The Washington state Supreme Court will hear a case about 2013's Community Bill of Rights initiative, which was blocked from the ballot that year by a Superior Court judge.

At the time, Judge Maryann Moreno sided with a coalition of government and business interests, which argued that the initiative put forth by Envision Spokane attempted to create regulations and protections that were not within the city’s power to enact. They also said the initiative would hurt local government and business.

Moreno said that while she admired the “passion and advocacy” of the initiatives’ sponsors, the provisions within the measures either conflicted with state and federal law or infringed on the powers of local government to set policy.

Earlier this year, a state appellate court overturned Moreno's ruling, and ordered the city to put the measure on the next available ballot. The coalition of government and business representatives asked the state's highest court to hear the case, and this week it agreed.

Here is a statement from Envision Spokane on the Supreme Court's decision:

On Tuesday, September 2nd the Washington Supreme Court agreed to review the ballot access case concerning the Community Bill of Rights. The case landed at the Supreme Court at the request of the corporate plaintiffs after they lost their case in January at Washington’s Division III Court of Appeals. That court overturned the decision of Spokane County Superior Court Judge Moreno, which kept the duly qualified Community Bill of Rights initiative from the November ballot in 2013.

The Division III Court of appeals reversed the lower court decision on the grounds that the plaintiffs had no standing to challenge the vote in the first place. Briefs to the Supreme Court are due in 30 days. No date has been set on when the court will hear the case.

The plaintiffs consist of Spokane County, Greater Spokane Incorporated, Spokane Homebuilders Association, Avista, and others who are looking to the WA Supreme Court to overturn the unanimous decision of the Division III appeals court to place the Community Bill of Rights back on the ballot.

The Community Bill of Rights, which was nearly adopted by the vote of the people in 2011, would secure neighborhood decision-making power over large development, greater protections for the Spokane River and aquifer, constitutional rights for workers, and place the rights of people, the community, and nature above corporations.

“We’re not surprised that the Washington Supreme Court decided to review the matter”, said Brad Read, president of Envision Spokane. “The question still on the table is, ‘can a click (sic) of corporate lobbyist organizations block the right of the people to vote?’”

Read went on to say, “The appeals court said the corporate interests had no standing to stop the vote of the people – we’d expect the Washington Supreme Court to reaffirm that decision.”