WA Fed of State Employees, et al v State :: 127 Wn2d 544
Category: Initiative and Elections
Repealing Section 26 from Initiative 134, the Supreme Court hails to the Constitution to protect the bureaucrats from an initiative of the people. Despite lack of constitutional authority, the courts and the Legislature continually create law that impairs the contracts of the private sector, or the people. After the people of the State of Washington voted for radical campaign reform, the Court determined that this law violates the State bureaucrats contracts and is thus “unconstitutional.” This begs the question: Was the Constitution written for the protection of the people from the government, or to protect the government from the people?
Initiative 134, section 26 struck at the power of PACs by limiting the flexibility of the public employee sector to participate. This section abolished RCW 41.04.230(7) which authorized state employees to have voluntary payroll deductions contributing to PACs. However, neither the Initiative, nor Section 26 in anyway restrained any State employee from otherwise contributing to their chosen PAC. In other words, government employees’ ability to participate in PACs is not revoked, but their contributions will no longer be automatically deducted from their payroll. Even if one could stretch article 1, section 23 [impairing the obligations of contracts] of the State Constitution to apply to government employees, can it be honestly demonstrated that their contracts have been violated?
The Court stated that “A statute is presumed constitutional, and a heavy burden is placed on one seeking to overcome the presumption; the statute’s unconstitutionality must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt.” [at 558]. Then the Court discussed several failures of the appellants to prove the statute unconstitutional. This was followed with pages of review of contract law. However, the Court did not firmly established how the Initiative impaired the contract before striking section 26 on that pretext.
As for Justice Talmadge’s dissent, he desires that the trial court establish precedent that would bring article 2, section 19 [no bill shall embrace more than one subject] to bear more forcibly on citizen initiatives. His expressed intent was to narrow the scope of an initiative to exactly one issue--to “prevent logrolling.” If he would have written the majority decision, any initiative that could have been dissected would be automatically declared to be unconstitutional.
Rating the Usual Suspects:
| pass | Gregoire, Christine | |
| pass | Holcomb Jr, Thomas | |
| pass | Marcus, Roselyn | |
| pass | Pomeroy, Christine | |
| pass | Ritter, Daniel | |
| fail | Alexander, Gerry | |
| fail | Dolliver, James | |
| fail | Durham, Barbara | |
| fail | Guy, Richard | |
| fail | Johnson, Charles | |
| fail | Leach, Marion | |
| fail | Madsen, Barbara | |
| fail | Smith, Charles | |
| fail | Spaulding, Robert | |
| fail | Strasberg, Harriet | |
| fail | Talmadge, Phil | |
| fail | Utter, Robert | |
| fail | Younglove, Edward |