Washington State Republican Party Files Amicus Brief
Yesterday the Washington State Republican Party (WAGOP) filed an amicus brief in support of the Let’s Go Washington (LGW) legal challenge to the Public Investment Impact Disclosure (PIID) prepared by WA State Attorney General Nick Brown for the November 2026 ballot measure.
In a press release, the WAGOP reinforced that the AG’s PIID misleads voters and distorts the original purpose of the disclosure requirement.
“The people’s initiative to repeal the Ferguson-Pedersen state income tax scheme does NOT ‘decrease funding for public K-12 education, higher education and human services.’ This is a false statement, designed to confuse voters. In the interest of all Washingtonians, we can’t allow these intentionally misleading ballot statements to continue,” said WAGOP Chairman Jim Walsh.
July 28, LGW, sponsors of Initiative IP26-645, sued in Thurston County Superior Court to formally challenge the AG’s PIID. LGW’s legal counsel argues that the AG’s disclosure misrepresents the impacts of repealing the income tax because a repeal would increase state funding in the current budget, rather than decrease it, as the AG suggests. Additionally, the PIID misstates the top three categories of state services funded by the general fund in the current state budget. The PIID as currently written is inaccurate and would mislead voters.
The PIID isn’t meant to speculate about what might happen down the road; it’s supposed to tell voters what a law actually does to the budget in the current budget. But this tax doesn’t start collecting until 2029. Not a single dollar has been collected yet, so it cannot decrease funding.
“You can’t cut money that doesn’t exist. The Attorney General’s PIID is not just misleading; it’s factually incorrect,” said Brian Heywood, founder of Let’s Go Washington. “I-645 does not decrease funding at all in the current budget cycle, in fact it increases funding by returning millions of taxpayer dollars that would’ve been spent setting up an income tax bureaucracy and defending an unconstitutional income tax against legal challenges.“
Brown’s office PIID states the measure “would decrease funding for public K-12 education, higher education (including universities and community colleges), and human services (primarily healthcare).”
The statement “must be corrected” because that is the only effect that the initiative would have on the current state budget, wrote Callie Castillo, attorney for LGW.
The initiative seeks to repeal the state’s newly enacted 9.9% tax on individual income above $1 million (created by Dems’ ESSB 6346) before it takes effect.
Of Note: The Wall Street Journal editorial board is blistering the WA AG, also accusing him of writing deliberately misleading ballot language designed to sink the voter initiative that would repeal the state’s new income tax! “Democrats are trying to deceive voters because they know that raising income taxes isn’t popular. Many voters for good reason don’t buy their promises that their ‘millionaire’s tax’ won’t be extended to them. That’s the history of income taxes. Democrats inevitably seek to soak the middle class because that’s where the money is,” the editorial wrote.
July 2, LGW turned in over 511,000 signatures to repeal the Democrats’ unconstitutional income tax. The effort far surpassed the required threshold of 308,911 valid signatures needed to qualify the citizens’ initiative for the Nov 2026 ballot. It is even more impressive that the feat was accomplished in only 51 days!
A parallel lawsuit filed July 24, 2026, by open-government activist Arthur West, also filed in Thurston County Superior Court, more broadly contests the constitutionality of the PIID statute itself as an improper government insertion into the citizen initiative process.
The cases are pending in Thurston County Superior Court, with a hearing in the West matter scheduled for August 7, 2026, and the LGW challenge subject to an expedited timeline; any superior court ruling can be appealed directly to the Washington Supreme Court.
Final ballot language must be settled before August 21, when materials for the November 3 election are finalized, creating a tight window for resolution.
Remember to vote YES in November on Initiative IP26-645 to repeal the Democrats' shady state income tax scheme!
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