Tim Eyman calls on Washington Supreme Court to reconsider car tabs decision
Nov 6, 2020, 9:34 AM | Updated: 12:16 pm
I-976 sponsor Tim Eyman. (AP)
(AP)
Activist Tim Eyman announced Thursday that his lawyer has submitted a request to the Washington Supreme Court, asking that it reconsider its recent decision to strike down I-976, the $30 car tabs measure approved by voters in 2019.
Washington leaders, lawmakers react to decision to strike down I-976
The state Supreme Court had unanimously struck down the measure in mid October, on the grounds that it violated the “single subject rule,” combining multiple topics that it ruled weren’t necessarily related to each other.
In the request issued to the court, Eyman’s lawyer, Stephen Pidgeon, points to a lower court decision he says “came to the obvious conclusion that all the provisions in the initiative were germane to one another and had rational unity (single subject) and he found nothing wrong with the description.”
Earlier in the week, he also encouraged his own supporters to contact state Supreme Court justices and pressure them to reverse their decision to overturn I-976.
In the days and weeks since the court’s ruling, Eyman has insisted that he intends to keep up the fight for $30 car tabs, vowing not to renew his own car tabs “until it’s $30” as a form of protest. He has also pushed for Gov. Jay Inslee to call for a special legislative session to have state lawmakers address car tab fees themselves.
Even if the court decides not to reconsider, Inslee is predicting state legislators will take action to lower car tabs in their next regularly scheduled session, and that it’s a question of finding other ways to cover transit and transportation costs in our state.
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A measure slashing car tab rates has long been a target of Eyman’s, having tried numerous times over the years to get it enacted through the initiative process.
In 2002, he sponsored I-776, which similarly would have reduced car tabs to $30, and was approved by voters. In 2003, the state Supreme Court ruled that it didn’t violate the single-subject rule, but later ruled in 2006 that Sound Transit could continue to collect car tab fees at its own declared rates. That 2006 ruling was made on the grounds that bond agreements made by Sound Transit superseded the initiative.
