The suit comes one day after Gov. Chris Gregoire and Secretary of State Sam Reed certified I-1183’s victory with 58.7 percent of the vote.
The Washington State Liquor Control Board begins accepting liquor distributor applications on Thursday, and one has to think Costco, which donated a record $22.5 million to the campaign, will be among the applicants.
The lawsuit was prepared by lawyers for General Teamster Local No. 174 and United Food and Commercial Workers Local No. 21. They ask a Superior Court judge to find the law unconstitutional. A copy of their complaint is here
and a UFCW 21 press release is here.
The lawsuit lists four causes of action – including an assertion the initiative is a violation of the state Constitution’s limit on a piece of legislation to a single subject. Among the multiple subjects cited are: deregulation of liquor sales, increases in fines for illegal liquor sales to minors, a 17 percent tax on hard liquor sales, taxes on licensees, franchise protections for licensees, new tier of wine distributor, and new tax revenues for local public safety programs.
The suit also claims it violates a “subject-in-title” requirement by having elements such as tax increases that are not mentioned in the ballot title.
The suit names Gov. Chris Gregoire as defendant in her role as state executive. Spokesmen for Gregoire and Attorney General Rob McKenna had no immediate comment about the action.
Peter Callaghan from our sister paper does a quick analysis of the single-subjects claim in this post that suggests the case may be a stretch.
In the meantime, the Liquor Control Board is moving ahead with plans to put the law into effect unless a judge orders it to do otherwise, spokesman Brian Smith says.
“We’ve got some fast upcoming timelines we are working on to meet,” Smith said. One is a request to national distributors to accept leftover inventory when the state starts moving out of the liquor business in May. “The date itself for them to be in or out … is to be later this month,” Smith said. “They have to indicate whether they are going to be part of our buy-back agreement or not.’’
No date is set for the hundreds of private stores that sell liquor under contract with the state in hard-to-serve areas. But those decisions are due soon, Smith said.
The lawsuit also asks for an injunction to block the initiative. But Tom Geiger, spokesman for UFCW 21, said it not yet clear when lawyers would likely push for an injunction. He said the impact on workers – about 1,000 of them who lose jobs – would not take effect until next May or so.
Details on I-1183’s language and impacts are here in the voter pamphlet for the Nov. 8 election.
