The Washington State Supreme Court  ruled on February 28, 2013 that Tim Eyman’s Initiative 1053 was unconstitutional. The ruling is a huge win for Washington State taxpayers because it throws out the supermajority vote requirement  to close any tax loophole that Eyman had put in the initiative. Tax exemptions are hard enough to close as it is without giving a minority of legislators the ability to trump a decision by a majority of legislators.

Voters last year passed Initiative 1185 which was pretty much a clone of I-1053.  Because  Initiative 1276 – the Txpayers Fiscal Reform Act we filed was based on current law at the time,  we put in provisions repealing parts of I-1185 dealing with the supermajority votes.  The RCW or Revised Code of Washington will now reflect the decision of the Washington State Supreme Court and we will be refiling our initiative deleting the parts relating to I-1053 and I-1185 that were ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. This should make the initiative much easier to get support for because it narrows the scope of the initiative by not having to deal with the subject of supermajority votes.

The decision of the Washington State Supreme Court was the opinion they wrote in League of Education Voters vs the State of Washington. You can read by clicking on the link.