$30 Car Tabs

The debate over Washington's $30 car tabs was never really about vehicle registration fees. At its core, the case was about something much more fundamental: what level of respect should courts give to laws enacted directly by the people?

In 2019, Washington voters approved Initiative 976. The initiative sought to reduce certain vehicle license fees and transportation-related charges, including restoring $30 car tabs for many vehicles. The measure passed statewide. Soon afterward, it was challenged in court. Eventually, the Washington Supreme Court struck down the initiative under the single-subject rule contained in Article II of the Washington Constitution. Garfield County Transportation Authority v. State, 196 Wn.2d 378 (2020). The majority concluded that the initiative addressed multiple subjects and that portions of the ballot title were misleading.

Whether one agrees with that conclusion or not, the most significant constitutional question may not be the outcome. The most significant question may be whether the Court applied the proper standard of review in reaching it.

The Presumption of Constitutionality

Washington courts have long recognized a fundamental principle of constitutional law: legislation is presumed constitutional. Courts do not begin with the assumption that a law is invalid. They begin with the assumption that the law is valid, and the burden rests on the challenger to establish unconstitutionality beyond a reasonable doubt.

That standard reflects respect for the separation of powers. Courts do not sit as super-legislatures. They do not invalidate laws merely because they disagree with them. The presumption of constitutionality requires judicial restraint and recognizes that lawmaking authority belongs primarily to the political branches. But initiatives present an even more interesting constitutional question.

An Initiative Is Not Ordinary Legislation

Article II of the Washington Constitution contains the Legislature article. Most people stop reading after the sections describing the Legislature. But Article II contains something unusual: the initiative power, the referendum power — the power reserved directly to the people. In fact, the initiative and referendum provisions appear at the very beginning of Article II, before many of the provisions governing ordinary legislative activity. That placement was not accidental. The people reserved to themselves a portion of the legislative power. Not delegated power. Reserved power.

The initiative process is therefore different from ordinary legislation. When lawmakers enact a statute, elected representatives are exercising legislative authority. When voters approve an initiative, the people themselves are exercising legislative authority. That distinction matters, because if the initiative power is constitutionally reserved to the people, one could argue that courts should be especially reluctant to invalidate laws enacted through that process.

Is an Initiative a "Bill"?

Article II, Section 19 of the Washington Constitution states: "No bill shall embrace more than one subject, and that shall be expressed in the title." (Emphasis added.) And that begs the question: is a voter-approved initiative even considered a "bill" under our state constitution?

The Constitutional Question the Court Never Fully Addressed

The strongest criticism of the majority is not that it misread the single-subject rule. Reasonable minds can disagree about whether Initiative 976 contained one subject or multiple subjects. The stronger criticism is that the Court never fully confronted a threshold constitutional question: should a voter-approved initiative receive the same level of scrutiny as ordinary legislation? Or should greater deference apply because the law represents a direct exercise of power reserved to the people themselves?

The Court largely treated Initiative 976 as another statute subject to ordinary Article II analysis. Yet Article II itself recognizes a distinction between legislative power exercised by elected representatives and legislative power exercised directly by the people. The majority's analysis devoted substantial attention to the single-subject doctrine. Far less attention was devoted to the constitutional significance of the initiative power itself.

That omission is significant, because constitutional provisions should not be interpreted in isolation. Article II contains both the single-subject rule and the initiative power, and the challenge is determining how those provisions interact. If both are constitutional commands, courts must attempt to harmonize them. The question becomes: how should courts enforce the single-subject rule while simultaneously preserving the people's reserved legislative authority?

Judicial Review and the People's Legislative Power

Every constitutional provision serves a purpose. The single-subject rule protects voters from confusion and prevents unrelated provisions from being combined into a single measure. The initiative power protects direct democracy and preserves the people's ability to legislate without going through elected representatives. Neither principle should automatically swallow the other.

A constitutional analysis focused exclusively on the single-subject rule risks diminishing the initiative power. A constitutional analysis focused exclusively on the initiative power risks rendering the single-subject rule meaningless. The difficult task is balancing both.

Critics of the decision argue that the Court placed too much emphasis on the single-subject doctrine and too little emphasis on the people's reserved legislative authority. Supporters of the decision argue that constitutional limitations apply equally to everyone, including voters acting through initiatives. That disagreement remains one of the most important constitutional debates arising from the case.

The Broader Question

The real question raised by the $30 car tabs case is not whether car tabs should cost $30. Reasonable people can disagree on transportation policy. The enduring constitutional question is different: when the people exercise a power expressly reserved to them by the Constitution, should courts review that exercise with extraordinary caution? Or should initiatives be treated exactly like any other piece of legislation?

The answer reaches far beyond transportation funding. It goes to the heart of the relationship between judicial review and direct democracy. That is why the standard of review matters, and why the constitutional debate surrounding Initiative 976 continues long after the fate of $30 car tabs was decided.

Once courts invalidate a voter-approved initiative, they are not merely disagreeing with a legislature — they are nullifying a law enacted directly by the people themselves.