Legislators use emergency clause to deny right of referendum

By Jonathan Bechtle
Evergreen Freedom Foundation

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February 14, 2007

Olympia, WA - Where’s the emergency? In Olympia, legislators can find one just about anywhere. This is Jonathan Bechtle for the Evergreen Freedom Foundation.

Already this week we’ve told you about legislators attaching emergency clauses to a WEA bail-out bill and bills to fund a Sonics stadium and NASCAR racetrack. Whether it’s building new sports stadiums or helping unions, lawmakers are acting like there’s no tomorrow…

Normally every new law can be put to a vote of the people by running a referendum, but the Washington constitution provides an exception in cases where a law is "necessary for the immediate preservation of the public peace, health or safety, support of the state government and its existing public institutions."

Two bad state supreme court rulings have allowed legislators to slap this “emergency clause” on just about any bill they choose, no matter how urgent it actually is. Not surprisingly, legislators have taken advantage of that opportunity to protect controversial bills from being subject to a referendum.

In addition to the bills I’ve mentioned, legislators apparently also feel that citizens exercising their constitutional rights would put the state in danger, since they added an emergency clause to a bill that would make it harder to qualify initiative petitions.

These sham emergencies are a blatant attempt to deny the people’s right of referendum. The courts have turned a blind eye to this abuse, so the only way to stop it is to pass a constitutional amendment requiring a supermajority vote for any bill that has an emergency clause.

Now that’s a real emergency.

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Jonathan Bechtle serves as director of EFF’s Citizenship and Governance Center. He also currently serves on the board of the Washington Coalition for Open Government. Prior to joining EFF, he served as the Senior Legal Assistant for a non-profit legal advocacy firm in the Washington, D.C. area. He has also worked as an aide to state senators in Georgia and Indiana and as a medical analyst for the Indiana Attorney General. Jonathan earned a juris doctorate from Oak Brook College of Law in Fresno, California, and is a member of the California Bar.