Opinion: Court refuses to order governor to fund $87 mil increase in workers contracts
SEIU Healthcare 775NW v. Gregoire, No. 82551-3 (briefs and argument). In a 5-4 opinion written by Justice James Johnson, the Supreme Court has ruled against SEIU 775NW and declines to order the governor to insert a $87 million arbitration award in her budget proposal to the legislature.
SEIU 775NW represents approximately 25,000 individual health providers who negotiated with the state for wages and benefits. During 2008 negotiations, SEIU 775NW and the governor’s office were unable to reach an agreement for the 2009-11 budget, and an arbitrator awarded the workers a raise and fringe benefits amounting to $87 million. Gov. Gregoire, however, did not include the arbitrated award in the budget proposal that she sent to the legislature, arguing it was not financially feasible. SEIU 775NW argues that the law governing labor relations for these employees (RCW 74.39A.300) states that the governor must include arbitrated awards in her budget.
The question for the court has been whether “must” in the statute is a mandatory obligation upon the governor, or if it is a permissive suggestion. At argument the justices clearly wrestled with the real-world consequences of ruling for either party. A ruling for the workers sends the governor back to the budget planning stage and would result in other cuts to the budget. But a ruling for Gregoire seems to muddy the plain reading of a statute.
Justice Johnson wrote that writs of mandamus ordering a state official to take action are only appropriate when the ordered action is mandatory, rather than discretionary. “Deciding the allocation of limited state funds in order to achieve the statutorily required balanced budget necessarily involves the exercise of the governor’s discretion,” he wrote. “It is difficult to imagine an act more essentially a policy decision for the governor than the submission to the legislature of a budget during an economic downturn. The creation and submission of a budget proposal is clearly one of those discretionary acts that are ‘in their nature political, or which are, by the constitution and laws, submitted to the executive,’ and inappropriate for mandamus.”
The court said it would decline to order the governor to make budget changes even if mandamus were appropriate. “[T] the court may refuse to grant relief where private rights would be unwisely advanced at the expense of public interests. The recent severe economic difficulties faced by our state present circumstances dictating such judicial restraint.”
Alternatively, the court said it would rule against the union as the remedy it sought was no longer available. “Similarly, because the relief sought by the petitioner here—a change in a budget proposal long since submitted for a budget already adopted by the legislature—is no longer available, this case runs afoul of our mootness doctrine.”
Chief Justice Madsen dissented, arguing that the law mandates inclusion of arbitrated awards in the governor’s budget, regardless of the state’s economic picture. “There is, of course, a fixed amount of funding available to achieve a balanced budget and one budget request included in a proposed budget means that there is less money remaining for other proposed requests. But this fact does not turn a mandatory duty into a discretionary one. Pursuant to a state law duly enacted by the legislature, the governor had a mandatory duty to include in the proposed 2009-2010 budget a request to fund the arbitration award in this case.”
Justice Richard Sanders signed Madsen’s dissent and filed his own brief dissent, writing: “This case deserved swift action to protect the rights of these workers and their union. I have signed the dissent but would have preferred to initially decide this case by order with opinion to follow.”
