Washington State Supreme Court tramples on citizens’ initiative power

“All political power is inherent in the people…”

That’s how Washington’s Constitution begins. Apparently, however, the state supreme court disagrees.

Washington voters decided consumer energy choices deserve protection in 2024, but the Washington State Supreme Court on September 17 this year rejected that election result. Six of the nine justices overturned Initiative 2066, arguing I-2066 violated Article II, Section 19 of the Washington Constitution concerning single subjects.

If this same standard used to strike down I-2066 is applied consistently, many legislative bills (such as the new income tax) are unconstitutional as well.

The court’s opinion turned a blind eye to the “hot mess” of a law (House Bill 1589) that I-2066 was in response to.

Citizens and lawmakers should be held to the same one-subject standard, with the caveat that the court should always give deference to the will of the people.

As Justice Salvador A. Mungia’s dissenting opinion read, “Our courts have an obligation to interpret initiatives in a way that sustains their validity when possible, and not in a way that will render them unconstitutional.”

But the majority opinion voided the people’s voice in I-2066 and leaves the question of whether any initiative constraining government overreach will have the power to surpass the judges’ interpretation of single-subject criteria.

The recent ruling dismantles the people’s power, gutting the initiative’s ability to rein in harmful legislation. The court’s struggling interpretation of the single subject principle is not unique to Washington. According to many political theorists, the single subject rule has no workable theory of interpretation. Or, more to the point, Professor Anne Campbell concluded that due to the single-subject rule, the “initiative process is at the mercy of the court(s).”

A study conducted between 1997 and 2006 found that after acknowledging several factors, the single greatest predictor of how a court will decide is based on their alignment with the political ideology at hand. The authors found that “political inclinations play a huge, perhaps dominant role, in single subject decisions.”

Dissenting opinion from Justice Sal Mungia stated, “The sanctity of this power [power to enact laws through the initiative process] is not something courts should simply give lip service to or gloss over. It is an important, fundamental, and cherished constitutional right that Washingtonians hold.”

But lip service is exactly all the Washington State Supreme Court offered.

Proponents of I-2066 were faced with a difficult decision when drafting the initiative – counteract a broad range of the fundamental limitations on energy choices in Washington created both by regulators at SBCC and by HB 1589 or divide the objective between multiple initiatives and risk delivering a partially-delivered solution with futile results.

Supporters of I-2066 chose the former, drafting a broader bill to counteract the diverse attack on energy choices coming from Olympia. Greg Lane, Executive Vice President of BIAW, said in response to the first ruling in 2025:

“The ruling was irresponsible. The idea voters didn’t understand what they were voting for is condescending and disrespectful. The judge ruled in support of her personal policy position, not a legal decision. It was clear from the very start of the hearing that she had abandoned all pretense of impartiality or objectivity, an inexcusable insult to the 546,000 citizens who signed I-2066 and the 1.9 million people who voted to make it law.”

Washington’s State Supreme Court follows the national trend of judges interpreting single-subject applications of initiatives in favor of supporting their political ideologies. Between 1992 and 2026, the Washington State Supreme Court made rulings regarding nine initiatives; four were upheld, and five were invalidated for violating the single-subject rule. The five initiatives ruled invalid were all reducing taxes or government overreach. The majority of those upheld leaned towards expanding the scope of government.  

It is vital for the judicial branch to hold the legislative branch to the same standard it uses to override citizen-approved ballot measures. If the legislature is going to pass omnibus tax bills and policy “hot messes,” the people should be free to exercise their right of initiative to respond.

This is critically important since the state supreme court has already all but eliminated the people’s right of referendum by greenlighting legislative emergency clause abuse.