Washington Public Vote on Tax Increases Initiative (2019)

Washington Public Vote on Tax Increases Initiative
Election date November 5, 2019
Topic Direct democracy measures and Taxes
Status Not on the ballot
Type State statute	Origin Citizens
List of Washington measuresWashington Initiative 976Washington Washington Referendum 88Washington Senate Joint Resolution 8200Washington Advisory Vote 20Washington Advisory Vote 21Washington Advisory Vote 22Washington Advisory Vote 23Washington Advisory Vote 24Washington Advisory Vote 25Washington Advisory Vote 26Washington Advisory Vote 27Washington Advisory Vote 28Washington Advisory Vote 29Washington Advisory Vote 30Washington Advisory Vote 31Submit

The Washington Public Vote on Tax Increases Initiative was not on the ballot in Washington as an Initiative to the People, a type of indirect initiated state statute, on November 5, 2019.

Measure design

Initiative 1648 would have required that tax increases passed by the state legislature expire after one year unless voters approve the increases as referred ballot measures.

The measure was specifically targeted toward the following 11 bills:

• House Bill 1087
• Senate Bill 5998
• Senate Bill 5993
• Senate Bill 6016
• House Bill 2167
• Senate Bill 5997
• Senate Bill 6004
• House Bill 1873
• Senate Bill 5581
• House Bill 2158
• Senate Bill 5313

Text of measure

Ballot title

Initiative 1648 ballot title
“ Initiative Measure No. 1648 concerns state taxes. This measure would require state tax increases to expire after one year unless approved by a majority vote of the people, and immediately terminate any tax increases imposed in 2019 without such approval. Should this measure be enacted into law? ”

Ballot summary

Initiative 1648 ballot summary

“ This measure would require state tax increases to expire after one year unless approved by a majority of voters at an election. Any tax increase imposed in 2019 without such approval would be terminated and expire on the effective date of this act. It would prohibit the State from collecting revenue from any tax increase terminated by this measure. It would use the term “tax increase” to trigger advisory votes. ”

Full text

The full text of Initiative 1648 is available here.

Support

Permanent Offense led the campaign in support of the initiative.

Arguments

In an interview with Dori Monson of KIRO Radio, Tim Eyman said Initiative 1648 would "put a term limit on all the new taxes [the Democratic legislature] imposed. It would allow everybody in the state of Washington to vote on November on whether or not we want to veto or stop all the tax increases they passed [in the 2019 legislative session]. There were 11 different tax increases and all of them were passed without a vote of the people. This initiative says whenever they raise taxes without a vote of the people, we're going to put it on a strict time limit."

Opposition

The Permanent Defense PAC, sponsored by the Northwest Progressive Institute, led the campaign in opposition to the measure.

Arguments

Permanent Defense wrote, "Initiative 1648 seeks to repeal all of the modest revenue reforms just enacted by the House and Senate... Since it’s trying to do two different things, it probably violates the Washington State Constitution’s single-subject rule. We assess that I-1648 is another one of Eyman’s fakes — a scam designed to part rank and file Republicans from their money."

Path to the ballot

See also: Laws governing the initiative process in Washington

The state process

In Washington, the number of signatures required to qualify a directly initiated state statute—called an Initiative to the People in Washington—for the ballot is equal to 8 percent of the votes cast for the office of governor at the last regular gubernatorial election. Initial filings for direct initiatives cannot be made more than 10 months before the general election at which their proposal would be presented to voters. Signatures must be submitted at least four months prior to the general election.

The requirements to get an Initiative to the People certified for the 2019 ballot:

• Signatures: 259,622 valid signatures were required.
• Deadline: The deadline to submit signatures was July 5, 2019.

The secretary of state verifies the signatures using a random sample method. If the sample indicates that the measure has sufficient signatures, the measure is certified for the ballot. However, if the sample indicates that the measure has insufficient signatures, every signature is checked. Under Washington law, a random sample result may not invalidate a petition.

Details about this initiative

• Tim Eyman submitted the initiative on January 7, 2019. A ballot title and summary were issued for it on January 16, 2019.
• On July 5, 2019, Eyman announced "We ended up falling short. We were just shy of 200,000 [signatures]. It was less than 30 days, we were starting from scratch, we had no money... we're going to keep on working hard, but Initiative 1648 ended up falling short and what killed us was the calendar— that's all it was."

See also

2019 measures

• 2019 ballot measures
• Direct democracy measures on the ballot
• Taxes on the ballot

Washington

• Washington ballot measures
• Washington ballot measure laws

News and analysis

• Ballot measure lawsuits
• Ballot measure readability
• Ballot measure polls