Court Opinion

ID: 9539372
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:03:17.261439+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:58:47.161899
License: Public Domain

Hill, J.
(concurring) — I agree that the order of May 17, 1961, quashing the alternative writ of mandate, was properly entered. I am, however, not in accord with the reasons given therefor in the majority opinion.
The plaintiff’s own statement as to what he desired to have referred to the people was a follows:
“(1) That portion of section 1 of the said act levying one-quarter cent tax which ‘shall be paid into the motor vehicle fund and credited to the Puget Sound reserve account created by section 18 of this amendatory act of 1961’;
“(2) That portion of section 2 of the said act levying a one-quarter cent tax which shall be paid into the motor vehicle fund and credited to the Puget Sound reserve account created by section 18 of this amendatory act of 1961;
“(3) That portion of section 4 of said act levying one-quarter cent tax which ‘shall be paid into the motor vehicle fund and credited to the Puget Sound reserve account created by section 18 of this amendatory act of 1961’.”
There was nowhere in §§ 1, 2, and 4, or elsewhere in the act with which we are concerned, a levy of a “one-quarter cent tax.”
Section 1 of the act provided that:
*332“Every distributor shall pay, ... an excise tax . . . of seven and one-half cents for each gallon of motor vehicle fuel sold, distributed, or used by him in the state . . . ”
and then provides how the tax shall be distributed.
Section 2 imposes a like tax on,
“Every person other than a distributor who acquires . . . or imports such motor vehicle fuel into this state, and sells, distributes, or in any manner uses it in this state . . . ”
and then provides how the tax shall be distributed.
Section 3 imposes a like tax “on the use of fuel by any user thereof.”
Section 4 imposes no tax but provides for the distribution of the “proceeds of the use fuel tax.”
The plaintiff would, I believe, concede that he could not rewrite the act in question under the referendum provision by substituting “a tax of seven and a quarter cents” for the “tax of seven and one-half cents.”
Each of the taxes imposed is seven and one-half cents per gallon and is not severable for the purpose of a referendum. What the plaintiff is actually dissatisfied with is not the levy of a quarter-cent tax, but the distribution of so much of the proceeds of the taxes imposed, as a quarter-cent tax would raise, into the motor vehicle fund to be credited to the Puget Sound reserve account for the permissive refunding of certain Toll-Bridge-Authority bonds.
Actually, the entire seven and one-half cent tax must, under the state constitution (amendment 18), “be paid into the state treasury and placed in a special fund to be used exclusively for highway purposes.” It is then siphoned off for various kinds of “highway purposes.”
I disagree with the majority and agree with the plaintiff that there is no emergency, so far as creating a source for the possible refunding of Toll-Bridge-Authority bonds is concerned, and that the whole plan might properly be referred to the people.
To avoid the constitutional debt limitation, the Toll Bridge Authority and other “authorities” issue bonds which state *333specifically that they are not general obligation bonds; and we are solemnly assured by judicial decision that they do not constitute an indebtedness of the state of Washington. Such being the case, I fail to see how the possible refunding of the bonds in question is necessary for the preservation of public peace, health or safety, or for the support of the state government and its existing institutions.
Solely because the referendum is directed against the levy of a nonexistent quarter of a cent tax, or a nonseverable portion of a seven and a half cent tax, I concur in the quashing of the writ. I disagree, as indicated, with the idea that the desirability of the permissive refunding of the Toll-Bridge-Authority bonds constitutes an emergency, depriving the people of their reserved right of referendum.
Foster, J., concurs with Hill, J.