Harger: The legislature built a perfect trap for the income tax repeal. A Thurston County judge just proved the trap works

An anonymous watchdog account on X called MintyHawk made a lot of people who support the income tax repeal initiative uncomfortable this weekend. Whoever MintyHawk is, they walked through the statute behind the ballot language line by line. And they’re right.

Before any of this started, the Democrats asked experts to design a perfect bill to enact an income tax. Guess what? The experts delivered.

The video went viral. The frustration is real. But the anger is aimed at the wrong target

A video clip of Thurston County Superior Court Judge Chris Lanese got a lot of views over the weekend. During an Aug. 7 hearing on the ballot warning label attached to the income tax repeal initiative, IP26-645, Lanese warned from the bench that Washington could continue a “downward regressive spiral” in its tax system. He gestured. He editorialized. He sounded less like a judge interpreting a statute and more like a legislator defending one.

Brandi Kruse called him unhinged. Brian Heywood said his team got shut out.

They bring up an excellent point. The judge did seem like he had his mind made up before anyone sat down.

Let’s Go Washington had lawyers in the courtroom. The judge heard someone else’s case and closed the door

Two separate groups showed up to challenge the ballot language. Arthur West, an open-government activist working on his own, filed one suit. Let’s Go Washington had a team of lawyers ready to argue theirs. The judge heard West’s case, resolved the ballot wording through his arguments, and closed the matter. Let’s Go Washington’s attorneys were sitting right there. They never got to present.

Heywood said a guy who doesn’t represent them argued the issues from their challenge, and then the court shut the door. Now West, who has no connection to Let’s Go Washington, is the one filing the appeal to the Supreme Court. The organization that gathered 511,000 signatures is watching from the hallway while a solo activist they didn’t choose carries the legal fight.

State GOP Chairman Jim Walsh called West a ‘gullible non-lawyer’ who let the judge use his weaker case to kill the stronger one.

All of that frustration is real. But the anger is aimed at the wrong target. Yelling at Lanese is yelling at the instrument. The legislature wrote the sheet music in 2022.

The perfect game started in 2022, and the pitcher hasn’t walked anyone yet

Think of this like a pitcher throwing a perfect game. No walks. No errors. No chance for the other side to get on base.

In 2022, the legislature passed Chapter 114, creating the Public Investment Impact Disclosure. Under the law, whenever a ballot measure would change state revenue, the Attorney General must write a sentence, 15 to 21 words, listing the top three spending categories affected. That sentence gets printed on the ballot between the initiative’s description and the yes/no question.

For IP26-645, the AG’s office produced this: “This measure would decrease funding for public K-12 education, higher education (including universities and community colleges), and human services (primarily healthcare).”

K-12, higher education, and human services are the three biggest line items in the budget. Any tax-cutting initiative triggers essentially the same sentence. The AG had almost no room to say anything else.

Then the same law demands the AG use “neutral language that cannot reasonably be expected to create prejudice for or against the measure.”

A sentence designed to sound like an argument against repeal, required by statute to be called neutral. That’s the pitch sequence working as designed.

The tax this initiative would repeal hasn’t collected a dime. The first dollar arrives in 2029

The income tax IP26-645 would repeal doesn’t produce revenue until 2029. No money has been collected. No programs are currently funded by it. Zero dollars.

But the ballot will tell voters: “This measure would decrease funding for public K-12 education, higher education, and human services (primarily healthcare).”

Decrease funding from what? From money that doesn’t exist yet. The legislature budgeted against revenue it hasn’t collected, and now the ballot warning treats that phantom revenue as though teachers are already cashing paychecks from it. Voters are going to read that sentence and think they’re cutting current school funding and current healthcare. They aren’t. The first dollar from this tax arrives in 2029.

The appeal goes nowhere. That’s by design too

Under RCW 29A.72.028, the superior court’s decision on the wording is final. No appeal. The only claims that travel up to the state Supreme Court are constitutional ones, and those are much harder to win.

The legislature built a disclosure that functions as a taxpayer-funded argument against tax-cutting initiatives. They assigned the AG to write it. They gave judges almost no room to rewrite it. Then they locked the courthouse door behind the ruling.

Even a measured, restrained judge would have landed in the same place. The statute was always intended to be a dead end.

The $80 billion budget nobody’s defending on the ballot

I laid out a few weeks ago why I think the income tax repeal faces long odds, and the ballot language was one of the five reasons. The disclosure warns about funding cuts. What it doesn’t mention is that Washington’s operating budget has grown from roughly $38 billion a decade ago to $80.2 billion today. That’s a 110% increase. Median household income grew 54% over the same period. Lawmakers approved roughly $9.4 billion in new taxes in 2025, passed the income tax in 2026, and the state is already projecting deficits for 2027.

If voters want the income tax, more power to them. But they deserve more than one warning sentence written by the same government that doubled the budget and still can’t balance it.

What’s left

Two options remain. The initiative itself in November, and the lawsuit.

Ballots need to be finalized by Aug. 21. The warning label stays on every one of them. Doing exactly what the 2022 legislature built it to do.

Charlie Harger is the host of “Seattle’s Morning News” on KIRO Newsradio. You can read more of his stories and commentaries here. Follow Charlie on X and email him here. 

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