Tomorrow the state Supreme Court will hear arguments in the McCleary case, after which it will decide whether to continue sanctions on the Legislature. The News Tribune has a preview of what could happen.

The attorney general has argued that the Court should lift contempt and cancel sanctions.

Superintendent Randy Dorn thinks the Court should not dismiss contempt and should continue sanctions — and "impose more stringent sanctions" if the Legislature doesn't fulfill its McCleary commitments during the 2017 session.

Plaintiffs say that if the Legislature doesn't "fully comply with the court orders and declaratory judgments issued in this case" during the 2017 regular session, the Court should either (1) shut down the schools as of the beginning of school year 2017-18 or (2) strike down all tax exemption statutes enacted by the Legislature as of the beginning of SY 2017-18. (The second option has a footnote saying that because the sales tax exemption for food was enacted via initiative, it would not be struck down in this scenario.)

These two options are easier said than done. The AG has previously written about how shutting down schools has been less than successful over the long run in other states and that enjoining tax exemptions would raise separation of powers issues and would be difficult to actually implement.

As Opportunity Washington notes, "It’s not at all clear what that second option means, given that the definition of a tax exemption is not nearly as easy to pin down as the plaintiffs seem to think." Further, tax exemptions are often just good tax policy. As we wrote in a 2013 report,

Tax preferences, to use the state’s terminology, are not unwarranted boons for business; rather, many serve to normalize Washington’s tax structure or correct market failures. 

Finally, on Friday, the AG replied to the briefs from Superintendent Dorn and the plaintiffs. Notably, he writes,

In deciding to retain jurisdiction to monitor implementation, the Court cautioned against the prospect of immediate follow-on lawsuits were it to simply declare the funding system inadequate and relinquish jurisdiction. The Court was prescient, as the current round of briefing shows that Plaintiffs and others are eager to challenge the reforms before they have been fully implemented. But the success of the funding reforms cannot be assessed until they are fully implemented. And the information being gathered pursuant to E2SSB 6195 is necessary to complete that implementation. 

(Emphasis added, citations omitted.)

Update 8:39 am: Just after hitting publish on this post, I noticed that Opportunity Washington had also just published a post on the same theme with a similar headline. We clearly both got the memo this morning. Be sure to read their post too.