If you ever wondered whether Washington Democrats stumbled into a constitutional crisis… they didn’t. They planned it.
Newly surfaced records—nearly 1,000 pages’ worth—show direct coordination between the Washington Attorney General’s Office and Democratic lawmakers to craft the state’s new income tax in a way that would force a legal challenge. Not avoid one. Not withstand one. Force one.
Let that sink in.
According to reporting tied to public records requests, attorneys under Attorney General Bob Ferguson worked alongside State Senator Jamie Pedersen to deliberately structure the so-called “millionaires tax” as a test case aimed squarely at overturning long-standing constitutional precedent.
That precedent? It’s not obscure.
Washington’s Constitution treats income as property under Article VII, Section 1—a principle reinforced by the state Supreme Court in the 1933 case Culliton v. Chase. That ruling has blocked income taxes for nearly a century unless they are uniform (which a progressive income tax, by definition, is not).
So instead of working within the law—or, say, asking voters to amend the Constitution—Democrats appear to have chosen a different strategy: build a legally questionable tax and dare the courts to stop them.
Or better yet, hope the courts rewrite the rules.
Emails and internal communications reportedly show this wasn’t some side conversation—it was central to the bill’s design. The goal wasn’t just revenue. It was judicial provocation.
That helps explain a lot.
It explains why the bill relies on federal adjusted gross income (AGI), pulling in everything from wages to retirement income to small business earnings. It explains why it was passed in the final chaotic hours of session after a marathon debate. And it explains why lawmakers slapped on a “necessity clause”—a maneuver that conveniently blocks voters from challenging the law through a referendum.
Because when you’re trying to force a court case, the last thing you want is voters getting in the way.
And voters were trying. A referendum effort backed by Let’s Go Washington was quickly shut down by Secretary of State Steve Hobbs, citing that same necessity clause—triggering yet another legal battle, this time over whether the clause was even valid.
So now, Washington finds itself in a legal pileup entirely of its own making:
- A constitutional challenge over the income tax itself
- A separate fight over whether voters were illegally blocked from weighing in
- And a growing body of evidence suggesting state officials knowingly engineered the whole mess
All while insisting, publicly, that everything is perfectly normal.
Democrats argue this is about “modernizing” the tax code or making the system more “equitable.” But internal documents tell a different story—one where the law isn’t the boundary, it’s the obstacle.
And obstacles, apparently, are meant to be bulldozed.
The bigger question isn’t just whether the courts will uphold the tax. It’s whether Washington residents are comfortable with a government that treats the Constitution like a suggestion—and litigation as a policy tool.
Because this wasn’t an accident.
It was a strategy.
