(The Center Square) – The city of Tacoma, Wash., is requesting the Pierce County Superior Court to dismiss action on a lawsuit regarding a stalled $20 minimum wage measure.
On Aug. 22, the city filed a response to a lawsuit brought on by United Food and Commercial Workers Local 367, Tacoma for All, and the Tacoma Democratic Socialists of America. They allege that Tacoma and Pierce County did not act promptly to ensure a citizen’s initiative, which aims to establish a “workers’ bill of rights” on the November ballot.
Initiative 2 would increase Tacoma’s minimum wage from $16.66 to $20 per hour in a phased-in approach. The city claims the proposal includes a complex set of regulations that would negatively impact Tacoma residents.
The plaintiff’s complaint alleges that Pierce County illegally delayed the verification of signatures for the ballot initiative, and then Tacoma used the delay to illegally run out the clock beyond the Aug. 5 deadline to place the measure on November’s general election ballot.
However, the city’s response alleges that the coalition of organizations are complaining that the county auditor should not have followed state law and that the city council should not have followed the city charter.
Tacoma argues that unlike state initiative power, local initiative power is not a constitutional right, but instead must be authorized by local governments by ordinance or city charter.
In Tacoma, the local power of initiative is set forth in Section 2.19 of the city charter. This section of the charter establishes that the power of the voters to submit an initiative is subject to an unqualified 30-day period of review by the council.
“The review period is part of the checks and balances the voters have included in the charter as a limitation upon initiative power,” Tacoma’s response reads. “Petitioners were fully aware of the review period embedded in the charter and cannot now complain that their failure to timely submit signatures for validation should vitiate these provisions of the charter.”
The Tacoma City Council held three study sessions between July 15 and Aug. 5 regarding the proposed ballot measure, with scheduling requirements and other demands being flagged as great concerns for council members.
According to a document filed by attorney Katelyn Kinn on Aug. 18, she and another lawyer, Knoll Lowney, had a phone call with Tacoma City Attorney Chris Bacha. According to Kinn and Lowney, Bacha indicated during their phone call that the initiative would not appear on the ballot and that its sponsors would need to restart the signature-gathering process for the 2026 general election.
A hearing for The United Food and Commercial Workers Local 367 vs. Pierce County is scheduled for Tuesday.
