Some proponents of a local city charter initiative in Tacoma, Washington, have filed a cert petition with the U.S. Supreme Court, on whether the First Amendment protects initiatives from being removed from the ballot before the voters can vote. Of course, this only refers to initiatives that have enough valid signatures. Save Tacoma Water v Port of Tacoma, 18-1518. The Washington state courts had removed the initiative from the ballot on the grounds that, if passed, the initiative would have been unconstitutional.

The initiative concerned whether the city should be required to hold a popular vote before issuing permits for new industries to use an exceptionally large amount of water from the city water system. Here is the cert petition. The cert petition says there is a Circuit split on the issue. The cert petition says that it would be unthinkable for a court to tell a legislative body that it couldn’t vote on a proposed bill, just because the bill might later be held unconstitutional. By analogy, then, the petition says initiatives should be entitled to the same treatment.