OLYMPIA…Senate Republican Leader John Braun issued the following comments regarding the decision by the Facilities and Operations Committee in the Senate and the House Executive Rules Committee to file a lawsuit against Gov. Jay Inslee for his unconstitutional partial vetoes of two bills from the 2021 legislative session.
The vetoes at issue include the subsection veto in E3SHB 1091 (Low Carbon/High-Cost Fuel Standard bill), and several one sentence vetoes about fuel type in the transportation budget that mirror those that were challenged by the Legislature after the 2019 legislative session and recently struck down by the Supreme Court.
Article III, Section 12 of the state constitution lays out the governor’s veto power and limits that power by preventing him from vetoing less than a full section of a bill or a whole appropriation item of a budget bill. This challenge contains both a veto of less than a full section (E3SHB 1091) and vetoes of less than full appropriation items (transportation budget).
“I expect the Supreme Court will strike down the vetoes we are challenging today, just as it did recently with our previous challenge to the governor’s partial vetoes. This is not a partisan effort to undermine the governor’s authority. This is a bicameral, bipartisan effort to preserve the Legislature’s lawmaking power. I’m encouraged that all four legislative caucuses are united here.”