Following the conclusion of oral argument in Garfield County Transportation Authority, et al. v. State of Washington, the legal challenge to Tim Eyman’s Initiative 976, Northwest Progressive Institute founder and executive director Andrew Villeneuve released the following statement thanking the plaintiffs and their attorneys for a job well done.

“Our team at the Northwest Progressive Institute is proud to stand with all of the plaintiff-appellants challenging Tim Eyman’s incredibly destructive Initiative 976,” said NPI’s Andrew Villeneuve, who served on the NO on I-976 campaign’s organizing committee last year and has since written dozens of articles discussing the legal challenge to I-976.

“The coalition carrying on the noble fight against I-976 did a great job today summarizing the initiative’s many glaring constitutional defects, demonstrating once again that Tim Eyman is no more interested in drafting sound law than he was twenty years ago.”

“Attorneys Matthew Segal of Pacifica Law Group and David Hackett of King County were well prepared,” Villeneuve added. “They spoke confidently and lucidly, detailing the different ways that I-976 violates the Constitution, whether by combining multiple subjects (a violation of Article II, Section 19), amending existing statutes without setting the amendments forth in full (a violation of Article II, Section 37) or depriving municipal governments of vested local taxing authority (a violation of Article XI, Section 12).”

“The high point for us was unquestionably when David Hackett mentioned our scathing assessment of the I-976 ballot title, which my team and I have been calling a blazing dumpster fire. The I-976 ballot title is truly a flaming pile from top to bottom. It lacks context, it is badly worded, and worst of all, it is dishonest and deceptive… something a ballot title should never be, and in fact expressly not allowed to be.”

“Initiative ballot titles are supposed to accurately summarize a measure so that voters can understand what they’re being asked to say yes or no to.”

“With I-976, that didn’t happen. Voters were told in the I-976 ballot title that it would limit vehicle fees to thirty dollars and exempt voter approved charges, but the truth is I-976 doesn’t limit anyone’s vehicle fees to thirty dollars, nor does it spare ‘voter approved charges’ from being repealed. The initiative could be struck down just based on the problems with the ballot title, though I-976 has other defects as well.”

“There is only one prudent and defensible course of action in this case. We urge the Supreme Court to uphold our Constitution and invalidate I-976 in its entirety once it has finished considering the arguments presented by the parties.”