Opinion: Democrats rig the ballot to save their income tax

Churchill argues the ballot disclosure warning voters of education cuts describes revenue never collected and not yet allocated. Photo courtesy AI generated image courtesy Nancy Churchill

🎧 Did WA Democrats Rig the Ballot on Initiative 645?

Nancy Churchill says the message is clear. The Democrats fear the people more than they trust their own arguments.

Nancy Churchill
Dangerous Rhetoric

This year, Washington Democrats wrote a new income tax. Then they stacked every step of the process so voters could not easily stop it. Now they have attached a false warning label to the citizen’s initiative to repeal the new tax. The message is clear. They fear the people more than they trust their own arguments.

Nancy Churchill

In March, Governor Bob Ferguson signed the bill to create a 9.9 percent tax on income above $1 million. Democrats added a necessity clause, to prevent a referendum against it. The state Supreme Court allowed the necessity clause to stand. Public-sector unions, funded by tax dollars, began bankrolling the campaign to keep the tax alive.

Let’s Go Washington still gathered more than 511,000 signatures and qualified Initiative 645 to Repeal the Income Tax for the November ballot. The people forced the issue. Democrats responded by rewriting the description voters will see.

The warning label that lies

Attorney General Nick Brown’s office wrote the one-sentence Public Investment Impact Disclosure that will appear next to the initiative. It tells voters the measure “would decrease funding for public K-12 education, higher education (including universities and community colleges), and human services (primarily healthcare).”

There is just one problem: It’s a lie.

The tax has not collected a single dollar. It will not collect a dollar for years. The first dollars arrive in 2029, based on 2028 income. The legislature has NOT allocated the money yet. The state is warning voters about cuts to money it has not taken yet. That is not disclosure. That is anti-initiative campaign literature printed on the ballot.

The Wall Street Journal editorial board called out Brown directly. Democrats are trying to deceive voters because they know raising income taxes is not popular. Many voters do not buy the promise that a “millionaire’s tax” will stay limited to millionaires. History shows the opposite. Income taxes always expand. Democrats inevitably soak the middle class because that is where the real money sits.

A judge protects the lie

But wait, there’s more. Next, open-government activist Arthur West challenged the PIID language. Thurston County Superior Court Judge Chris Lanese heard the case. He upheld the AG’s disclosure, rejected the challenge, and cancelled a separate hearing which was scheduled the same afternoon for initiative sponsor Let’s Go Washington. The sponsors who collected half a million signatures never even got to make their argument in court.

Lanese’s performance was not subtle. KVI’s Ari Hoffman called it the most blatantly biased display he had ever seen from a judge. From the bench, Lanese raised his voice and asked whether pretending tax cuts do not reduce services is neutral. He suggested that is why we see deficits “time and time again.” The judge treated a false statement about future revenue as necessary truth-telling.

Judge Lanese probably should have recused himself. After all, Lanese spent years working in the Attorney General’s office. His former boss is now Governor Ferguson. Current AG staff include former colleagues who helped draft the ballot language under review.

His political donation history is exclusively progressive. None of those facts alone disqualifies a judge. However, combined with his courtroom demeanor and his articulated pro-taxation bias, they create a clear perception of bias.

Institutions corrupted

No one had to break any laws. They only had to control every step. In a state where the same political network writes the law, defends the law, and judges the law, it seems like the institutions are completely corrupted.

Open government activist Arthur West has now appealed Judge Lanese’s decision to the state Supreme Court, and the Washington State Republican Party has filed an amicus brief for the case. Whether that appeal succeeds remains to be seen. The practical reality is already set.

Unless higher courts intervene, the false disclosure will appear on millions of ballots. Voters will read a government claim that repealing an uncollected tax will cut school and health funding. That claim is false.

The only remedy left: Vote YES

We probably can’t litigate our way out of a process this thoroughly corrupted. We must answer at the ballot box. A narrow win will only invite more lawsuits and legislative games. We need a voter landslide to end the conversation.

Brian Heywood of Let’s Go Washington put it plainly. You have to vote yes in order to stop the income the tax.

Yes, the wording is intentionally confusing; the AG got to write it. Yes, the PIID sounds scary; but it’s also a lie.

Unfortunately, the real threat to repeal is simply low voter turnout. More than a million Washingtonians have signed Let’s Go Washington petitions at some point. Unfortunately, barely a third of them always bother to vote.

Rural Washington understands this fight in its bones. Ranchers already fight wolves that government agencies protect while cattle disappear. Bureaucrats sitting in Olympia use satellite images to try to destroy successful cattle operations without actually doing an on-site visit. Farmers already navigate regulations written by people who have never set foot in a field.

Now the same political machine wants a permanent claim on your private income. Income you earned. They start with the highest earners. But they always expand. Once the machinery is built, the middle class becomes the target. That is the history of every income tax in America.

Vote yes

Initiative 645 is the last easy chance to stop this tax before the first dollar is collected. The income tax does not fund schools today. It does not fund colleges today. It does not fund health care today. Claiming otherwise is a lie designed to confuse and scare you into protecting a new tax that has never been collected.

They may have rigged the question, but you still get to answer it. This fall, plan to vote YES on Initiative 645. This will repeal the income tax.

Tell your friends, family and neighbors. Let’s work together to make the margin large enough that no politician, judge, or union strategist can pretend the people were confused. Common sense versus the stacked process. Show up in November. End this debate before the income tax becomes permanent.

Nancy Churchill is a writer, educator, and conservative activist in rural eastern Washington state. She chairs the Ferry County Republican Party and advocates for effective citizen influence through Influencing Olympia Effectively. She may be reached at DangerousRhetoric@pm.me. The opinions expressed in Dangerous Rhetoric are her own. Dangerous Rhetoric is available on Substack and X.