A Thurston County judge on Aug. 7 upheld a one-sentence statement that will appear on ballots describing the budgetary consequences of an initiative to repeal Washington’s new income tax on high earners.

Superior Court Judge Chris Lanese denied open government activist Arthur West’s request to amend the disclosure statement or remove it from the ballot. That decision abruptly ended a separate legal fight over the statement’s content set to play out in front of a different judge Aug. 7.

Lanese also rejected West’s request for a preliminary injunction to block the law requiring public investment statements for certain ballot measures.

West asserted the statements contain “politically charged propaganda” and are an unconstitutional infringement on the citizen initiative process.”

He said the law violates the state’s separation of powers doctrine that protects the legislative, executive and judicial branches from each other’s overreach. It also allows the legislative and executive branches to intrude on the people’s initiative power, he said.

“The state does not need the PIID (public investment impact disclosure) to inform voters,” West said, adding there already is a separate fiscal impact statement for Initiative 645 produced by the Office of Financial Management.

Lanese pushed back, pointing out the statement “ensures voters are aware of trade-offs. There’s nothing unconstitutional about giving voters more information.”

West said Aug. 7 he planned to appeal the decision directly to the state Supreme Court.

Let’s Go Washington, sponsor of the ballot initiative, condemned the court process, which led to the cancellation of the Aug. 7 scheduled hearing on its challenge to the statement’s wording. 

“We came prepared to make our case,” said Brian Heywood, founder of Let’s Go Washington. “Instead, a civilian who does not represent us was invited to argue issues from our challenge, and then the court shut the door.”

Disclosure statements are a fixture of a 2022 law. They are required if a measure repeals, levies or modifies a tax or fee, and if it would cause a net change in state revenue. State attorneys write the sentence of 15 words or less that gets tacked on after the ballot title. Boilerplate language means the statement is a little longer, 21 words in this case.

Initiative 645 would repeal the 9.9% tax on individual and household wage income above $1 million a year that Gov. Bob Ferguson signed into law in late March. The tax is slated to take effect Jan. 1, 2028, with payments due the following year. The state Department of Revenue estimates it would bring in roughly $2.7 billion in its first year.

The public investment statement for I-645 drafted by Attorney General Nick Brown’s office and affirmed Aug. 7 will read: “This measure would decrease funding for public K-12 education, higher education (including universities and community colleges), and human services (primarily healthcare).”

In legal briefs, Let’s Go Washington, the political committee behind the measure, argued that if their initiative passes, it will result in savings for the state and an increase in available funding for the budget that runs through June 30, 2027. They offered language to that effect.

Opponents of the initiative had also filed an appeal seeking changes in the wording. But after Lanese’s ruling, they didn’t get to make their case either.

Meanwhile, in a related case, Superior Court Judge Anne Egeler approved a few edits to the explanatory statement for Initiative 645 that will be posted online and put in voter pamphlets.

The statement, drafted by lawyers in the Washington attorney general’s office, is intended to describe the law creating the income tax as it presently exists and the effect of the initiative if approved by voters.

Opponents of the initiative sued, proposing changes they said would make it clearer how the law, Senate Bill 6346, directs revenue from tax collections to be deposited in the general fund and spent on specific areas such as education and healthcare.

Egeler countered that only the Legislature can make appropriations from the general fund. 

It would be “both inaccurate and misleading to voters” to say the tax is directed to certain uses, she said. “It doesn’t direct. It has hopes.”