that discrimination was allowable.
When a state weights the negative vote more heavily than an affirmative vote, discrimination results.
The 40 per cent voting limitation further dilutes and debases the vote of those favoring a tax levy or bond issue. This provision requires that the total number of persons voting an excess tax levy or bond issue must constitute no less than 40 per cent of the total number of votes cast in a taxing district at the last preceding general election. It must be kept in mind that both the 60 per cent limitation and the 40 per cent are interrelated and independent. What I have already said about the effect and purpose of the 60 per cent voting limitation applies equally to the 40 per cent limitation. Together they compound the impairing, diluting and debasing of the votes of those who favor a bond issue or an excess levy.
The Washington Attorney General stated in AGO 65-66, No. 83, April 12, 1966, at 3:
[B]oth the forty percent requirement of the 17th Amendment and its companion three-fifths or sixty percent requirement operate to make it more difficult for proponents of an excess levy proposition to obtain passage of the measure at the polls than it is for the opponents of the proposition to defeat it.
(Italics mine.) Indeed, in the case of the 40 per cent voting limitation, it may operate totally to nullify all favorable votes on a proposition. The Attorney General stated further:
*439An acknowledged practical consequence of . . . the “forty per centum” requirement ... is that an excess levy proposition may receive approval of well over the requisite three-fifths (60%) of persons voting on the proposition and yet fail to pass because of insufficient total voter turnout.
Thus, not only is the negative vote arbitrarily favored with added weight under the 60 per cent limitation, it also may prevail under certain conditions no matter how vast a majority might favor the proposition. Conversely, though voters who favor the proposition must always overcome the debasement of the effectiveness of their votes, they may also be totally disenfranchised. The potentially small margin of nonvoters representing the difference between the total vote and the 40 per cent required (it could be merely one nonvoter) has an absolute veto over those who vote “yes.”
The general rule with respect to nonparticipation by voters in elections in which they might otherwise have participated is that those who do not participate are presumed to consent and agree to the will of those who do. Statutes requiring that propositions receive majority votes are construed to require only the approval of a majority of those voting on the proposition, not a majority of all those who might have voted. Virginian Ry. v. System Federation No. 40, 300 U.S. 515, 560, 81 L. Ed. 789, 57 S. Ct. 592 (1937) (union certification election); Carroll County v. Smith, 111 U.S. 556, 28 L. Ed. 517, 4 S. Ct. 539 (1884); Laconia Water Co. v. Laconia, 99 N.H. 409, 112 A.2d 58 (1955) (election on proposed municipal acquisition of waterworks); Heuchert v. State Harness Racing Comm’n, 403 Pa. 440, 170 A.2d 332 (1961) (election on issuance of racing license); Dominic v. Davis, 262 P.2d 143 (Okla. 1953) (election on school district annexation); In re Todd, 208 Ind. 168, 193 N.E. 865 (1935); Annot., 131 A.L.R. 1382 (1941). See also Weyhright v. Klein, 104 Colo. 590, 592, 92 P.2d 734 (1939) (election on proposed municipal acquisition of electric plant) in which the court stated:
Government by majorities does not rest upon the fact *440that majorities actually express themselves, but upon the necessary presumption that the silent electors approve what the articulate do, otherwise they would protest . . . If the affirmative vote must be a majority of all, negative votes are futile, [for] they are as effective un-cast as cast.
Viable government cannot tolerate the exercise of political power by silent portions of the electorate, by inactive nonvoters. It is plain that government must proceed to do those things required of it, irrespective of speculation and conjecture about the unexpressed will of citizens who do not vote.
Yet, the framers and advocates of amendment 17 specified that the total of those citizens who vote must constitute a certain percentage of the number of electors at some previous election. The traditional presumption of assent by the silent was reversed and in effect changed to dissent by the silent. The burden of electoral nonparticipation was shifted entirely to the favorable voters. As a result, the 40 per cent voting limitation discriminates against favorable voters and arbitrarily benefits negative voters. Nothing in common experience or logic can justify presuming dissent by silent voters and placing that burden wholly upon favorable votes by retroactively invalidating them. Indeed, as noted above, the courts have recognized that logic and common experience require an opposite result. Citizens opposed to certain governmental action will not remain silent.
Although there is a sparse historical record concerning the 60 per cent voting limitation, one can glean the following. The limitation upon municipal indebtedness was contained in article 8, section 6, of the original Washington Constitution of 1889. This provision indicates that at least some delegates viewed the three-fifths requirement for votes upon municipal indebtedness as “a protection against the floating population.” Journal of the Washington State Constitutional Convention of 1889, with Analytical Index (1962), at 679. By this it was apparently intended that the votes of certain transient groups of citizens would be discounted and disregarded in the election in order to arrive *441at a vote reflecting the will of more substantial citizens. Putting aside the question of the constitutionality of such a purpose under present constitutional principles, it is clear that the means adopted for that purpose erect a classification of voters which is utterly imprecise and arbitrary. If it was ever rational to discount the votes of 10 per cent of the voters at a bond election because they are deemed to be part of the “floating population,” surely today such a procedure operates unnecessarily to disable concerned citizens by diluting their votes for quality education or necessary public betterment. If such a purpose is valid at all, it is already accomplished by residence requirements applicable to the franchise. Anyone who is a qualified elector of a school district or a taxing district and who expends the effort involved in voting at a tax levy or bond election has a very serious interest in the affairs of the district. The 60 per cent voting limitation operates simply as gross favoritism for those opposed to incurring debt or levying a tax for educational or other purposes.
It has been suggested that the 60 per cent limitation, at least with respect to the incurring of indebtedness, is “for the protection of minorities, for the protection of posterity, and to protect majorities against their own improvidence.” State ex rel. Potter v. King County, 45 Wash. 519, 528, 88 P. 935 (1907). See also Raynor v. King County, 2 Wn.2d 199, 208, 97 P.2d 696 (1940). However, these purposes are extremely broad and equivocal. Presumably, the minority intended to be protected is that group of persons who might oppose school district indebtedness, since the 60 per cent voting limitation makes their votes 50 per cent more effective than votes of persons favoring indebtedness; presumably, posterity is to be protected by weighting the electoral process against the creation of long-term debt; presumably, it is deemed improvident for majorities to incur such indebtedness; yet, the 60 per cent voting limitation also permits a minority of voters to frustrate the elective will of an equally concerned majority. It is clear that a minority may also condemn posterity to inadequate and deteriorating education for its children, and the deteriorating quality of *442urban life and the institution of government. Such a system of weighting votes is contrary to basic principles of democratic government.
As I have already shown, the 60 per cent vote required for the passage of bond or excess property tax levy propositions erects two classes of voters: those who favor the proposition and those who oppose it. The effect of the 60 per cent vote required for approval is to disable all those voters favoring the proposition by making their votes 50 per cent less effective than the votes of those citizens opposed to the proposition. The citizen in favor of the proposition is disadvantaged to the extent that he is required to muster three votes for every two votes against the proposition. Also, the precise weight of a citizen’s vote is expressly made to turn upon his political views about municipal debt, taxation and education. His vote counts for more if he opposes governmental propositions relating to those matters, substantially less if he favors them. Similarly, this weighting of votes distributes political advantage or disadvantage among various private interest groups in the state, which consist of individual voters.
The 40 per cent voting limitation applicable to excess tax levy elections may nullify all favorable votes and place great power in the hands of a third class of citizens, the nonparticipant. The negative voters are only aided by the requirement, since invalidation of the election defeats the proposition. In fact, if a citizen’s preference on a tax or bond proposition is negative, his influence on the election is greater by not voting than by casting his weightier “no” vote.
It is indicated that the 60 per cent voting limitation was intended to dilute votes. This 60 per cent voting limitation appeared as the Forty Mill Law enacted by Initiative No. 64 in 1932. Earlier attempts by real estate interests to limit their tax burden were unsuccessful. See, e.g., The Life Story of the 40-Mill Limit, 14 Wash. Educ. J. 40, No. 2 (1934). With the advent of the great depression and the popular feeling against all taxation, its advocates were successful in getting voter approval of Initiative No. 64. The *44340-mill law was then reenacted in 1934, 1936 and 1938 as Initiatives 94, 144 and 129, respectively, and as referenda in 1940 and 1942. The history of these 40-mill limit statutes is briefly traced in A. Harsch and G. Shipman, The Constitutional Aspects of Washington’s Fiscal Crisis, 33 Wash. L. Rev. 225, 256-57 (1958); see also League of Women Voters of Washington, Facts and Issues: The 40%-60% Voting Requirement 1 (1966).
By 1939, there was a movement to write the 40-mill law into the state constitution, where it would be permanently safe from change by the legislature as it had been during the operative periods of the initiatives and referenda. In that year, Representatives Montgomery and Chervenka introduced House Joint Resolution No. 3, which would have proposed the 40-mill limit along with the 60 and 40 per cent voting limitations to the people for adoption as an amendment to the constitution. It was reported from committee but no further action was taken on it by the House. House Journal 37, 418-19 (1939). Then in 1941 Representatives Chervenka 'and Montgomery introduced House Joint Resolution No. 6 to the same effect. At the second reading, a motion to strike the three-fifths requirement for votes on excess levies was defeated. But at the third reading, House Joint Resolution No. 6 failed to achieve the vote necessary to place the measure before the people for adoption into the constitution. Four representatives explained their negative votes as reluctance to place such a tax limitation beyond the control of the people and their representatives in the legislature. House Journal 79, 281-82, 395 (1941). Finally, in 1943, the House adopted House Joint Resolution No. 1, which was again sponsored by Representatives Chervenka and Montgomery. In both the House and Senate, motions to replace the three-fifths vote requirement with a simple majority were defeated. House Journal, 144-49, 161-62 (1943); Senate Journal 358-63 (1943). The Seattle Post-Intelligen-cer of January 29, 1943, p. 6, col. 4, reported House debate prior to a close 76-22 vote. Representative Murphy stated that House Joint Resolution No. 1, as it stood, would help “only large property holders.” Representative Montgomery *444said the resolution would “simply let the people decide what to do with the 40-mill plan . . . They voted on it in previous elections and passed it each time.” See also A. Harsch, The Washington Tax System—How It Grew, 39 Wash. L. Rev. 944, 958-60 (1965).
At the November 1944 general election, House Joint Resolution No. 1 was approved.
From the history of this measure, it appears that the limitation of 40 mills per dollar of assessed valuation placed upon property taxes in the years 1932 through the constitutional amendment of 1944 was promoted primarily by real estate interest groups. The imposition of that limitation represented a successful effort to prohibit the legislature from taxing property beyond what at that time appeared to be a desirable limit. Though promoted as a tax saving measure for all, in reality it shifted the burden of taxation from certain private interests to other classes of persons, and the stringent 60 and 40 per cent voting limitations are an integral part of that overall purpose of protecting certain economic interests. It is apparent that the intent was to impair the vote of a citizen who might favor a levy or bond issue for the purpose of a public improvement or better education.
Although the United States Supreme Court has not ruled upon the precise question we are considering, the decisions in vote denial and debasement cases lead to the result that the 60 per cent limitation in the Washington Constitution is impermissible under the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
The reapportionment decisions of the United States Supreme Court following Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186, 7 L. Ed. 2d 663, 82 S. Ct. 691 (1962), are significant in this case because they establish the proposition that classification which impairs, dilutes, and debases the effectiveness of votes are as invalid as classification which prohibits the franchise.
The precise holdings of the reapportionment decisions were that classification of voters residing within the same basic geographical area and standing in the same relation to *445the particular legislative representatives for whom votes could be cast, violated the equal protection clause whenever those classifications gave one class of voters a more effective voice than another class simply because of where the voter happened to reside. The apportionment schemes scrutinized by the court were found most often to discriminate against the urban or suburban voters and to favor arbitrarily the rural class of voters.
In Gray v. Sanders, 372 U.S. 368, 379-80-81, 9 L. Ed. 2d 821, 83 S. Ct. 801 (1963), the court 'analyzed the complex Georgia county unit system as a basis for counting votes in the Democratic primary nomination of a United States Senator and statewide officers. The court held that this system, which in the end result weighted the rural vote more heavily than the urban vote, infringed plaintiff’s right to equal protection of the laws.
How then can one person be given twice or ten times the voting power of another person in a statewide election merely because he lives in a rural area or because he lives in the smallest rural county? Once the geographical unit for which a representative is to be chosen is designated, all who participate in the election are to have an equal vote — whatever their race, whatever their sex, whatever their occupation, whatever their income, and wherever their home may be in that geographical unit. This is required by the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The concept of “we the people” under the Constitution visualizes no preferred class of voters but equality among those who meet the basic qualifications. . . .
. . . The conception of political equality from the Declaration of Independence, to Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, to the Fifteenth, Seventeenth, and Nineteenth Amendments can mean only one thing — one person, one vote.
In Wesberry v. Sanders, 376 U.S. 1, 7, 11 L. Ed. 2d 481, 84 S. Ct. 526 (1964), the court analyzed Georgia’s statutory apportionment of Congressional representatives among its people. Though the population of its Fifth Congressional District far exceeded that of any other, each of 10 districts *446was allotted only a single representative. This variance from population as the basis of representation was held to violate U.S. Const. art. 1, § 2. The court found that the apportionment statute “contracts the value of some votes and expands that of others.” Since the federal constitution intended that each vote for members of Congress “be given as much weight as any other vote, . . . this statute cannot stand.”
Finally, in Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533, 12 L. Ed. 2d 506, 84 S. Ct. 1362 (1964), and its companion cases, WMCA, Inc. v. Lomenzo, 377 U.S. 633, 12 L. Ed. 2d 568, 84 S. Ct. 1418 (1964) (New York); Maryland Committee for Fair Representation v. Tawes, 377 U.S. 656, 12 L. Ed. 2d 595, 84 S. Ct. 1429 (1964) (Maryland); Davis v. Mann, 377 U.S. 678, 12 L. Ed. 2d 609, 84 S. Ct. 1441 (1964) (Virginia); Roman v. Sincock, 377 U.S. 695, 12 L. Ed. 2d 620, 84 S. Ct. 1449 (1964) (Delaware); and Lucas v. Forty-Fourth Gen. Assembly of Colorado, 377 U.S, 713, 12 L. Ed. 2d 632, 84 S. Ct. 1472 (1964) (Colorado), the Supreme Court applied the equal protection clause to the constitutional and statutory apportionment schemes of state legislatures. The holding of the court was tersely stated:
We hold that, as a basic constitutional standard, the Equal Protection Clause requires that the seats in both houses of a bicameral state legislature must be apportioned on a population basis. Simply stated, an individual’s right to vote for state legislators is unconstitutionally impaired when its weight is in a substantial fashion diluted when compared with votes of citizens living in other parts of the State.
Reynolds, 377 U.S. at 568.
The court set forth the history of its scrupulous protection of the right of suffrage.
It has been repeatedly recognized that all qualified voters have a constitutionally protected right to vote . . . and to have their votes counted . . . The right to vote can neither be denied outright . . . nor destroyed by alteration of ballots . . . nor diluted by ballot-box stuffing . . . And history has seen a continuing expansion of the scope of the right of suffrage in *447this country. The right to vote freely for the candidate of one’s choice is of the essence of a democratic society, and any restrictions on that right strike at the heart of representative government. And the right of suffrage can be denied by a debasement or dilution of the weight of a citizen’s vote just as effectively as by wholly prohibiting the free exercise of the franchise.
(Footnote omitted. Italics mine.) 377 U.S. at 554-55.
The court emphasized that:
[Representative government is in essence self-government through the medium of elected representatives of the people, and each and every citizen has an inalienable right to full and effective participation in the political processes of his State’s legislative bodies. Most citizens can achieve this participation only as qualified voters through the election of legislators to represent them. Full and effective participation by all citizens in state government requires, therefore, that each citizen have an equally effective voice in the election of members of his state legislature. Modern and viable state government needs, and the Constitution demands, no less.
. . . Since legislatures are responsible for enacting laws by which all citizens are to be governed, they should be bodies which are collectively responsive to the popular will. And the concept of equal protection has been traditionally viewed as requiring the uniform treatment of persons standing in the same relation to the governmental action questioned or challenged. . . . Since the 'achieving of fair and effective representation for all citizens is concededly the basic aim of legislative apportionment, we conclude that the Equal Protection Clause guarantees the opportunity for equal participation by all voters in the election of state legislators. Diluting the weight of votes because of place of residence impairs basic constitutional rights under the Fourteenth Amendment just as much as invidious discrimination based upon factors such as race ... or economic status . . . Our constitutional system amply provides for the protection of minorities by means other than giving them majority control of state legislatures. And the democratic ideals of equality and majority rule, which have served this Nation so well in the past, are hardly of any less significance for the present and the future.
(Italics mine.) 377 U.S. at 565-66.
*448Thus, place of residency may not be used to determine the weight of a man’s vote.
[N] either history alone, nor economic or other sorts of group interests, are permissible factors in attempting to justify disparities from population-based representation. Citizens, not history or economic interests, cast votes.
(Footnote omitted.) 377 U.S. at 579-80.
The court in Carrington v. Rash, 380 U.S. 89, 94, 13 L. Ed. 2d 675, 85 S. Ct. 775 (1965), struck at the heart of all impermissible discrimination which excludes certain groups from the franchise. When persons are denied the vote because they are of a particular race, creed or color, because they are poor, or because they do not hold certain property interests, the ultimate purpose of such exclusions is to deprive such groups of the political influence they would otherwise command and to void the expression of their political views at the polls. Race, wealth and property have been considered indicia of supposed political views. Schemes which deny the vote indirectly on those bases or directly according to “the way . . . [persons] may vote” or “a fear of the political views of a particular group” are constitutionally impermissible.
Classification of citizens according to whether or not they have certain property interests and the denial of the right to vote on that basis is also impermissible under the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. In both Kramer v. Union Free School Dist. 15, 395 U.S. 621, 23 L. Ed. 2d 583, 89 S. Ct. 1886 (1969), dealing with school district elections, and Cipriano v. Houma, 395 U.S. 701, 23 L. Ed. 2d 647, 89 S. Ct. 1897 (1969), dealing with municipal revenue bond elections, the United States Supreme Court struck down state constitutional or statutory provisions which excluded from the franchise those citizens who did not own taxable real property within the appropriate municipal corporation.
The decision of Carrington v. Rash, supra, at 94, held that provisions of a state constitution excluding servicemen from the franchise were invalid under the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
*449The court stated:
“Fencing out” from the franchise a sector of the population because of the way they may vote is constitutionally impermissible. “[T]he exercise of rights so vital to the maintenance of democratic institutions,” Schneider v. State, 308 U.S. 147, 161, cannot constitutionally be obliterated because of a fear of the political views of a particular group of bona fide residents.
(Italics mine.)
In the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia in Lance v. Board of Education, .... W. Va. ....., 170 S.E.2d 783 (1969) (U.S. Sup. Ct. appeal pending), the issues raised in Lance were identical to the 60 per cent limitation issues raised in this action. There the plaintiffs challenged the validity of West Virginia Const. art. 10, §§ 1 and 8, and art. 1, ch. 13, §§ 4 and 14, Code of 1931 of the State of West Virginia, as amended, which required a favorable vote of 60 per cent of the voters in order to authorize political subdivision and tax levying bodies of the state to incur bond indebtedness and to levy taxes in excess of certain limits. It was held that the 60 per cent provision violated the equal protection clause of the United States Constitution.
The Supreme Court of California, in a decision filed June 30, 1970, Westbrook v. Mihaly, 2 Cal. 3d 765, 471 P.2d 487, 510 (1970), held that the provision of the California Constitution which requires that general obligation bond proposals of counties, cities and school district obligations be approved by a two-thirds majority of the voters violated the equal protection clause of the fourteenth amendment to the United States Constitution.
The California court’s answer to the question of majori-tarianism deserves quoting, beginning at 797:
They observe that unqualified majoritarianism has not been the model for many of our institutions and that we have often afforded minorities power to preserve the status quo. They confront us with provisions of our federal and state Constitutions which sanction deviations from simple majority rule. They then admonish us that, since the two-thirds requirement cannot be distinguished from any of these provisions, a decision invalidating it will *450inevitably undermine the constitutionality of all. We cannot agree.
First, there is no merit to the attempt to analogize section 18 to institutional arrangements of varied historical origin and specialized function, such as the electoral college, the allocation of two senate seats to each state regardless of population, or the unanimous jury verdict required for a criminal conviction. Efforts to justify state-imposed inequalities in voting power through reliance on analogies to other distinct institutions have met with no success in the United States Supreme Court. For example, in Gray v. Sanders, supra, 372 U.S. 368, 378, the court declared: “We think the analogies to the electoral college, to districting and redistricting, and to other phases of the problems' of representation in state or federal legislatures or conventions are inapposite. The inclusion of the electoral college in the Constitution, as the result of specific historic concerns, validated the collegiate principle despite its inherent numerical inequality, but implied nothing about the use of an analogous system by a State . . . .” (Fns. omitted.) In Reynolds v. Sims, supra, 377 U.S. 533, 573, the court observed that: “Attempted reliance on the federal analogy appears often to be little more than an after-the-fact rationalization offered in defense of maladjusted state apportionment arrangements.” Our reaction to analogies to, for example, the treaty ratification procedure in the United States Senate is not dissimilar.
Second, many of the extraordinary majority provisions to which we are referred are readily distinguishable in that, since they apply solely to the internal procedures of legislative bodies, they involve no dilution of the individual exercise of the franchise which is in issue here. Some, such as the two-thirds required for conviction of impeachment (U.S. Const., art. I, § 3) or expulsion from Congress (U.S. Const., art. I, § 5) are designed to avoid precipitate action in areas of particular importance or sensitivity. Others, such as the two-thirds required to override a presidential (U.S. Const., art. I, § 7) or gubernatorial (Cal. Const., art. IV, § 10 (a)) veto or the two-thirds required to ratify a treaty (U.S. Const., art. II, § 2) represent those basic allocations of power between branches of government which are at the heart of that great system of “checks and balances” established by the founding fathers. In neither case is there any infringe*451ment of the individual citizen’s right to vote such as that effected by section 18.
Finally, those extraordinary majority vote requirements which do apply outside the legislative process are by no means uniformly invalidated by our decision today. We emphasize that while it has not been demonstrated that a two-thirds vote requirement for approval of local general obligation bonds is necessary to promote a compelling state interest, similar provisions in other contexts may meet this standard.
(Footnote omitted. Italics mine.)
It is not material that the voting limitations here are based primarily upon constitutional provisions of the state of Washington as adopted at the constitutional convention of 1889 or at the general elections of November 1944 or November 1952. In Lucas v. Forty-Fourth Gen. Assembly of Colorado, 377 U.S. 713, 12 L. Ed. 2d 632, 84 S. Ct. 1472 (1964), the Supreme Court struck down a constitutional amendment which had been adopted by a '305,700 to 172, 725 majority of the people of the state and which provided for legislative apportionment based on factors other than population. The court stated, at page 736:
An individual’s constitutionally protected right to cast an equally weighted vote cannot be denied even by a vote of a majority of a State’s electorate, if the apportionment scheme adopted by the voters fails to measure up to the requirements of the Equal Protection Clause. . . . “. . . [Fundamental rights may not be submitted to vote; they depend on the outcome of no elections.”
Accord: Reitman v. Mulkey, 387 U.S. 369, 18 L. Ed. 2d 830, 87 S. Ct. 1627 (1967). It is, therefore, no answer to the examination of the voting limitations here that they were originally approved by popular vote and made part of the state constitution. The court must act to protect a citizen’s right to cast equally weighted votes no matter what the source of the impairment of those votes.
I would hold that the provisions of Const. art. 7, § 2 (amendment 17), which provide that the tax limitations may be exceeded only by the taxing district when it is authorized by a majority of at least three-fifths of the elec*452tors voting upon the excess levy and that the number of persons voting must constitute not less than 40 per cent of the total number of votes cast in the taxing district at the last preceding general election, are invalid and violate the equal protection provisions of the United States Constitution.
I would further decree that this decision be given prospective effect only.
July 2, 1971. Petition for rehearing denied.