Washington's highest court struck down a ballot measure that voters passed to protect their access to natural gas, the latest example of state institutions working to undo what the electorate decided at the polls.
The Washington Supreme Court invalidated Initiative 2066, a measure that barred state and local governments from restricting access to natural gas or gas appliances, Axios Seattle reported. Washington voters approved the initiative with 51.2% support, a clear majority that chose to keep natural gas as an available energy option for homes and businesses across the state.
The ruling caps a long fight between voters who wanted energy choice and a state government apparatus that resisted the measure at nearly every turn, from biased ballot language to regulatory stonewalling to, now, judicial nullification.
Initiative 2066 appeared on Washington's November 2024 ballot after grassroots supporters gathered enough signatures to put it before voters. The measure was straightforward: it guaranteed that natural gas would remain an energy choice alongside electric and other clean energy options. Voters approved it with 51.71% of the vote.
But passage was only the beginning of the fight.
The Washington State Building Code Council refused to take emergency action to comply with the new law, even after the Building Industry Association of Washington formally requested it. The council's refusal forced the BIAW, the state's leading construction trade group, to file a lawsuit in Thurston County Superior Court to compel compliance.
Greg Lane, executive vice president of the BIAW, put the matter plainly:
"Millions of voters have spoken and Initiative 2066 is now law. Above all else, the members of the State Building Code Council have a duty and obligation to follow state law."
A Thurston County judge dismissed that lawsuit on technical grounds, the Washington Examiner reported, effectively stalling enforcement of the voter-approved measure. The BIAW planned to refile. Now, with the Supreme Court's ruling, the initiative itself is gone.
The pattern is hard to miss. Voters spoke. A regulatory body refused to listen. A lower court tossed the enforcement suit on a technicality. And the state's highest court finished the job by striking down the initiative entirely.
Initiative 2066 was not the only populist measure that ran into resistance from Washington's political establishment. During the same election cycle, state Democrats preemptively approved three other conservative-backed initiatives during the legislative session, a strategic maneuver designed to keep those measures off the November ballot and out of voters' hands.
The tactic drew sharp criticism. Tim Punke, a government affairs consultant, told National Review that the initiatives served as "a check on both one-party Democratic rule and a dysfunctional Republican Party." He added that "one-party Democratic rule has resulted in Olympia Democrats listening almost exclusively to their far-left activist base."
Opponents of the ballot measures poured enormous sums into defeating them. Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer spent tens of millions of dollars fighting the initiatives. Meanwhile, Washington's left-leaning attorney general wrote ballot language that critics accused of being biased against the measures, tilting the playing field before voters ever reached the booth.
Courts have increasingly become the arena where political outcomes get rewritten. The recent pattern of courts blocking voter-approved or legislatively enacted maps in states like Missouri reflects a broader willingness by judges to second-guess democratic results.
Washington is a one-party state. Democrats control the governor's mansion, both chambers of the legislature, and the attorney general's office. When voters managed to get Initiative 2066 past that gauntlet, surviving millions in opposition spending and hostile ballot language, the state's regulatory apparatus simply declined to implement it.
That sequence matters. The Building Code Council's refusal to comply was not a legal dispute about ambiguity or implementation timelines. It was a flat refusal to follow a law the voters had just enacted. And when the construction industry went to court to force compliance, the case was dismissed on procedural grounds before the merits were ever reached.
The dynamic echoes conflicts playing out at the federal level, where courts have stepped in to reshape election-related rules over the objections of elected officials and voters alike.
Now the Supreme Court has removed the initiative from the books altogether. Whatever the court's legal reasoning, which has not been fully detailed in available reporting, the practical result is unmistakable: a majority of Washington voters chose to protect their access to natural gas, and every branch of state government found a way to say no.
At its simplest, Initiative 2066 was about consumer choice. It did not mandate natural gas use. It did not block clean energy development. It said the government could not take natural gas off the table for homeowners and businesses that wanted it.
That modest proposition drew fierce opposition from environmental groups, tech billionaires, and the state's Democratic establishment, all of whom have pushed aggressive electrification mandates as part of Washington's climate agenda. Striking down the initiative clears the path for future restrictions on gas hookups, gas appliances, and gas infrastructure statewide.
For the building industry, the consequences are immediate. Builders who design homes with gas heating, gas stoves, and gas water heaters now face renewed uncertainty about whether those systems will remain legal under future building codes. The BIAW's legal battle was never abstract, it was about whether contractors could keep offering customers what they want.
The ruling also raises questions about the security of any voter-approved initiative in a state where the political class has shown a willingness to override ballot results through legislative maneuvering, regulatory defiance, and judicial review. If a majority vote is not enough to protect a policy, the integrity of the initiative process itself comes into question.
Washington is not the only state where courts and regulators have clashed with voters over energy policy, but the speed and thoroughness of the resistance here stand out. Voters passed a law. The bureaucracy ignored it. The courts dismissed the enforcement suit. And now the highest court in the state has erased the law itself.
Supporters of the initiative may explore further legal options, but the immediate message from Olympia is clear: on energy policy, the voters had their say, and the state decided it did not count.
When courts routinely intervene to reshape outcomes voters thought they had settled, the ballot box starts to look like a suggestion box, and that should trouble anyone who still believes self-government means something.
