Especially when she virtually accuses initiative sponsor Tim Eyman of deliberately misleading the voters. Fact is, one of her fellow justices wrote it.

I-747 was the initiative filed by Eyman after I-722, which lowered property tax levy increases by the state and local governments from six percent to two percent, passed in 2000 and was challenged in court. Because I-722 also required rebates of prior tax increases, it was thrown out by the Supreme Court (September, 2001) for containing two subjects.

Seeing the handwriting on the wall, however, having lost some previous initiatives approved by the voters and declared unconstitutional for having two subjects, Eyman turned to Olympia lawyer Jim Johnson to write a replacement.

Yes, he’s the Jim Johnson who was elected to the Supreme Court in 2004, which means he’ll have to recuse himself from hearing the case on I-747 when it comes up.

But in 2001, he was retained because of his extensive experience with constitutional law to write a new initiative to take I-722’s place if and when it bounced.

“Jim said at the time that it doesn’t take a brilliant attorney to deal with an issue as straightforward as this one,” Eyman told me. “This one is easy. Even the code reviser said it was real straightforward. All we had to do is cross out one number and put in another.”

The explanation in the voters pamphlet plainly said that property taxes were currently being increased six percent per year and I-747 would lower it to one percent. If taxing districts needed or wanted over one percent, they had to get voter approval.

Where Judge Roberts found what she considered the Achilles heel of the initiative was in its text in the back of the voters’ pamphlet where it explained that the two percent in I-722 would instead be one percent. I-747 passed after I-722 achieved room temperature.

But the judge declared that people who read that full text were incorrectly led to believe they were lowering the tax from two to one percent when they were really lowering it from six to one percent.

“This judge went off the deep end,” said Eyman. “If we’re going to go down the road of throwing out election results because voters were misinformed then Queen Christine (Gov. Gregoire) needs to lose her job because she promised to not increase taxes.”

Queen Christine quickly announced she’ll work for a “compromise” lowering of property taxes. It won’t be one percent. I’m betting on three. In the meantime, Atty. Gen. Rob McKenna is appealing Judge Roberts’ ruling, calling it an “impossible hurdle” for initiative writers to foresee future court actions on laws they were amending.

I wrote five columns on I-747, most quoting Tim Eyman and emphasized in all of them that it lowered the tax cap from six percent to one percent. The quarter of a million readers who take the newspapers my column runs in knew what they were voting on.

As for the firemen and police officers who led the campaign against I-747 in 2001, along with government officials who whined that they’d be cut to the bone in providing needed services if they were held to one percent, I’ve seen no evidence of it.

A rookie Kitsap County deputy sheriff who came on board for $33,000 in 1998 gets $47,000 plus $1,000 a month health benefits today. That’s cutting to the bone?

I just hope the replacement justice picked to sub for Jim Johnson when I-747 comes up for review, isn’t another activist looking for a way to keep government happy.

(Adele Ferguson can be reached at P.O. Box six9, Hansville, Wa., 98340.).