Brave Freshmen Legislators File Suit to Overturn Eyman Initiative on Minority Rule

Northwest Progressive has the story on the suit filed today in King County Superior Court, by twelve courageous freshmen legislators and one former Chief Justice to challenge the Eyman Two-Thirds Rule.

They are doing this on behalf of parents, teachers, students, and lawmakers, because they believe that the I-1053 is Unconstitutional and because "Majority Rule" is clearly required in the State Constitution for all legislation and laws. 


The freshmen were very distressed with the 2/3 requirement in this session, because of the draconian cuts that had to be made to the budget, which severely impact local school district's abilities to fund basic K-12 education and many other needs. 

Rep Cindy Ryu, D-32

Cindy Ryu is one of the freshmen who has put her name on the suit. She has always been a strong advocate for public education and came from a family that believes in striving for the highest educational accomplishments through public schools and public universities. Rep Ryu emigrated from Korea and became an American citizen because her parents worked very hard to give her and her brothers the opportunities through hard work to achieve a good future. She has an MBA from the University of WA and two of her children have already graduated from the same school.


Northwest Progressive Institute


http://www.nwprogressive.org/weblog/2011/07/parents-teachers-students-go-to-court-to-get-tim-eymans-i-1053-overturned.html

Monday, July 25th, 2011

Parents, teachers, students go to court to get Tim Eyman’s I-1053 overturned

A coalition representing parents, teachers, students, and lawmakers announced this morning that it has filed a lawsuit in King County Superior Court asking that Tim Eyman and BP’s Initiative 1053 be fully stricken from the Revised Code of Washington because it is blatantly unconstitutional.

Plaintiffs include the League of Education Voters, Washington Education Association, State Representatives Sam Hunt, Reuven Carlyle, Cindy Ryu, David Frockt, Deb Eddy, Chris Reykdal, Mike Sells, and former Chief Justice Robert Utter.

The suit contends, as we have for years, that I-1053 violates Article II, Section 22 of the State Constitution, which holds that the standard for passage of legislation shall be a majority vote, in keeping with the intentions of America’s founders. It asks that I-1053 be abolished in its entirety, and our state’s Constitution upheld.

We hope the suit will be successful, but if history is any indication, our courts will try to shirk their responsibility to defend our Constitution and wash their hands of this matter, as they have in the past. The Supreme Court of Washington has dismissed – on technicalities – a grand total of three prior lawsuits that justifiably sought to invalidate I-1053′s predecessors, I-960 and I-601. The Court has never decided the constitutional question that is at the heart of this lawsuit. Hopefully, that will happen this time. But we won’t be too surprised if it doesn’t. We’ve watched the courts dodge having to deal with this matter before. That’s the unfortunate precedent they’ve set.

I will be posting some additional analysis of the suit a little later.

This entry was written by Andrew and posted on  July 25th, 2011 at 11:05 AM . Bookmark thepermalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post. Post a comment or leave a trackback: Trackback URL.