OLYMPIA, WA – Thurston County Superior Court Judge Chris Lanese ruled against anti-tax activist Tim Eyman on Friday regarding his request for a recall petition against Secretary of State Steve Hobbs.
Eyman had filed a referendum to allow voters to veto a law he says guts Initiative 2081, the parents’ bill of rights passed last year by the state Legislature, which was not forwarded to the Secretary of State’s Office.
The well-known initiative filer filed a lawsuit with the state Supreme Court asking the court to order Hobbs to follow the law and process the referendum. He also filed a recall petition against Hobbs for what he claims is a violation of his oath of office. Friday’s court hearing addressed the recall petition.
“If both sides have good faith, it means the secretary of state had good faith and his understanding of the legal requirements that applied in this case,” Lanese said during the Friday hearing. “As a result, I find that the recall petition fails to satisfy the legal sufficiency prong in this case.”
During the hearing, Eyman argued Hobbs had a legal obligation to forward the referendum to the Attorney General’s Office.
“The statute is very clear that when they accept the money, they process it and they recognize that it was a referendum and gave it a number,” Eyman said. “But they did not forward it to the attorney general. There is a statute that is explicit, and it doesn’t have any exceptions.”
The law was not followed, according to Eyman.
“I keep staring at a statute that says you’re going to forward this thing to the attorney general, and he didn’t do that,” he said.
Karl Smith is the deputy solicitor general with the Attorney General’s Office. He represented the Secretary of State’s Office at the hearing.
“When there is an emergency, a bill is not subject to referendum,” Smith said. “Here we have a law passed by the Legislature, approved by the governor, that says there is an emergency. That is the law, and our state constitution says there cannot be a referendum.”
The legislation in question is Engrossed Substitute House Bill 1296, which aims to strengthen student rights and parental involvement in public education. It establishes a detailed statement of student rights, expands protected classes, creates a process for addressing complaints against school districts, and provides protections for educators. The law has an emergency clause, meaning it went into effect immediately – in this case, May 20.
Smith argued that more than 100 years of precedent back up his case.
“Going back to 1921, multiple secretaries of state have taken this same position where the Legislature passed a bill with an emergency clause and somebody filed a referendum, and the secretary of state refused to file it because it was subject to the emergency clause,” he explained.
The high number of bills with emergency clauses was a source of controversy during this year’s legislative session, as reported by The Center Square.
Eyman spoke with The Center Square after the ruling.
“It’s truly insane,” he said. “The law says the Secretary of State must, in fact, shall forward a referendum to the attorney general. He didn’t do that. The law is unambiguous, but this judge said you can read it both ways, and it literally made my head explode.”
Eyman said he would appeal the decision.
“Absolutely going to appeal directly to the state Supreme Court, and they would have a chance to take it up,” he said. “I think it’s worth doing because the law says he’s [Hobbs] got to do this. He didn’t do it, and there’s no need to change the law. If the law says shall, there’s no ambiguity to it at all. You’ve just got to do it. And he had a ministerial duty to do it.”
