Group tries to toss new taxes in court

OLYMPIA — A coalition of fiscally conservative groups asked a Snohomish County judge yesterday to invalidate new taxes approved by lawmakers this year, taking a second swipe at doing away with the Legislature's overhaul of voter-approved tax-and-spend limits.

The challengers include the Washington Farm Bureau, Washington State Grange, the state chapter of the National Federation of Independent Business, the Building Industry Association of Washington and the Evergreen Freedom Foundation.

The challenge was filed in Snohomish County Superior Court, less than a week after the Washington Supreme Court ruled that under existing law, the secretary of state properly refused to accept Referendum 60.

The point of contention is a new law that allows the Legislature to raise taxes with a simple majority vote for the next two years, rather than the two-thirds supermajority required by Initiative 601, which voters approved in 1993.

The law also changes the voter-approved spending limit to make it based on the 10-year average personal-income growth, roughly 5 percent a year, rather than the former growth factor of population growth plus inflation, about 3.5 percent a year.

"It's hard to say we're honoring the will of the people who want a spending limit when you're eliminating the only mechanism within 601 that kept the tax increases and spending in check," Jason Mercier, with Evergreen Freedom Foundation, said yesterday.

The bill included an emergency clause to put it into effect the minute Democratic Gov. Christine Gregoire signed it. Democrats then quickly passed a $500 million package of revenue bills to balance the $26 billion, two-year state budget.

The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the emergency clause was a valid move by lawmakers. Opponents have argued lawmakers were trying to evade the possibility of a public vote by including that emergency clause.

Yesterday's lawsuit does not address the validity of the emergency clause, instead arguing that the bill passed by lawmakers modifying Initiative 601 was unconstitutional, and that the taxes that were passed as a result of that law are essentially void. The groups also allege that lawmakers artificially inflated the state's expenditure limit by moving $250 million from various accounts.

The suit asks the court to invalidate the law and require that taxes passed by the law go before the voters.

Gregoire's office said it had not yet been served the lawsuit, and could not comment until it had seen the lawsuit.