SEIU Healthcare 775NW v. Gregoire

¶23 (dissenting) — The majority says that mandatory inclusion of one item in a proposed budget requires the governor to exercise discretion in reducing or eliminating other requests, and therefore mandamus is improper. 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…