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Thursday, December 7, 2006 · Last updated 12:42 p.m. PT
State Supreme Court rules on transit tax collection
The State Supreme Court today said Sound Transit can continue to collect a 0.3 percent motor-vehicle excise tax to pay off $350 million in bonds issued in 1999 to finance its light-rail system.
The 8-1 ruling negated one part of Initiative 776, which was approved in 2002 by voters statewide but rejected by voters in Sound Transit's three-county service area. The court upheld other parts of the initiative, which struck down the excise tax. But in today's ruling it said the excise tax could continue because it had been pledged to pay off the bonds before statewide voters approved the initiative.
"The crux of (tax opponents') argument appears to be that the people, through initaitive, have the right to repeal taxes, pledged as security for capital intensive projects such as highways and bridges, when they no longer want to pay such taxes," said the majority opinion, written by Justice Barbara Madsen.
"However, the contract clause of our state constitution guarantees that 'No law imparing the obligations of contracts shall ever be passed'."
Chief Justice Gerry Alexander and Justices Tom Chambers, Charles W. Johnson, Susan Owens, Mary E. Fairhurst, Bobbe Bridge and Justice Pro-Tem John Schultheis agreed with Madsen. Justice Richard Sanders dissented.
What do you think of the state Supreme Court's ruling?
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