Our state’s Democratic legislators have a long list of tax dreams. It’s safe to say a state income tax is at the top of their list, even though Washington voters have repeatedly said no to one over the past 90 years.
Even so, according to recent news reports, an income tax is a hot topic of discussion among Democrats and their political allies ahead of our 2026 legislative session, which is only about six weeks away.
What’s being heard through the grapevine suggests they want a tax aimed at people designated as “high earners” based on their income level. Details are sparse other than a 9.9% rate, applied to more than 20,000 households, producing an estimated take of $3 billion to $4 billion annually.
This would fit with what we saw a year ago when our state Senate’s Democrats took a hard socialist turn and built their tax agenda around portraying successful people as villains who should be forced to pay more.
But wait – a state income tax is illegal. It has been since mid-2024, after a majority of the Legislature’s Democratic members joined every Republican to pass Initiative 2111.
The I-2111 law was created by one of the three initiatives adopted in Olympia from among the six submitted to the Legislature that year. It is very brief, containing just three sentences, and very clear.
The first sentence is all you really need: “Neither the state nor any county, city, or other local jurisdiction in the state of Washington may tax any individual person on any form of personal income.”
That’s any person. And any form of personal income. No exceptions.
Why, then, would Democrats even talk about enacting a tax that is prohibited by law? And not just any law, but one they helped to create?
Because I-2111 was passed while we were still in session, the income-tax ban has no more protection than any other law passed in Olympia. It can be changed or suspended with a simple-majority vote, and Democrats have more than enough votes.
Our majority colleagues could have lifted the income-tax ban during our 2025 session. Instead, they imposed a bundle of other tax hikes, totaling a state-record $12.5 billion over the next four years. Those are not only crippling many businesses but are even hitting our local school districts.
Scratching those tax options off their dream list has put the income tax back on the table for 2026, when Democrats will face another budget shortfall caused by their chronic overspending.
Historically, an income tax has been political dynamite in our state. The latest effort to impose one here was in 2010, through a ballot measure targeting — as is being discussed now — people with higher incomes. It failed with a 65% no vote, indicating the voters were too smart to fall for the “tax the rich” sales pitch.
Still, Democrats got away with enacting the capital-gains income tax in 2021 and expanding it earlier this year.
Will they feel emboldened enough in 2026 to kill the I-2111 ban on income taxes, then impose an income tax on a specific group of Washingtonians? You’d better believe it.
Think about that for a moment. To get more money for government, the politicians who talk incessantly about defending democracy would undermine a law created by the most direct form of democracy: Washington’s initiative process, which is the “first power” given to the people under our state constitution. Democrats should respect that rather than selectively viewing it as an obstacle.
Unfortunately, Democrats likely have little to fear from the state Supreme Court, which would end up ruling on the constitutionality of an income tax.
Just look at the 7-2 majority opinion that upheld the capital-gains income tax in 2023, which included the unfounded, jaw-dropping claim that Washington’s tax system “perpetuates systemic racism.”
On top of that, the capital-gains ruling hinted that the justices who tossed out Washington’s one and only income tax 90 years ago might have done so through an accident of history rather than a well-reasoned legal conclusion.
The surest way to block another try at an income tax is at the legislative level, so it never reaches the high court. That will require pressure, and the threat of consequences.
One of our state’s leading employers has just explained what some of those consequences could be. If Washington’s tax burden “becomes prohibitive,” Microsoft’s president said in a recent interview, companies like his will “reconsider where they put jobs.”
Ours is among nine states without a personal income tax. While Democrats dream about changing that, doing so would be a nightmare for Microsoft and many other employers.
If jobs leave our state due to a new state income tax, more of the cost of state government will fall on the working families who are left behind and already struggling to get by. It would create a downward spiral that would make living in our state even less affordable.
As I travel around our corner of the state, listening to the concerns of the people Republican state lawmakers serve, nobody comes up to me to voice their support for a state income tax — it’s just the opposite.
The more than 446,000 Washington voters who signed the petitions for I-2111 had it right. So did the majority of Democrats in the Senate and House, who agreed with Republicans that a state income tax should be illegal. Keeping it that way is how our state does better.
Sen. John Braun (R-Centralia)
Senator John Braun was first elected to the Washington State Senate in 2012 to represent Southwest Washington’s 20th Legislative District, which includes most of Cowlitz and Lewis counties along with parts of Clark and Thurston.
John is leader of the Senate Republican Caucus and a member of the Senate Ways & Means Committee, the Labor & Commerce Committee, and the Housing Committee.
Prior to his business career, John served on active duty in the U.S. Navy. He holds a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the University of Washington and master’s degrees in business administration and manufacturing engineering from the University of Michigan.
He and his family reside on a small farm in rural Lewis County, outside Centralia.
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Author: Lynnwood Times Contributor
