Just one week after Let’s Go Washington launched Initiative 645 to repeal Democrats’ new income tax, organizers say the response has been explosive — with more people requesting petitions in a shorter timeframe than any prior initiative effort.

Turns out Washingtonians don’t love being lied to.

For years, Democrats insisted they had no intention of creating a state income tax. Then the moment they secured enough power in Olympia, they did exactly that — ignoring massive public opposition while pretending the tax will somehow magically remain limited to “the rich.”

Nobody believes that.

Building Industry Association of Washington immediately joined the repeal effort, warning the tax will hammer small businesses, builders, investors, and employers across the state. Executive Vice President Greg Lane explained that many construction businesses operate through pass-through LLCs, meaning years of work can suddenly appear as one large taxable event under Democrats’ new scheme.

And once Olympia gets comfortable taxing income, conservatives know exactly what comes next: lowering the threshold until middle-class families and small businesses get dragged in too.

Because government never stops at “just this one tax.”

Lane said many Washington employers already feel like state leaders are openly hostile toward the very people creating jobs and driving the economy. That sentiment is only growing as businesses continue eyeing the exits from a state increasingly dominated by higher taxes, endless regulations, soft-on-crime policies, and ideological governance.

Americans for Prosperity says frustration is boiling over after Democrats completely ignored more than 100,000 Washingtonians who signed in opposition to the bill during legislative hearings.

One hundred thousand people objected — and Democrats passed it anyway.

That wasn’t leadership. It was arrogance.

Western Regional Director Heather Andrews warned the cumulative burden from taxes and regulations is already driving employers, investors, and entrepreneurs out of Washington. And honestly, who could blame them? At some point businesses stop trying to survive hostile government and simply leave.

Meanwhile, the legal fight is already underway. The Citizen Action Defense Fund, joined by farmers, taxpayers, and business groups, has sued the state arguing the income tax flatly violates longstanding constitutional precedent in Washington.

Which is where this gets even more concerning.

The case is almost certainly headed toward a Washington Supreme Court that Democrats are rapidly stacking with progressive appointees from Bob Ferguson — the same political machine that pushed the income tax in the first place. Conveniently, the court may now get the opportunity to “reinterpret” nearly a century of precedent standing in the way.

Funny how that timing keeps working out for Democrats.

Now the repeal initiative gives voters a chance to stop this before Washington fully transforms into the high-tax economic disaster progressives seem determined to emulate. And judging by the early momentum, a lot of Washingtonians are ready to send Olympia a message. Read more at Center Square.

The Washington State Auditor’s Office has dropped a pretty uncomfortable reality check on the agency that controls school funding across the state: the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) is running its core apportionment system on software built in 2008 — and it’s hanging together largely through institutional memory, not modern infrastructure.

That system is responsible for distributing more than $30 billion to over a million K–12 students across Washington’s school districts, charter schools, tribal schools, and service districts. In theory, it’s a precision financial engine. In practice, auditors found it looks more like a patched-together relic that only works because a handful of employees still remember how it’s supposed to behave.

Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction relies on a 17-year-old software suite that performs over a hundred layers of calculations every month to determine how money gets distributed. And despite the scale and stakes, just nine staff members are responsible for keeping the entire thing running — with no meaningful backup system of expertise if something goes wrong.

A third-party review brought the blunt assessment you’d expect from anyone looking at a system this fragile: high risk of “catastrophic failure.” Not exactly a reassuring phrase when you’re talking about the state’s primary education funding pipeline.

Even more concerning, the vendor supporting the system reportedly has only one trained employee who actually knows how to maintain it. Internally, OSPI has no staff fully trained on the core codebase. So if something breaks, the state isn’t just dealing with a tech problem — it’s dealing with a knowledge vacuum.

Auditors also flagged basic operational failures: no reliable audit trails, inability to pull historical reports, and conflicting explanations from staff about how core calculations are even performed. At one point, a failed data backup reportedly knocked multiple systems offline for days and exposed how brittle the entire setup really is.

And here’s the part that really captures Olympia’s approach to governance: OSPI’s response to many of the recommended fixes is essentially “we’ll deal with it when we replace the system,” which isn’t expected until 2028–29.

In other words, the state is acknowledging a high-risk system, admitting it lacks redundancy, and then choosing to live with it for another three years.

All of this comes as Washington policymakers continue pushing major new education spending while outcomes remain under heavy scrutiny. Critics argue it’s hard to take “we need more funding” messaging seriously when the basic infrastructure moving existing funds is one outdated server crash away from chaos.

State Auditor Pat McCarthy warned that the risks demand immediate attention, not future planning. But in typical Olympia fashion, urgency is being deferred in favor of yet another long-term modernization promise.

So for now, Washington’s education funding system remains exactly what no one should want it to be: essential, massive in scale, technically fragile, and running on software old enough to vote. Read more at Seattle Red.

Bob Ferguson formally swore in Theo Angelis this week as the newest member of the Washington Supreme Court, continuing Democrats’ quiet but aggressive effort to lock down the state’s highest court for years to come.

Angelis replaces retiring Justice Barbara Madsen and arrives on the bench with exactly the kind of résumé Olympia progressives love: elite universities, big-law credentials, activist-friendly pro bono work, and zero prior judicial experience. But apparently in Ferguson’s Washington, actually serving as a judge before joining the state Supreme Court is now just an optional detail.

During his swearing-in ceremony, Angelis promised to “re-examine, rebuild, and reform” Washington’s justice system — which is usually politician-speak for “the current system isn’t progressive enough yet.”

The timing here is hard to ignore. Democrats in Olympia just pushed through their long-desired tax on so-called “high earners,” despite Washington courts repeatedly ruling that income taxes are unconstitutional. Now the same Democrats are rapidly reshaping the very court likely to decide whether those inconvenient precedents should suddenly disappear.

Funny how that works.

Angelis joins fellow Ferguson appointee Colleen Melody on a court already dominated by liberal justices. Ferguson personally worked with both appointees before elevating them to the bench, reinforcing concerns that the court is becoming less an independent branch of government and more an extension of Democratic political power in Olympia.

And make no mistake: these races matter. The Washington Supreme Court will likely decide future battles over income taxes, redistricting, police reform laws, environmental regulations, and how much power state government can wield over taxpayers.

That’s why Angelis’ upcoming election battle matters far beyond legal circles. Former judge Dave Larson is running with support from Republicans, setting up another critical showdown over whether Washington’s courts will continue acting as a rubber stamp for progressive policy priorities.

Because if Democrats can’t get voters to approve an income tax, they seem perfectly happy trying to get judges to do it for them. Read more at the Washington State Standard.

Mike Solan won a major court battle this week after an effort to knock him off the Pierce County Council ballot failed spectacularly in court — and the whole episode sounds exactly like the kind of political games conservatives have come to expect from the Left.

Solan, a longtime Seattle police officer and former president of the Seattle Police Officers Guild, is running for the District 7 seat currently held by Democrat Robyn Denson. But before voters could even weigh in, county officials reportedly tried to yank his candidacy over residency and voter registration technicalities tied to steps he took to protect his family after the 2020 defund-the-police mob targeted his home.

Yes — the same anti-police climate Democrats helped create in Seattle forced officers like Solan to take security precautions, and now those precautions were apparently being used against him politically. What a coincidence.

Solan fought back in court, hired legal counsel, and won. A judge sided with him, his name stays on the ballot, and the dispute reportedly even forced changes to the county charter language along the way. Not exactly the slam-dunk disqualification his opponents were hoping for.

And honestly, the panic makes sense. Solan is running directly against the failed progressive governance model that has turned Seattle and King County into cautionary tales of rising crime, weak leadership, endless taxes, and government dysfunction.

Pierce County already ranks dead last in Washington for deputies per capita. Deputies are fleeing to other jurisdictions because county leadership can’t negotiate competent contracts. Entire coverage areas reportedly go without deputies at times. But instead of fixing public safety, Democrats are busy floating tax hikes that critics say could cost families nearly $1,000 more per year.

Naturally.

Solan also hammered county leaders for fiscal incompetence and infrastructure neglect, pointing to the Fox Island bridge mess as a perfect example of government failure. County officials knew for years the bridge would need replacement, failed to budget for it, and are now talking about tolls and higher costs for residents to clean up the mess.

It’s the same formula voters have watched play out across blue-run Washington: ignore problems, overspend taxpayer money, demonize police, then act shocked when services collapse and costs explode.

Now Solan says he’s running to stop Pierce County from becoming “the next King County.” Given the direction local Democrats are heading, a lot of voters may decide that warning sounds less like campaign rhetoric and more like reality. Read more at Seattle Red.

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