Washington voters will decide this November whether to repeal Democrats’ new 9.9% income tax. But state officials apparently do not want voters to make that decision without a government-written warning about the consequences of repeal.

Initiative 645 would repeal Washington’s new 9.9% tax on individual and household wage income above $1 million and prohibit state and local governments from imposing taxes on individual income.

The tax does not take effect until 2028, with payments beginning in 2029. Yet the state-mandated disclosure accompanying I-645 – written by the Democrat attorney general – will tell voters that repeal “would decrease funding for public K-12 education, higher education (including universities and community colleges), and human services (primarily healthcare).”

In other words, Washington officials are warning voters about decreased funding from repealing a tax that has not collected a single dollar.

Video from the hearing shows Judge Chris Lanese defending the disclosure by arguing that voters considering tax cuts should see “both sides of the ledger” and warning of a potential “downward regressive spiral” in Washington’s tax system.

That language has been at the center of a legal fight over how far state government can go in shaping the presentation of a citizen initiative.

Open-government advocate Arthur West filed suit in Thurston County Superior Court against Secretary of State Steve Hobbs and Attorney General Nick Brown, seeking to block the patently false “public investment impact disclosure” from appearing alongside I-645.

West, who represented himself as a citizen and not the Let’s Go Washington campaign championing the repeal, challenged the public investment impact disclosure requirement itself. He argued that the state had no right to interfere with the people’s independently reserved initiative power by attaching government-written messaging to a citizen initiative after voters had completed the petition process.

Under Article II, Section 1 of the Washington Constitution, voters reserve the power to propose and enact laws independently of the Legislature. West, who signed and circulated I-645, argued that after citizens completed the petition process, state officials had no authority to alter the initiative’s ballot presentation with government-written messaging.

West called the disclosure a “government edit to a document the government had no further authority to touch.”

Judge Chris Lanese ultimately rejected West’s challenge, allowing the disclosure requirement to stand. The ruling means voters will still encounter the state’s warning about decreased education, higher education, and healthcare funding when considering I-645.

But Judge Lanese’s ruling went far beyond West’s limited challenge on the government’s right to alter the presentation of the ballot measure. Lanese also preempted a separate legal challenge from Let’s Go Washington, the group running the repeal campaign, who were set to appear before the court in a separate hearing later that afternoon. Their independent effort challenged the language itself as biased under RCW 29A.72.027, the 2022 law requiring certain tax-related initiatives to carry a government-written “public investment impact disclosure.”

That same law requires the Attorney General to use “neutral language that cannot reasonably be expected to create prejudice for or against the measure.” Calling the repeal of a tax that has never collected a dime a “decrease” in funding certainly raises questions about that neutrality.

West’s case was never intended to address the question of bias. But Judge Lanese used the hearing to address the language itself and preemptively ruled that it was acceptable – leaving the Let’s Go Washington campaign with no opportunity to make its own case before the court on the question of neutrality.

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

Lanese’s ruling amounts to legislating from the bench. He warned of a potential “downward regressive spiral” if voters repealed the income tax and argued that voters should see “both sides of the ledger.” But both sides already have an equal opportunity to make their case. Supporters of I-645 can argue that Washington does not need a new income tax, while opponents can argue that repeal would mean less money for government programs. Those arguments belong in the campaign, not in a government-written disclosure presented to voters as neutral. The state should not get to put one side of the debate directly on the ballot while leaving the other side to make its case on its own.

Florida recently dealt with a similar issue. A judge ordered the state to rewrite the title and summary of Amendment 3, a property tax measure originally titled “Save Our Homes From Excessive Property Taxes.” The judge found that the wording was not neutral and sounded more like a political slogan. Ballot language should tell voters what a measure does, not tell them how to feel about it.

More than 511,000 Washingtonians signed petitions to put I-645 before voters. They should be able to decide whether Washington needs a new income tax without the state government putting its thumb on the scale by warning that repeal means less money for schools and healthcare.

And Washingtonians should not be fooled by efforts to brand this merely as a tax on millionaires. Once an income-tax infrastructure exists, lawmakers can lower the threshold, raise the rate, and expand the tax to more families.

I-645 gives voters the opportunity to stop Washington’s new income tax before it ever collects a dime.