Judge Refuses To Block Vote On Stadium

A Thurston County judge on Monday refused to block a statewide vote next week on Paul Allen’s $425 million financing plan for a new Seattle Seahawks stadium complex.

Superior Court Judge Thomas McPhee also rejected a critic’s request that the proposal be thrown out as an unconstitutional act by the Legislature to benefit a single individual.

The judge said all of the legal challenges should wait until after the election next Tuesday.

Lawyers for the state and Allen’s Football Northwest agreed, saying the election is proper and that any challenges can be sorted out later. Referendum 48 is just a piece of paper unless voters approve it, Jim Pharris, senior assistant attorney general, told the court.

Project critic Jordan Brower, who describes himself as “a computer nerd” from Seattle, had wanted the judge to declare the entire plan unconstitutional and to call off the election.

“An election would be meaningless because it is based on an unconstitutional act,” said Brower’s lawyer, Steve Eugster of Spokane.

Eugster listed a variety of challenges to the referendum, but was most animated when he was talking about the Allen connection. Eugster said it’s illegal for lawmakers to pass “special legislation” to benefit a single outside interest.

He said lawmakers declared an emergency in order to have a hurry-up election and thwart the opposition, yet the measure is going to the ballot without a recommendation from the Legislature.

“We will have government by special election,” he said, blasting Allen’s decision to push the measure through the Legislature as a referendum and agreeing to pay the $4 million cost of the election. A better approach would be for Allen to sponsor an initiative, he said.

Disappointed by McPhee’s ruling, he told reporters later that he fears the floodgates will open and well-heeled interests will be able to strongarm state and local legislators to place pet projects on the ballot, circumventing the normal process.

But Pharris said the Legislature was fully within its rights to place the measure on the ballot, and that public votes on big issues usually are praised, not condemned.

“The Legislature can call an election anytime” and the question of financing doesn’t change anything, he said. The referendum legislation may have been requested by Allen, but the actual plan was crafted by lawmakers.

“I would dare say that every bit of legislation began as an idea brought to legislators by someone,” Pharris said, rejecting the idea of Allen’s role being somehow unseemly.

He told reporters the attorney general’s office will have “good answers” to the challengers’ arguments once the case gets a full hearing.

Eugster said the Superior Court case could be heard as early as next month.

Meanwhile, a new statewide media poll show the measure picking up support.

With about 16 percent still calling themselves undecided, the ballot measure’s backers led opponents by nearly 11 percentage points, according to a poll of 501 registered voters questioned Sunday by KXLY Research Services of Spokane.

The poll showed 47.3 percent in favor and 36.5 percent opposed. Strongest support came from self-identified Republicans, people 39 or younger, and people living west of the Cascade Mountains.