A King County Superior Court judge on Friday invalidated the ballot measure approved by voters in November that seeks to slow Washington’s shift from natural gas toward technology like electric heat pumps. Superior Court Judge Sandra Widlan ruled that Initiative 2066 is unconstitutional because it runs afoul of a provision limiting citizen initiatives to no more than one subject and requiring them to contain the full text of the portion of state laws they would alter. […]

A coalition including Climate Solutions, Washington Conservation Action, Front and Centered, King County and the city of Seattle sued over the initiative in December. Washington is the primary defendant. The Building Industry Association of Washington was allowed to intervene to defend the measure.

Attorneys for initiative opponents argued in a court filing that the “most obvious constitutional infirmity” of Initiative 2066 is that it combines a popular idea of requiring certain utilities and local governments to provide natural gas to customers with a host of other subjects, such as future planning by Puget Sound Energy and the array of changes to the state energy code….