Cannabis Action Coalition v. City of Kent

¶1 The Washington Constitution grants the governor the power to veto individual sections of a bill. The governor may exercise this power even when doing so changes the meaning or effect of the bill from that which the legislature intended. As a corollary of this power, when the governor’s sectional veto alters the intent of the bill and the legislature does not override the veto, the governor’s veto message becomes the exclusive statement of legislative intent that speaks directly to the bill as enacted into law.

¶2 In this case, the governor vetoed over half of the sections in a 2011 bill…