The state Supreme Court ruled this morning that King County's controversial critical areas ordinance cannot be repealed by voters. In a 7-2 decision, the court said the ordinance was designed to implement the Growth Management Law, which is mandated by the state, and cannot be subject to a voter referendum.

Writing for the majority, Justice Tom Chambers said:

The people of this state, through their legislators, recognized that each local area is unique and placed considerable power and responsibility onto counties to develop comprehensive land use plans according to procedures that required an enormous amount of deliberative public participation. Local exercises of power are often subject to rejection by local referenda. But while the GMA places considerable power and responsibility in local hands, it is still a state power that is being exercised to further state mandates.

The legislature certainly could decide that local ordinances implementing the GMA should be subject to local referendum. But it is for the legislature, not the courts, to amend GMA procedures. Until such an amendment is enacted, we hew to our holding that ordinances such as these are not subject to local referenda.

Joining Chambers were Chief Justice Gerry Alexander and justices Susan Owens and Bobbe Bridge.

Justice Charles Johnson wrote a concurring opinion, signed also by justices Barbara Madsen and Mary Fairhurst. Johnson did in little more than two pages what it took Chambers 30 pages to do:

The majority reaches the correct result which is compelled by our prior case authority. The majority opinion, when stripped of its unnecessary rhetoric and hyperbole, can be summarized simply: where the state law requires local government to perform specific acts, those local actions are not subject to local referendum.

Madsen also filed a separate concurrence.

The critical-areas package of land-use laws was passed by the Metropolitan King County Council in 2004.

The most controversial provision requires rural landowners to keep 50 percent to 65 percent of their land in native vegetation, depending on the size of the parcel.

Other parts of the package widen no-development buffers around streams, adopt a new buffer formula for wetlands and tighten regulations on storm-water runoff. The laws apply throughout the unincorporated areas of King County, but the most significant changes are in areas designated as "rural residential" under zoning laws.

The ordinance quickly was targeted for repeal byreferendum. But in 2005 a King County Superior Court judge said the ordinance could not be repealed by voters.

A suit stopping the referendum was filed by King County and two environmental groups,1000 Friends of Washington, a group now known as Futurewise, and the Center for Environmental Law and Policy.

Fighting for the referendum was the Citizens' Alliance for Property Rights and its president, Rod McFarland. The case is titled "1000 Friends of Wash. v. McFarland."

In her concurrence, Madsen notes the growing tension between concerns of eroding property rights and the need for land use planning. But she says the Legislature has had "many opportunities to amend the Growth Management Act ... to allow greater participation by voters on local land use measures" but has declined to do so.

Justice Jim Johnson wrote a dissent, which was joined by Justice Richard Sanders.

Recognition of the people's inherent political authority requires courts to construe law in favor of the people's reserved legislative powers. Referenda allow the people to directly check legislative power. "The people, too, have directly charged us with a duty to be mindful of their sovereign rights." State ex rel. Mullen v. Howell, 107 Wash. 167, 171, 181 P. 920 (1919).

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In upholding the superior court's judgment preventing an election on these proposed referenda, the majority of this court has used a strained reading of the GMA and the King County Charter to deny these rights. The majority undermines our constitutional presumption favoring the people's right of referendum.