State Supreme Court hears I-747 case

OLYMPIA – Opponents of initiative promoter Tim Eyman asked the state Supreme Court on Tuesday to throw out a voter-approved property tax limit, saying voters were misled about the tax cut’s size.

An attorney for the state, however, told justices that granting the request would “seriously undermine” both the initiative process and the power of state legislators.

The two sides were arguing over Initiative 747, which capped annual property tax increases at 1 percent.

A lower court ruling declared the measure unconstitutional last year, saying it was improperly based on a law that also was thrown out by the courts.

Justices peppered both sides with questions during Tuesday’s oral arguments, asking whether initiative sponsors turned a blind eye to potential legal trouble and whether opponents were setting too high a hurdle for citizen lawmaking.

In one exchange, Chief Justice Gerry Alexander asked I-747’s opponents if there were an acceptable way to wade through the legal conflicts while still preserving the initiative.

“It seems to me there’s got to be some way to do this, because the initiative is the first right of the people under the constitution,” Alexander said.

The court is not expected to rule for several weeks.

Voters endorsed the Eyman-backed I-747 in 2001 with a 58 percent margin, but a King County Superior Court judge declared the measure invalid.

In her ruling, Judge Mary Roberts said I-747 was unconstitutional because voters believed they were amending another initiative – I-722 – that was later declared invalid.

That earlier measure capped property tax increases at 2 percent, but was thrown out by the courts after I-747 was drafted.

Voters may have believed I-747 was lowering the cap from 2 percent to 1 percent. But in reality, they were cutting the limit from the previous legal cap of 6 percent, Roberts ruled.

Cameron Comfort, a senior assistant state attorney general, told the Supreme Court that Roberts’ ruling was flawed because it asks initiative sponsors to predict the outcome of court challenges to underlying laws.

“The opponents’ rule would impose on the drafters the impossible task of knowing what the law will be in eight to 10 months,” Comfort said.

Such a rule also could infringe on the Legislature, which needs the ability to amend laws that have been declared unconstitutional, Comfort argued.

But Knoll Lowney, an attorney for Whitman County and other I-747 opponents, said Eyman and other supporters could have avoided conflicts by simply writing the measure in a different way.

Instead, I-747 misled voters into thinking they were cutting taxes by a smaller amount, when Washingtonians might have blanched at a larger cut, Lowney said.

“Some people thought they were voting for one thing,” Lowney said. “Some people thought they were voting for something else.”

Justices Jim Johnson and Mary Fairhurst have recused themselves from the case; they were replaced Tuesday by appeals court Judges Stephen Brown and Teresa Kulik.