This situation is a poster child example of why we need to get $$$$ out of politics. Every person and corporation should be able to donate a maximum of $50 to a political race or ballot initiative campaign. This would shorten campaigns, tone down divisive political rhetoric and promote better governance.

Bunkum - this initiative fails the single issue rule. Even if it passes at the polls, it fails in the courts. And has been alleged is designed to allow the courts to create more rulings to favor bond holders over voters.

And as a shipper, Mr. Royer knows full well that taking two lanes from the I-90 bridge does not improve traffic flows because to return those lanes the others had to be narrowed and the shoulders removed, hence collisions are more likely and there is no place to go with the broken down vehicles.

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Nobody should think about voting for this measure unless and until they’ve read it through and become convinced it would set good new policies. Here’s a link to I-1125’s text, its ballot title, and an explanatory statement written by the state AG. The statements “for” and “against” in the voters guide also are here:

http://wei.secstate.wa.gov/osos/en/PreviousElections/2011/general/Pages/OVG_20111108.aspx?ElectionID=42&sorttype;=Measures#ososTop

In case you haven’t figured it out yet, Eyman and Freeman are fake-opponents of Sound Transit. They are flying a false flag when they say they are looking out for the interests of taxpayers and toll-payers.

Sound Transit’s lawyers drafted all the litigation-ready terms in I-1125, just as they drafted the litigation-ready terms in I-776 and I-1053. If this thing passes the special interest group that gets rich off municipal debt sales would be back in front of the justices in less than two years, suggesting they act dirty again. THAT’s what this initiative is all about. I-1125 was drafted as an instrument to prod the justices into providing that interest group with more abusive case law designed to harm the public financially.

Everyone gets that about “Eyman's” initiatives, right? The lawyers for the pro-tax interests always get to go to court and litigate about them, then those pro-tax interests win big. It’s not a coincidence.

I-1125 is a Trojan Horse. If it is approved it won't lead to lower tolls, it won't lead to WSDOT not being able to transfer the I-90 corridor highway infrastructure, and it won't lead to any of the other "subjects" it embraces. It will lead to lawsuits, almost immediately. Then the dishonest judiciary gets to suck up to its favorite special interests (beneficiaries of taxing and bond-selling schemes).

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Nobody believes Eyman genuinely opposes taxing districts' plans, right? He’s one of the pretend-enemies Sound Transit’s PR team uses. Fake enemies with straw-man arguments are useful to taxing advocates, when, as here, stories in the press portray those individuals as sincere in their supposed opposition to governments’ plans.

What the Sound Transit pretend-enemies like Eyman and Freeman never mention is what’s fundamentally wrong with that government’s structure and policies:

-- the grossly excessive regressive local taxing over decades it uses just to secure long-term bonds (an abusive financing technique none of the peers use),

-- the real legal barriers to the planned I-90 corridor highway infrastructure handover,

-- how the judiciary has been acting dishonestly in the cases implicating Sound Transit’s financing practices, and

-- the fact that people have no control over that local government despite the broad powers it was delegated – a “feature” of this behemoth taxing district that violates the federal constitution’s protection for people that they are to have a right to vote for local government policy setters AND the state constitution’s requirement that people retain control over local governments’ policies and practices.

Sound Transit's lawyers use "Eyman" initiatives language (that they drafted) in lawsuits. Discussed below is what happened after I-776 ended up in front of the justices with Eyman's entity leading the litigation. The justices there invented for their opinion a bogus "taxation without representation" claim and attributed it to Permanent Offense. Eyman's never mentioned how the justices harmed peoples' financial interests significantly when they did that. That's because he was a willing accomplice. That's just one instance of Eyman facilitating abusive taxing practices around here.

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This story says that I-1125 would stop light rail over I-90. State law ALREADY prohibits the proposed handover of I-90 corridor highway infrastructure from WSDOT to Sound Transit. I-1125 wouldn’t add anything of significance to the law in that regard.

Article II sec. 40 of the state constitution already protects the driving public’s interest in the future and exclusive highway use of those tunnels, bridges, and roadways. That is because substantial amounts of state highway trust fund assets have been invested in those facilities. That spending over the past several decades means all that infrastructure now must “be used exclusively for highway purposes”. Part use by trains and part use by rubber-tire vehicles does not comply with that constitutional limit. Article II sec. 40 came into play because of the state’s decisions over the years to spend so many tens of millions of dollars of state highway trust fund assets on building, improving, engineering, maintaining and operating that infrastructure. The state has nobody but itself to blame for that legal preclusion.

WSDOT also is precluded from handing over that broad swath of highway infrastructure so Sound Transit can destroy its highway use functionality because of what WSDOT’s enabling statutes say about its duty to maintain and improve highways. Moreover, the several statutes authorizing WSDOT to divest itself of property don’t apply to VERY heavily used highway infrastructure.

Those are the reasons why Paula Hammond hasn’t declared all the highway infrastructure Sound Transit wants to get its hands on “surplus”. Will the legislature change WSDOT’s enabling statutes to allow this handover? It could have done so in any prior legislative session, but it has not done so despite the fevered lobbying by Sound Transit’s team in Olympia.

If anyone who matters in politics in this state truly believed the passage of I-1125 would prevent the proposed WSDOT-Sound Transit infrastructure handover that deal already would have been completed. Hammond would have declared the infrastructure surplus, and she (as WSDOT head) and Sound Transit’s board would have signed off on the “airspace lease” the term sheet contemplates.

Those steps would be done already because that’s how a contract to accomplish that property transfer would be formed. If such a contract were to be formed, any subsequent legislation wouldn't be able to adversely impact it (per the “contracts clause” of the constitution).

That’s how everyone can tell the terms in I-1125 that supposedly would prevent the I-90 corridor infrastructure handover are considered essentially meaningless by the political leadership: Hammond and ST’s board haven’t already formed the contract that would render that part of I-1125 moot.

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The litigation that would start up if this initiative passes would provide a convenient excuse for the years of delay Sound Transit’s management now wants. The lawyers behind this initiative also must believe the justices again will act dishonestly and provide unwarranted case law relating to Article II sec. 40. That’s evident from the following litigation-inducing clause used six times in I-1125:

“all revenues from such tolls may only be used for purposes consistent with the eighteenth amendment to the Washington Constitution.”

Anyone want to try explaining what that means? Good luck. Jordan Royer should try explaining what he thinks that means – he says he’s convinced I-1125 is a legit threat to the ST2 ordinance.

The courts around here are corrupt. When parties oppose Sound Transit – including when Eyman’s entity sued in the I-776 litigation – the justices lie about the claims raised, ignore the controlling law, and hand unjustified case law to the financial beneficiaries of that taxing district. Here’s a thread discussing details of that judicial misconduct in six instances:

http://tinyurl.com/3lp8tey

I-1125 was drafted to provide material for lawsuits that Sound Transit’s lawyers will control. That’s what Eyman’s prior initiatives did as well. The idea is for the justices again to give broad and unjustified case law to that taxing district, just as before.

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Here is section 2 of I-1125:

“State government, the department of transportation, and other agencies may not transfer revenues in the motor vehicle fund or any toll fund to the general fund or other funds and used for non-transportation purposes.”

http://www.sos.wa.gov/elections/initiatives/text/i1125.pdf

No, re-reading that won’t help. The syntax is completely botched – it ignores the rules of grammar.

I-1125 is meant as a joke by the lawyers pulling Eyman’s strings.

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Eyman and Freeman are tools that the interests behind Sound Transit use. This story is designed to inflate the false image of them as opposed to that taxing district.

Here’s how an earlier initiative that also involved Eyman acting as a shill (I-776) played out. Eyman also was the front man for an entity (Permanent Offense) that prosecuted claims in the resulting lawsuit. That litigation ended up with the justices acting exceedingly corruptly. The reason you haven’t heard about any of this from Eyman, or the local press? They are in bed with the pro-tax interest group.

Here’s what happened in that lawsuit Eyman’s entity brought in the I-776 lawsuit:

- the justices flat-out lied when they asserted in that opinion that Permanent Offense raised a “taxation-without-representation” claim (here’s the brief, no such claim is contained in it http://www.soundpolitics.com/I-776_Opening_Appeal_Brief.pdf );

- the justices invented weak legal arguments as the supposed basis for that fictitious claim, and then attributed them to Permanent Offense in order to deliver profoundly corrupt case law that was meant to harm taxpayers’ interests for decades;

- the justices failed to employ the legal standard in the claim they invented that the US Supreme Court says must apply in cases when a legal challenge is raised against appointive taxing district boards on the grounds they were delegated excessive taxing, spending, bond-selling, etc. powers;

- the majority employed in that opinion for the first time a new legal standard that does not protect people from local governments to the extent the US Constitution requires;

- the point of that bogus litigation was to obtain cover from the justices for the extraordinary government powers Sound Transit possesses -- those powers are beyond the ability of people to control, which violates the limit of the state constitution set out in Article I sec. 1 (people must retain political power over governments); and

- the justices also abused people and families around here by asserting four so-called “procedural safeguards” were sufficient, when in fact none of those four afford any substantive protections to peoples’ financial interests.

That’s what happens when “Eyman” initiatives – drafted by Sound Transit’s lawyers – are approved and then lawsuits follow.

The problem for the pro-tax entities around here is that they’ve been using Eyman for too long. The novelty’s worn off, and when you repeat dishonest tactics they are less effective because people have seen them before.

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Let’s discuss now how I-1125 was designed to violate one of the provision of the state constitution -- “No bill shall embrace more than one subject . . ..” That’s part of Article II sec. 19. The point of this initiative is to buy delay time for Sound Transit so it can continue to collect heavy regressive taxes and not have to move forward with obtaining the swath of I-90 corridor highway infrastructure it would need and then start tearing it up. I-1125 is designed with features that make it ultimately toothless, and the Article II sec. 19 flaws are one way its drafters assured it would be meaningless in terms of their ultimate goals.

One subject of this initiative is toll revenues. I-1125 would amend five statutes, and all of them are tolling authority statutes. For example, RCW 47.56.830 would be amended to prohibit different toll rates at different times of the day.

There’s a second legislative subject in this initiative. Section 3 would prohibit the state from transferring or using “gas-tax-funded . . . lanes on state highways for non-highway purposes”. Those proposed laws (the ones related to tolling authority and the one referring to transferring and using “gas-tax-funded . . . lanes”) are different “subjects”, as that term is used in Article II sec. 19 (and the cases construing it).

Here’re some reasons we can tell I-1125 violates the “single subject” limit of the constititution. The key opinion these days in Article II sec. 19 case law is _Amalgamated Transit Union Local 587 v. State_, 142 Wn.2d 183 (2000). It arose out of the litigation related to the “Eyman” initiative I-695. That initiative violated the “single subject” rule, as it would have (1) limited vehicle licensing taxes to $30 and (2) required voter approval of all future state and local tax increases.

Those two statutory enactments in I-695 related to the same general thing: supposedly they would have ensured accountability and transparency regarding transportation spending and governments’ revenue-raising practices. However, those two statutory enactments in I-695 were NOT the same “subject” for the purpose of Article II sec. 19’s prohibition of measures that “embrace more than one subject.”

Those two statutory enactments would have put “citizens in the position of being asked to decide two unrelated laws with only one vote.” _ATU Local 587_, supra. at 256. The term “unrelated” in the context of this constitutional inquiry has a particular meaning. The Supreme Court stated, in that 2000 case where it struck down Eyman’s I-695, that a single-subject violation exists if “neither subject is necessary to implement the other.” _ATU Local 587_ at 216.

Two legislative subjects are contained in initiative I-1125, and they are “unrelated”. I-1125 deals primarily with toll revenues. It would amend five statutes and all of those are tolling authority statutes. For example, RCW 47.56.830 would be amended to prohibit different toll rates at different times of the day. Section 3 however would prohibit the state from transferring or using “gas-tax-funded . . . lanes on state highways for non-highway purposes”.

Neither of those two legislative subjects “is necessary to implement the other.” The restrictions on tolling authority I-1125 would impose are not needed to prohibit WSDOT from transferring highway infrastructure in which gas-tax revenues have been invested.

It also is evident I-1125 contains provisions that violate the single-subject rule because those two sets of legislative enactments put “citizens in the position of being asked to decide two unrelated laws with only one vote.” _ATU Local 587_, supra. at 256. Take somebody who is a train enthusiast and he also wants to commute across SR-520 at rush hour in his car – he wants to vote against I-1125 because of that language prohibiting the state from transferring highways in which gas tax revenues have been invested, but he wants to vote to approve the legislation that would prevent variable toll rates. Those are “unrelated laws”, and he’s only got one vote.

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Here’s I-1125’s ballot title:

-------

Initiative Measure No. 1125 concerns state expenditures on transportation.

This measure would prohibit the use of motor vehicle fund revenue and vehicle toll revenue for non-transportation purposes, and require that road and bridge tolls be set by the legislature and be project-specific.

Should this measure be enacted into law?

-------

Another way the “single-subject” limit the constitution prescribes can be violated by initiatives is when the ballot title fails to “express” a subject in the measure (Article II sec. 19 of the state’s constitution says “No bill shall embrace more than one subject, and that shall be expressed in the title.”).

The posting above describe how I-1125 contains two distinct legislative subjects. The fact that this ballot title fails to “express” how section 3 would limit what the state can do with highway infrastructure is another flaw, given what Article II sec. 19 requires.

The analytic standard the courts use when examining the propriety of a ballot title is this: “Where a general title is used, all that is required is rational unity between the general subject and the incidental subjects.”

That ballot title doesn’t even hint at what section 3 of I-1125 would do. There is no “rational unity” between what the ballot title says and how section 3 would operate (it would prohibit the state from transferring or using “gas-tax-funded . . . lanes on state highways for non-highway purposes”).

The only limits on the state that ballot title describes are limiting spending of certain revenues (by precluding spending for “non-transportation purposes”). However, the limits on the state section 3 would impose are unrelated to what the ballot title references. Section 3 of I-1125 would preclude the state taking highway infrastructure that already is in use and transferring it (or changing its use) for non-highway purposes. That has nothing to do with spending and it is a much more limited category of new uses than the “non-transportation purposes” proscription the ballot title describes. For example, section 3 of I-1225 would preclude the state from converting part of SR-99 in Shoreline so it could be used by monorails, whereas the ballot title doesn’t describe such a limit. There simply is no “rational unity” between the transportation-only spending limits the ballot title describes and the preclusion of new non-highway uses of existing infrastructure that section 3 of I-1125 (ostensibly) would impose.

It’s clear I-1125 has the same constitutional flaws as I-695. Did Eyman just hire bad lawyers to do his drafting? Hardly. The constitutional flaws in I-1125 are intentional; they serve the purpose of making sure nothing in this measure would harm the core interests of WSDOT or Sound Transit.

I am no fan of Tim Eyman and will vote against this initiative like all his others but Jordan Royer seems to be advocating one set of rules for progressives like himself and another for people he does not agree with.

As Royer notes the current phase of Sound Transit required two votes to gain passage (why have a 2nd when the electorate had clearly rejected the 1st?). The campaign for the 2nd version placed an extraordinary amount of emphasis on misleading statements that it was a comprehensive transit plan that went well beyond light rail even though in fact nearly all the funding is devoted to an expensive and slow light rail system. If the future of our regional economy is really dependent on installing a transit system with speeds that barely exceed those of systems installed 100 years ago, the region is in real trouble.

In the event that I-1125 passes and is not blocked by the courts then the fans of light rail have the option of working through either the legislature or initiative process to reverse the portion that blocks putting light rail on the I-90 bridge. The initial vote to approve the first phase of light rail was passed in 1996 and since then Sound Transit have delivered operating tracks at a pace that barely exceeds 1 mile/year. Given this kind of construction performance, the supporters of light rail will likely have a decade to reverse any negative impacts of the I-1125 initiative.

This is another really stupid hit-piece against I-1125, which is a good initiative, which I will be voting for.

I-1125 does not prevent tolling, at all. What it does do is prevent toll revenue from being spent on transit. This is a very good thing. Why should motorists pay tolls to subsidize people riding on trains or buses?

What I really find disgraceful in Royer's article is this: "I-1125 blocks voters' will on light rail."

How disingenious. Only voters in the Puget Sound region voted on Link light rail. I-90 is an INTERSTATE HIGHWAY. Why should people in one area of our state dictate how an INTERSTATE HIGHAY is used? Does Royer think only people in the Sound Transit area use I-90? I-90 is used by many people to travel between eastern and western Washington. Therefore, obviously, people in Eastern Washington have a stake in how I-90 is used, and should get to voice their opinion in this matter.

I-1125 gives everyone in the state the opportunity to vote whether or not an INTERSTATE HIGHWAY should have lanes taken away from motor vehicles, and dedicated to light rail only, which would serve only people who live near the light rail line. People from Eastern Washington are not going to be able to use Link light rail to travel between Eastern Washington and Seattle, now are they?

Vote YES on I-1125.

Prevent tolls on motor vehicles from being used to pay for transit.

"Prevent tolls on motor vehicles from being used to pay for transit."

If only that were the only thing in this initiative. But it's not, it's as cross rip says, its designed to allow more case law for bond holders to override voters.

And yes the title of this article is stupid. If the voters overrode ST to stop LINK rail from using I-90, then that would be in fact the "will of the voters." Voters are allowed to change their minds.

I-1125 will fail for five reasons:

1. It drives up the costs of projects by stupidly letting legislators set tolls - an idea so profoundly dumb and costly that it doesn't happen in any other state.

2. People who don't use bridges and highways in urban areas shouldn't have to pay for them. The alternative Freeman and Eyman seem to advocate is higher taxes for everybody else in the state instead of tolls for the people who get the benefits. Let the 520 users pay for 520, not people in Spokane.

3. People want light rail, voted to tax themselves to pay for it, and see Freeman's big money efforts to stop it as: a continuation of decades long NIMBYism that has accomplished two things: 1. a 30 year delay in getting rail at 2. billions and billions more for taxpayers.

4. Everybody understands that by keeping tolls lower off peak you give more people choices and gets more bang for the buck out of the enormous sums we spend on infrastructure from both tolls and taxes.

5. We need all sorts of choices to make the transportation system work for all kinds of people. Freeman and Eyman would force more people into their cars by eliminating transit options. That doesn't work anywhere. What makes them think it would work here.

Cheers to Jan, who, thankfully, boils this never-ending debate between anti and pro light rail posters down to 5 succinct and salient points, unlike "Crossrip" who took 8 mammoth posts to flesh out his conspiracy theories (and got an Editor's Pick! Huh?). I'll just second the argument that turning tolling into a legislative political football is "profoundly dumb," and ditto here re the multiple millions in costs from Freeman's undying opposition to Light Rail. When he can't win, in the courts or in the Sound Transit votes, Freeman simply writes another check and finds another venue for his obsession (another prime argument against big money in our politics). In this case, he's found Tim Eyman, the ultimate issue cherry picker. That really ought to be all we need to know for this vote. This should not be about roads; it ought to be about building an effective transportation system with choices.

@ Lincoln

The problem is I-90 was specifically designed to eventual convert the center lanes to transit only. (http://www.leg.wa.gov/JTC/Meetings/Documents/I90_Bridge_Greco.pdf). Considering that this agreement was made with the assumption that (realistically) only the Seattle area would benefit from conversion of the lanes to transit, it is unfair to leave the decision of when and how to convert these lanes to non-Seattle area voters. In other words, because the Seattle area governments signed off on these agreements on the presumption that they could convert the lanes to transit, it should be their choice to choose when and how to do so.

On a broader scale a yes vote for I-1125 takes away the right of local voters to vote on local transportation projects. If every transportation project in every part of the state were voted on by the entirety of the state then no transportation (road, rail etc.) project would ever be passed because the costs are diffuse (state taxes) and the benefits are concentrated (within one city). Why would someone from Seattle vote for a billion dollar freeway project in Spokane or visa vursa? It is for this reason that WSDOT dollars and right of ways are generally (and should be universally) allocated based on a bureaucratic determinations of need.

Alternatively localities can supplement this process by using some of their own dollars to make the project more suitable to that locality's needs. When WSDOT goals and a localities goals clash strongly (see SR-520 or SR-99) a negotiation process occurs. However, this process can't occur fairly in a system where a Seattle vote is a powerful as a Richland vote because the benefit and effects of the I-90 roadway are magnitudes greater in Seattle than in Richland making this a profoundly unfair vote. At the end of the day to vote yes on I-1125 (unless it's a ST2 repeal by a ST district voter) is vote against the local sovereignty of local people to have any say on how infrastructure is built, maintained and used in their cities and regions (an ironically conservative ideal).

@ David Smith

You ask "why have a 2nd [soundtransit 2 ballot measure] when the electorate had clearly rejected the 1st?" The answer to this question is because the first measure was very different from the second. The first was a roads and transit measure that, on top of what more or less became Sound Transit 2, included large amounts of funding for roads and freeway improvements and expansions. The second funded only transit. The Sierra club and other very pro-transit came out AGAINST the first because it wasn't good enough for transit. Obviously these groups did not come out against the transit only measure. Thus, the measures were substantively quite different, which explains the different results. I also don't recall a misinformation campaign for ST2. Anyone who seriously thought that it didn't do more of what SoundTransit already has been doing (light rail, buses and commuter rail) had to have been living in a box.

staybailey writes: "In other words, because the Seattle area governments signed off on these agreements on the presumption that they could convert the lanes to transit, it should be their choice to choose when and how to do so."

You've been misinformed, staybailey. Those agreements (in 1976 and 2004) do NOT give WSDOT the right to hand over all that I-90 corridor highway infrastructure to Sound Transit.

Terms in contracts governments sign can not grant powers to government agencies beyond those afforded by statutes. WSDOT's enabling statutes don't authorize the surplusing of heavily used infrastructure like the swath of bridges, ramps, tunnels and roadbeds Sound Transit would need for East Link.

Terms in contracts governments sign also can not provide a "work around" for government agencies that want to avoid constitutional limits. Artcle II sec. 40 requires all that I-90 corridor highway infrastructure remain used "exclusively for highway purposes", as hundreds of millions of dollars of state highway trust fund assets have been invested in it over the past 35 years. The proposed handover of the highway infrastructure Sound Transit now wants would violate that provision of the constitution, and contract terms obviously can not trump the constitution.

There seems to be one reason, and one reason only, for why Hammond has not yet declared all that highway infrastructure Sound Transit needs "surplus". She knows she lacks the legal right to do so. All the lawyers involved in the "Freeman v. Gregoire" writ proceeding that wrapped up last April were hoping the justices would brush aside the legal impediments to this proposed deal, but that did not happen. If that deal had been completed by now the "threat" to East Link I-1125 supposedly presents would be eliminated. Now we're in limbo, with Hammond unwilling to go forward.

Anyone want to discuss why the WSDOT and Sound Transit have failed to reach an agreement on the "airspace lease" described in the term sheet both sides approved?