(The Center Square) – Governor Bob Ferguson and other supporters of Washington’s new income tax held a press conference Tuesday to encourage residents to reject an initiative that would repeal the tax.
IP26-645 has not officially qualified for the November ballot yet, as backers of the measure await the Secretary of State’s certification of signatures that were turned in earlier this month.
About 309,000 valid voter signatures are needed to qualify the measure. More than 511,000 were turned in, making it highly likely the initiative will be certified soon.
Ferguson was surrounded by income tax supporters in a Tuesday morning press conference held at the headquarters for Food Lifeline in Seattle.
“Washington is going to be facing an important choice in November regarding the future of the millionaire’s tax,” said Ferguson. “It’s essentially a choice between moving our state forward, by making life more affordable for Washingtonians, and giving 138,000 business owners a tax break, or going backwards.”
Supporters of Washington’s new 9.9% “millionaire’s income tax” on household incomes exceeding $1 million, are funded primarily by major labor unions and progressive political advocacy organizations. They argue the tax balances a regressive system by funding public schools, childcare, and tax breaks for low-income families.
“I am confident Washingtonians will see through this attempt to roll back our progress, because that’s what they have done before,” Ferguson said.
The governor noted that the organization behind the income tax repeal initiative, Let’s Go Washington and the group’s founder Brian Heywood, have failed in three previous attempts to get voters to repeal progressive taxes and policies in Washington.
Ferguson mentioned initiatives rejected by voters to repeal the capital gains tax, the Climate Commitment Act and Washington Cares Fund taxes.
The governor failed to mention LGW’s many successes and two additional initiatives that are already qualified for the November 2026 ballot concerning the restoration of parental rights and the protection of girls in sports.
The three Let’s Go Washington initiatives passed directly into law by the Legislature include Initiative 2081, which established a Parents’ Bill of Rights giving parents the authority to review school curriculum and medical records, though lawmakers subsequently passed legislation that rolled back much of its original intent.
Additionally, Initiative 2111 permanently banned state and local personal income taxes in Washington, a measure complicated by lawmakers passing a new “millionaires’ tax” this year.
The third measure, Initiative 2113, loosened police pursuit rules by restoring the “reasonable suspicion” standard. These legislative actions followed the 2024 election, where voters approved Initiative 2066 to protect access to natural gas and prevent the state from forcing homeowners to convert to electric appliances.
Let’s Go Washington on Tuesday released statements from Washington business owners, entrepreneurs, and coalition partners responding to the launch of the campaign opposing I-645.
“Three public unions, the SEIU, WEA, and WFSE are primarily behind this attempt to force an unconstitutional income tax on the state. These three already take in over $150 million every year yet somehow are exempt from paying any taxes to the state.” wrote Heywood in a news release emailed to The Center Square.
“The public unions have a collection of sock puppet politicians like Jamie Pedersen and Bob Ferguson who appear to be in their pocket and who are afraid to stand up and challenge the pig trough agenda of more spending and higher taxes,”
Viet Nguyen, a Seattle-based technology communications executive and former president of 5G Americas provided his response to the “No on 645” campaign launch.
“As a moderate who’s worked with both Democrats and Republicans, I’m disappointed that this union-led extremist campaign is trying to overturn 93 years of settled tax law. Washington citizens like me have said ‘no’ to the state income tax eleven times. In November, we’ll make it twelve,” said Nguyen.
John Huibregtse, a fifth-generation farmer from Yakima attended the July 2 event in Tumwater when LGW delivered signatures for the initiative that seeks to repeal the income tax to the Secretary of State’s office.
“Family farms can’t bear the burden anymore. The income tax that was passed, was just the latest instance of the burden increasing,” Huibregtse told The Center Square. “Their banks cannot stretch any further. And they’re going bankrupt.”
As reported by The Center Square, Washington lost an average of two farms a day between 2017 and 2022, with more than 3,700 farms lost.
“They’ve labeled this a millionaires’ tax. And I understand it’s important they have the money they need to do the important work of government. They’ve had increasing revenues for I don’t know how long now. But their spending dramatically outpaces the increasing revenue,” Huibregtse added.
Ferguson said Tuesday he’s confident Washington voters will reject the income tax repeal initiative.
“I think we’ll prevail on this because people the people of Washington have demonstrated, over and over and over again, when presented with a clear choice like this, they vote with their values, and that’s what’s going to happen again this year.”
Heywood says LGW is confident voters will reject the income tax.
“Every wage earner and voter knows they have a target on their back, and this income tax is coming for all of us,” he said.
“I am confident the voters will see through the greedy efforts of the unions and their politicians and repeal the income tax.”