Washington
3 of Washington's 6 citizen initiatives will get legislative hearings
Citizen-backed changes to police pursuit, state income tax, and parental rights laws will get their moment in front of lawmakers.
Democratic leaders in both the House and the Senate announced Friday they will hold hearings on three citizen-backed initiatives, while rejecting consideration of three others.
The ones moving forward:
Senate Majority Leader Andy Billig, D-Spokane, and House Speaker Laurie Jinkins, D-Tacoma, said they will hold joint public hearings on I-2111, I-2081 and I-2113 on Feb. 27 and 28. Exact times have not yet been determined.
Previous reporting from Kate Stone: Initiative to repeal police pursuit restrictions certified
Other initiatives head straight to the ballot
The Democratic majority in both chambers confirmed the other three initiatives will not be considered. That decision fast-tracks them to the November ballot for voters to decide.
- Initiative 2117 is a repeal of the state’s controversial Climate Commitment Act (CCA) that passed in 2021 and taxes the state’s biggest polluters.
- Initiative 2109 is a repeal of what’s known as the capital gains tax. Passed three years ago, it calls for 7% on profits from the sale of some financial assets like stocks and bonds, but not real estate. The first $250,000 is exempt.
- Initiative 2124 is also known as the long-term care tax. The legislature created the program in 2019, designed to help people in Washington pay for care as they age by taking a small percentage of each paycheck for the majority of full or part-time employees, unless they have already received an exemption. This initiative would allow people to opt-out of the program, which Democrats argue is tantamount to killing it.
A total of six initiatives are certified for the general election. Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs’ office confirmed they met the threshold of valid voter signatures.
All of them are spearheaded by conservative activist group Let’s Go Washington, which raised $7 million for the effort. The group’s founder Brian Heywood is a hedge fund manager and significant Republican donor.
Earlier coverage: More on Brian Heywood and Let’s Go Washington
“The fact Democrats in the legislature have scheduled three hearings is a step in the right direction,” Heywood said in a statement sent to KIRO Newsradio Friday. “Next, they need to pass those three initiatives into law to stop an income tax, restore reasonable police pursuit, and reestablish parents as the primary stakeholders in their children’s lives.”
Notably, the three initiatives that will not receive hearings all carry significant financial implications for the future state budget and expected costs for Washington citizens. The CCA is closely tied to the state’s current future transportation projects. The capital gains tax revenue is earmarked for childcare and K-12 education funding around the state, including new construction projects. And the long-term care tax is meant to alleviate some of the state’s burden to provide for seniors, by requiring them to fund at least part of their medical needs post-retirement.
Billig and Jinkins explained their decision in a joint statement Friday:
“The three initiatives we are not taking action on would have a dire effect on the day to day lives of every single Washingtonian. These would dramatically decrease quality of life and devastate progress on K-12 education, childcare, clean air, clean water, climate action, and aging with dignity – matters that are important to people across the state.”
Chair of the Senate Transportation Committee, and fellow Democrat, Marko Liias of Edmonds, warned the stakes of repealing the CCA are particularly high. Speaking to reporters this week, Liias emphasized that eliminating the cap-and-invest program would rip a $5 billion hole in the state’s transportation budget, take away free public transit rides for young people, funding for bus routes, and more.
Jinkins said the cost of dismantling the long-term care tax is equally problematic. “That would continue to force our seniors to spend themselves into poverty,” she told reporters in Olympia this week.
By contrast, the three initiatives Democrats greenlit for hearings are largely policy changes, which would not necessarily trigger immediate financial deficits.
“The effect of the remaining three initiatives is less obvious,” Billig and Jinkins said. “Hearings will allow us to gather more information and hear from the public and others so that we can make informed decisions.”
Heywood, in his statement, questioned the Democrats’ decisions.
“At the same time, voters who signed these initiatives have been asking why only these three are getting hearings,” Heywood said. “What about the hidden gas tax, the hidden income tax, and the mandatory payroll tax? It is intriguing to me that the pet projects of (Washington Gov.) Jay Inslee and his crony union bosses won’t be getting hearings. Voters have said that all six of these issues are important, and they deserve to be heard.”
From Dave Ross: Initiatives will be the stars of November ballot
What happens during the hearings
For the three initiatives moving ahead, the joint hearing will give lawmakers an opportunity to discuss the proposals.
They have three options: Pass the initiatives as-is (with no changes) — propose an alternative version that would appear next to the initiative on the ballot — or decide to take no action following the hearing.
If any of the initiatives do not pass in their current form, they will head to the ballot. Lawmakers cannot block that, no matter what.
Republicans like Sen. Chris Gildon, R-Puyallup, say the doomsday prophecies about the initiatives’ impacts are largely overblown.
“People have heard a lot of reports from the Department of Revenue that if these initiatives pass, it will blow a hole in the budget and the sky is falling and we’re not going to be able to fund K-12,” he said Friday on an episode of “The Elephant in the Dome,” the official podcast of the Washington State Republican Caucus. “From my perspective it’s a little bit of fearmongering.”
Gildon added that top priorities will get money before other items.
“We funded K-12 education before the capital gains income tax, we’re going to continue to fund it after,” he said. “You always fund your priorities first.”
A Crosscut/Elway poll conducted before the start of the legislative session in January shed some light on voters’ opinions of the initiatives. (A PDF of the poll results and report can be viewed here.)
While the poll did not specifically ask about the initiatives, it revealed nearly two-thirds of those surveyed support eliminating restrictions on when police can engage in pursuits of a suspected criminal.
An almost equal percentage said the supported giving parents the ability to review public school textbooks, obtain discipline records and opt their children out of sexual education courses.
A combined 57% favored repealing the state’s capital gains tax. The poll did not address the topics of state income or long-term care taxes, or the CCA’s future.
Regardless of the outcome of the hearings, all six measures are likely to take center stage in what could become a long political fight throughout the year.
“Washington voters will hear a lot between now and November on any initiatives that end up on the ballot,” Jinkins and Billig said. “It will be up to them to decide what sort of state they want to live in.”
WILLIAMSPORT, MD (June 12, 2026) – The Washington County Highway Department announces an upcoming road closure on Bottom Road between the Tannery and the railroad tracks at the Quarry from Monday, June 15, 2026 through Wednesday, June 17, 2026 between 7:30 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. daily.
We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and appreciate your understanding. Alternative routes will be available for motorists.
For further information, please contact Washington County’s Public Relations and Marketing Department at [email protected].
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President Donald Trump threatened D.C. home rule when asked Thursday about the race for D.C. mayor.
In the Oval Office Thursday, Trump warned if Janeese Lewis George wins next week’s Democratic primary and becomes D.C.’s next mayor, the federal government could take over the nation’s capital.
“Well, I wouldn’t like it, and maybe we’d take back Washington and run it on the federal basis,” Trump said. “We won’t put up with it. We’re not going to lose our businesses. By the way, Washington, now, is a safe, beautiful place.”
“People are coming; restaurants are thriving,” the president added. “The restaurants were all closing, closed. Nobody wanted. Now you can’t get restaurant space, you can’t get into. We have a thriving community; we got rid of the crime.”
The president suggested his administration could take over D.C. if Janeese Lewis George wins the mayor’s race.
Trump was responding to a reporter asking about Lewis George running a “Zohran Mamdani campaign,” in reference to New York City’s mayor, that focuses on “socialist” policies.
“We are not going to get ICE off our streets by fearing this president,” Lewis George said in a statement. “We are not going to protect our rights or Home Rule by obeying in advance.
“Threatening Home Rule because you do not like how residents vote is an attack on democracy itself,” she said.
News4’s Mark Segraves hosted a conversation Thursday between D.C. mayoral candidates Janeese Lewis George and Kenyan McDuffie. NBC4 selected the participants based on publicly available polling.
The campaign for Kenyan McDuffie, Lewis George’s main competition in Tuesday’s primary, released a statement saying, “The stakes of this election couldn’t be higher, but DC decides who will be the next mayor, not Donald Trump.”
The statement defended home rule and noted overreach by the Trump administration, promising to “revive our economy that Trump’s policies have decimated, including the tens of thousands of residents who have been laid off by his unconscionable actions with Elon Musk.”
The president’s comments insinuated threats to D.C. he’s made dating back two years to his campaign.
Mayor Muriel Bowser has tried to keep the Trump administration at bay, but Trump did federalize the Metropolitan Police Department, deploy the National Guard in the city and establish the Safe and Beautiful Task Force.
Trump needs Congress to overturn home rule in the District, and at least through 2026, Republicans control the House and Senate, which have shown willingness to interfere in D.C.
News4 sends breaking news stories by email. Go here to sign up to get breaking news alerts in your inbox.
It’s been two weeks since Washington’s worst industrial accident in nearly a century. More than a half-million gallons of a caustic liquid known as white liquor flooded through the Nippon Dynawave pulp mill in Longview after a storage tank imploded. Eleven people were killed. As the investigations continue, KUOW’s environment reporter John Ryan has been looking into chemical safety at other Washington pulp mills.
This interview has been edited for clarity.
Kim Malcolm: You found three other paper mills in Washington that use the same white liquor chemical stew that killed workers at the Nippon Dynawave mill. Tell us about them.
John Ryan: There are two other mills in Longview. There’s the Smurfit Westrock mill and the North Pacific Paper Company (NORPAC) mill. Then there’s one in Port Townsend called the Port Townsend Paper Company mill. I asked each mill how much white liquor they have, how they store it, and what, if any, safety measures they’ve taken in the wake of the Nippon Dynawave disaster. The Smurfit Westrock mill in Longview declined to comment. The NORPAC and the Port Townsend mills didn’t reply to my requests at all.
How concerned should people living near these mills be about the chemicals there?
The main risk is to workers inside these plants. Even this Nippon Dynawave disaster, the worst in nearly a century, had minimal, I would say, environmental impacts beyond the boundaries of the plant.
There were some fish killed in a ditch outside the Longview plant, but the vast majority of those fish killed were actually introduced or invasive species, so, kind of a small environmental benefit, if you will. But it is hard to say how much of a risk these above-ground tanks of white liquor pose because there’s little information about them.
They’re not very tightly regulated, unlike underground tanks and unlike containers of other types of hazardous materials. I spoke with Marissa Baker, a professor of occupational health and hygiene at the University of Washington:
“The federal or state agencies would not have kind of purview on inspecting, maintaining the tank. Is it structurally sound? Is it being cleaned as it should? That’s going to really fall on the employer.”
While these tanks aren’t tightly regulated, Baker makes the point that our state constitution does require every worker to have a safe workplace, and that was clearly not the case at Nippon Dynawave when multiple workers were killed on the job.
Wouldn’t people in communities like Port Townsend and Longview have the right to know what is being done to keep people and workers safe?
Well, these mills are private businesses, and generally what they do is private information. But when you’re dealing with large amounts of hazardous materials, federal law says the public does have a right to know what’s going on there and what’s being done to keep the community safe.
Once a year, these mills are required to disclose how much hazardous material they have on-hand and how they store it, and they’re supposed to make that information publicly available. You might think this would end up on a website somewhere that anybody could just search for and find, but that’s not the case.
You have to file a public records request to get this information. I did that with the counties and the state to get this information. This morning, Cowlitz County told me they found the records I requested, but they couldn’t send them to me yet. They’re giving the mills two weeks to seek a court order to prohibit disclosure of these records, and that’s even though the federal Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act says those reports must be available to the public. Again, the public does have a right to know.
That Community Right-to-Know Act also requires the mills and local governments to have plans for what to do if they do have a hazardous material spill. The local emergency planning committees in the mill counties are having their first meetings since the Nippon Dynawave disaster coming up very soon. If people want to try to find out more in person, the emergency planning committee for Cowlitz and Wahkiakum counties is meeting tomorrow [Thursday] afternoon. For Port Townsend, in Jefferson County, there’s a meeting in July.
Listen to the interview by clicking the play button above.
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