‘I’ve spent over $10M on these initiatives’: Heywood reveals why he won’t stop fighting WA’s millionaires’ tax

Washington Governor Bob Ferguson launched a campaign Tuesday to fight against an initiative attempting to overturn recently signed legislation creating a “millionaires’ tax.”

The initiative, I-645, was created by Let’s Go Washington — a conservative political action committee founded by Brian Heywood — claiming the tax “would open the door to a broader statewide income tax.”

“The Democrats have tried 10 times to get an income tax and have failed 10 times,” Heywood said on “The John Curley Show.”

Let’s Go Washington’s initiative to repeal the 9.9% tax on annual individual income over $1,000,000, which was signed into law on March 30, has already garnered more than 500,000 signatures. The minimum number of signatures required to place the millionaires’ tax, Senate Bill 6346, on the ballot is 308,911.

Heywood’s goal is to surpass the state record of 699,000 signatures.

How much money has Heywood spent on fighting the millionaires’ tax

“How much money are you spending of your own?” KIRO host John Curley asked. “A referendum is a lot less expensive, right? Not as many hurdles to jump over. How much money would that have saved if it were a referendum as opposed to the initiative?”

“About a million and a half dollars,” Heywood answered. “I’ve had some people who stepped up and helped me out, which I’m enormously appreciative of. This year, I put in maybe half a million dollars, but we’ve had probably another $2.5-$3 million that’s come from other people who are sick and tired of this. Some of them have been allies with me all along, and some of them are going, ‘Yeah, I kind of feel guilty that you’re paying for all this, so let me help you out there.'”

In May, the Washington State Supreme Court blocked a referendum on the state’s new millionaires’ tax in a unanimous ruling, stating the law is necessary to support the state government and is therefore exempt from a public vote. Because of this, only an initiative with the minimum required 308,911 votes could make it onto the ballot, giving voters an opportunity to override the law.

“I think it’s pretty ballsy for him to come on and say, ‘Hey, Brian Haywood’s failing here,'” Heywood said, addressing Ferguson’s direct comments against him during his Wednesday press conference fighting against Let’s Go Washington’s initiative. “I think it’s disingenuous of Bob Ferguson to say, ‘Oh, absolutely, the voters need to have a say in this. They need to have a vote on it,’ and then to purposefully design the income tax so it avoided a referendum. It was designed to make it difficult. It was designed to get an initiative, which is harder because you have to vote yes to vote no instead of a referendum.”

Ferguson argued that the “millionaires’ tax” will create new funding for education, child care, food access, and tax credits.

“Well, Brian Hayward is spending his own money because he’s going to save so much money,” Curley joked.

“I need to make about $250 million just to break even on what I’ve spent so far,” Heywood said. “I don’t know, I’m probably the dumbest investor ever, right? If that’s what I’m doing it for, the money I’ve spent. I’ve spent over $10 million overall doing all these different initiatives.”

“Why?” Curley asked.

“I was thinking about this morning. Every morning, I go and walk my dog out around my ranch. I’ve got this beautiful ranch in the middle of Redmond,” Heywood said. “And just, the beauty of Washington state, the weather, all of that, it just hit me again for maybe the 50th time. I don’t want someone to push me out of here. I came here. I’ve lived in Washington longer than I’ve lived anywhere else in my life. I’ve never lived in one place for 16, 17 years, and this is where my kids went to school and were raised. It’s where my wife and I have made a home, and I’ve got this beautiful place. I don’t want to leave.”

Watch the full discussion in the video above.

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