With just nine days left in the 2026 legislative session, Democrats’ long-promised 9.9% income tax on earnings above $1 million appears to be sputtering before it even reaches the House floor.

Reports surfaced Tuesday that Gov. Bob Ferguson has been telling political donors that if lawmakers can’t “get it just right” this year, they may come back next session to finish the job. Translation: the votes might not be there.

The bill, Senate Bill 6346, already passed the Senate, but things started unraveling after the House amended the legislation and stripped out tax breaks for large corporations. That move immediately turned some previously neutral tech leaders into vocal critics.

A group of prominent tech executives — including Allen Institute founding CEO Oren Etzioni, Read AI CEO David Shim, and former Microsoft AI vice president Luis Vargas — sent a letter warning the tax could undermine Washington’s tech sector.

Even some Democrats now appear nervous about the political fallout.

According to House Republican and state GOP chair Jim Walsh, the bill’s biggest problem is structural: Washington’s constitution doesn’t allow a graduated income tax.

“The fatal flaw… is that it doesn’t include a constitutional amendment,” Walsh said. “Without amending Article VII, they’ve got a dead fish in their bowl.”

Behind the scenes, Walsh says the real drama is happening within the Democratic caucus itself, with moderates pushing alternative proposals that would let voters decide first.

“Right now, all the negotiation, all the panic, all the neurosis, is amongst the Democrats,” Walsh said. “They’re all trying to figure out how to put some more lipstick on this pig and make it less horrible.”

Meanwhile, the business community is sending a different message altogether: companies are already considering leaving.

Rep. April Connors pointed to polling from the Association of Washington Business showing one in two businesses are thinking about exiting the state — taking jobs and tax revenue with them.

And the timing couldn’t be more ironic.

The same day the income-tax drama intensified in Olympia, Tennessee announced that Seattle-based Starbucks is expanding operations in Nashville, with state leaders proudly touting their pro-business, fiscally conservative policies.

In other words, while Olympia debates how to squeeze more out of employers, other states are busy rolling out the welcome mat.

For Democrats, the income tax may be stalled for now.

But judging by Ferguson’s comments, the plan isn’t dead — it’s just waiting for another legislative session to try again. Read more at Center Square.

Seattle’s political leadership loves to brag about their “progressive” policies. Apparently, as previously mentioned, major employers aren’t quite as impressed.

Starbucks — the global coffee giant born and headquartered in Seattle — just announced it’s expanding its corporate operations to Nashville, Tennessee. Tennessee officials proudly rolled out the welcome mat, touting the state’s fiscally conservative policies and pro-business environment as a big reason companies keep showing up.

Imagine that: lower taxes, fewer regulatory headaches, and leaders who actually want businesses around. Revolutionary concept.

To be clear, Starbucks says Seattle will remain its headquarters. But the expansion follows a familiar pattern. Companies that once planted deep roots in Washington are increasingly spreading operations to states that don’t treat employers like an ATM with legs.

And Starbucks has already been quietly shrinking its retail footprint in Washington. By late 2025, the company had closed 31 locations across the state, including eight in Seattle, eliminating 369 retail jobs along the way.

Of course, none of this will cause Olympia Democrats to pause their relentless push for higher taxes, new regulations, and creative ways to squeeze employers even harder. If anything, they’ll probably declare it proof that businesses should be taxed more before they leave.

Meanwhile, Tennessee keeps doing something Washington’s leadership seems allergic to: making it easier — not harder — to create jobs.

At this rate, Seattle may soon need a new export category: Fortune 500 companies fleeing bad policy. Read more at MyNorthwest.com.

Every legislative session in Washington has a few headline-grabbing battles that consume the public’s attention. This year, it’s Democrats pushing a “millionaires’ tax” (an unconstitutional state income tax) and a scheme to strip authority from elected county sheriffs and hand it to an unelected state board.

Those proposals have sparked fierce opposition — and for good reason.

But as Marsha Michaelis, a research fellow with the Discovery Institute’s Fix Homelessness initiative, points out in a recent op-ed, while citizens focus on those high-profile fights, hundreds of other bills quietly move through Olympia with far less scrutiny.

And many of them are just as bad.

Michaelis notes that 300–400 new laws are typically passed each year, raising an obvious question: do Washington residents really need hundreds of new government mandates annually?

She argues the answer is no — echoing the 19th century economist Frédéric Bastiat, who warned that laws are often driven by “stupid greed and false philanthropy.”

One example is House Bill 2266, which would override local zoning rules and force cities and counties to allow public housing projects in virtually any residential neighborhood.

Supporters claim local governments are unfairly blocking these developments. But Michaelis argues communities often resist them for a simple reason: many of these facilities have become magnets for crime, addiction, and disorder when they are built without meaningful accountability standards.

The problem, she writes, stems from a “housing first” philosophy that prioritizes permanent housing without requirements for sobriety, treatment, or recovery-based case management.

That approach, Michaelis argues, ignores a basic truth about human behavior: structure and accountability help people succeed.

“Why treat homeless people as if they don’t have the same ability as everyone else to make consequence-based decisions?” she asks.

Michaelis also raises uncomfortable questions about the financial incentives surrounding the homelessness industry.

For example, she notes that Seattle’s Plymouth Housing paid its top eight employees a combined $2.3 million in salary and benefits in 2024, while the CEO of Catholic Charities of Eastern Washington reportedly collected two separate compensation packages totaling roughly $600,000 from affiliated nonprofits.

Organizations running these programs also control millions of dollars in taxpayer-subsidized real estate, which inevitably raises eyebrows about whether some of the push for new housing mandates is driven by compassion — or something else.

HB 2266 is only one of hundreds of bills advancing in Olympia this year.

But Michaelis says it illustrates a larger problem: while the public focuses on the big political fights, lawmakers quietly pass a steady stream of laws that reshape communities — often without voters realizing it until the consequences arrive.

The 2026 legislative session ends March 12, and Michaelis urges Washington residents who oppose HB 2266 to contact their state senators before it’s too late.

As she suggests, the biggest danger in Olympia isn’t always the bad ideas everyone sees.

It’s the ones slipping through while no one is looking. Read more at Center Square.

A legal fight is brewing after Washington’s Democrat-controlled Legislature denied press credentials to journalists Brandi Kruse, Jonathan Choe, and Ari Hoffman during the final days of the legislative session.

The Citizen Action Defense Fund (CADF) has now filed an emergency temporary restraining order in federal court, arguing the Legislature’s credentialing system violates both the U.S. and Washington constitutions.

Why? Because lawmakers are allegedly using vague, unpublished standards — along with recommendations from a private organization — to decide which journalists are allowed to cover the House floor.

In other words: if you’re part of the approved media club, welcome aboard. If you’re an independent reporter asking uncomfortable questions, enjoy watching from the hallway.

According to the lawsuit, the system enables viewpoint-based discrimination, delegates government authority to a private gatekeeper, and provides no meaningful due process for journalists who are denied access.

CADF Executive Director and lead counsel Jackson Maynard put it bluntly:
“Freedom of the press is not subject to unpublished standards or private gatekeeping.”

The timing is also notable. Just days before a March 6 hearing in Thurston County Superior Court, defendants moved the case to federal court in Tacoma, cancelling the state court proceeding and forcing a new legal timeline as the Legislature races toward adjournment.

Now a federal judge will decide whether the journalists receive emergency credentials so they can cover the closing days of session.

The irony here is thick enough to spread on toast. Democrats have spent years insisting local journalism is in crisis and pushing proposals to subsidize newsrooms with taxpayer money.

Apparently the principle is simple:
Journalism is vital to democracy — unless the journalists don’t vote the right way. Read more at Seattle Red.

King County Councilmember Reagan Dunn is warning that the region’s sanctuary policies may be doing more than scoring political points — they could be creating real national security risks.

Speaking on The Jason Rantz Show on Seattle Red 770 AM, Dunn said he’s deeply concerned that the Puget Sound region may be less safe right now, particularly given heightened international tensions involving Iran.

“I don’t want to cause panic, but I’m concerned that we are less safe domestically right now,” Dunn said.

That warning carries weight. Before serving on the council, Dunn worked in a federal terrorism unit with top-secret clearance, where he tracked threats from groups like Hezbollah and Hamas. Based on that experience, he believes the current environment demands far greater vigilance, especially in regions like Puget Sound with major infrastructure and proximity to an international border.

But Dunn says local policies are getting in the way.

King County’s sanctuary-style rules limit cooperation with federal immigration authorities, creating what Dunn describes as dangerous gaps in coordination. At a time when intelligence agencies are warning about rising global tensions, he argues local leaders should be strengthening partnerships with federal law enforcement — not undermining them.

Instead, Democrats on the council appear focused on something else entirely.

Councilmember Teresa Mosqueda has proposed blocking the construction or expansion of detention facilities in unincorporated King County — legislation Dunn dismissed as “performative politics.”

According to Dunn, the proposal targets a phantom problem while ignoring the real one: ensuring the region’s security infrastructure works with, rather than against, federal authorities.

“The federal government’s purview is to handle immigration,” Dunn noted. “It’s not the local government’s purview or legality to block it.”

Dunn also pointed out that the Puget Sound region has long been viewed as a potential target, recalling past plots such as the foiled plan to attack the Space Needle on New Year’s Eve.

His bottom line: putting ideological sanctuary policies ahead of security coordination is a “recipe for disaster.”

Unfortunately, in King County politics, virtue signaling often seems to take priority over vigilance. Read more at Seattle Red.

In what parents’ rights advocates are calling a major win, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to block a lower-court ruling that struck down California school policies requiring staff to hide student gender identity changes from parents.

The lower court found those secrecy policies likely violate both the First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause and the 14th Amendment’s Due Process protections — a serious constitutional rebuke to the growing trend of schools cutting parents out of major decisions about their own children.

The case, Mirabelli v. Bonta, was brought by teachers and parents who challenged rules that prohibited school staff from informing parents if a child changed their gender identity at school without consent.

In a 6–3 decision, the Supreme Court allowed the injunction against the policy to stand, reversing a Ninth Circuit ruling that had previously allowed the secrecy policy to continue.

Parents’ rights advocates say the implications for Washington state are obvious.

The problem? Olympia Democrats have been moving in the exact opposite direction.

Last year, lawmakers passed House Bill 1296, which rewrote the voter-approved Parents’ Bill of Rights (Initiative 2081) after Democrats argued parts of the initiative conflicted with privacy laws. The bill was quickly signed by Gov. Bob Ferguson, effectively weakening the protections voters had just approved.

Critics say Washington’s policies are nearly identical to the California rules the courts just rejected.

David Spring of the Washington Parents Network didn’t mince words.

“Since Washington state has laws that force teachers to lie to parents that are identical to the unconstitutional California laws, it would be reasonable to conclude that the Washington anti-parent laws are just as unconstitutional,” Spring said.

But don’t expect Olympia to reverse course anytime soon.

Spring says he doubts either Gov. Ferguson or State Superintendent Chris Reykdal will change policy — despite the Supreme Court’s ruling.

“We believe that both will continue to violate parental rights and continue to violate the U.S. Constitution,” he said.

The decision could still have major legal consequences in Washington.

Jackson Maynard, executive director of the Citizen Action Defense Fund, says the ruling could strengthen CADF’s ongoing legal challenge to HB 1296, filed in Thurston County Superior Court.

According to Maynard, the Supreme Court’s reasoning is directly relevant to Washington’s own policies that restrict what schools can tell parents about their children.

In other words, the legal fight may just be getting started.

The bigger question now isn’t whether parents have constitutional rights.

It’s whether Olympia Democrats are willing to acknowledge them. Read more at Center Square.

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