(The Center Square) – The filer of a recent lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the state law that places an impact disclosure statement alongside ballot initiatives is speaking out as he seeks an expedited hearing for his case.
Arthur West filed the lawsuit last month in Thurston County Superior Court, challenging the fact the state Attorney General crafted statement appears with the initiative statement on the ballot, amending what voters were asked to sign petitions for to qualify the measure originally.
“The intent of this legislation is not to provide disclosure, as its proponents stated. The intent of this was to make it impossible for citizens to exercise the initiative power to cut government spending,” said West in an interview with The Center Square.
The lawsuit was filed one day after the Public Investment Impact Disclosure statement for IP26-645 was filed.
IP26-645 is the income tax repeal initiative that will appear on the November ballot.
It asks voters to repeal the new 9.9% tax on income above $1 million or combined household income above that amount, starting with 2028 earnings.
The disclosure statement reads, “This measure would decrease funding for public K-12 education, higher education (including universities and community colleges), and human services (primarily healthcare).”
A PIID describes how a ballot measure changing state taxes or fees would impact public funding.
By law, those statements are supposed to be neutral, but as reported by The Center Square, some argue this one amounts to “scare tactics.”
“The tax doesn’t even take effect until 2028. Revenues don’t come in until 2029. So, no current school district, college, healthcare system, hospital, has any funding that depends on any of this revenue, because it doesn’t exist yet,” said Ryan Frost, budget and tax policy center director with Washington Policy Center, a nonpartisan free-market think tank.
According to the lawsuit, the law that created PIID’s “as written and as applied to insert governmental content into the official ballot presentation of a completed initiative petition, constitutes a legislative and executive incursion into the people’s coordinate constitutional function in violation of the separation of powers doctrine.”
West noted that recent polling on the impact disclosure statements have on initiatives makes clear why initiative opponents wanted to pass the law.
“The results showed double-digit shifts in voter support attributable to the disclosure’s inclusion,” he said. Support fell without the disclosure statements by significant amounts in several cases, he added.
West said the PIID law does not operate as neutral background information, as backers claimed was the intention.
He told The Center Square he was headed to Thurston County Superior Court on Monday in hopes of securing an expedited hearing date for the matter.
“I’m going to see if I can get a hearing set on Aug. 7, which I think would be soon enough. And if they’re not prepared to do that, we’ll see what happens. But (Aug.) 21 is the cutoff where they say they must have the ballot printed and the voter’s pamphlet.”
“These people aren’t acting in good faith. They’re trying to subvert the people’s initiative powers and they’re not above dirty tricks to do it,” he added.
The Secretary of State and Attorney General are both named plaintiffs in the suit.
SOS deferred to the attorney general’s office for comment.
“The law ensures voters receive information about initiatives they are asked to decide. We look forward to defending it,” wrote Mike Faulk, deputy communications director in the Attorney General’s Office, via email to The Center Square.