Late to the discussion.
I was a party to the suit to overturn I-713. As has been posted we lost. I-655 and I-713 are similar in that one might think they both would be found unconstitutional based on the two subject rule. Actually I-713 had three subjects one of which was not expressed in the title. Seemed like a slam dunk.
The Court however categorizes subjects in Initiatives as General and Restrictive. Basically if the Court see Rational Unity between the subjects in a title it is General and legal. If the subjects cannot be connected via the rational Unity argument it is restrictive and unconstitutional.
Both of the Initiatives are General in the eyes of the court and so constitutional.
It seems to be some very convoluted reasoning to reach that conclusion but nether will ever be overturned through the court system.
You can read about the I-713 case here
https://law.justia.com/cases/washington/supreme-court/2003/72186-6-1.htmlEither could be changed by a simple majority vote of the Legislature. This did happen with I-713 but Governor Locke vetoed the bill. IMO it is unlikely any changes for the positive will happen with the current make up of the Legislature. Also one has to be sure of an outcome before going down that road as any bill can be amended and end up being more restrictive. We had that happen while trying to pass a repeal of I-713 but were able to kill the bill.
A few words on cost. We spent right about $100,000 on legal bills challenging I-713 about 15 years ago. Costs would be much higher now.
When we defended against the Initiative we were told we needed to raise $850,000 to have a chance of defeating it. HSUS threw $2,000,000 into the campaign. To stand a chance at passing a repeal of either via the Initiative route now would require several million dollars at a minimum.
