Two lawsuits filed within days of each other are now fighting over a single sentence: how Washington describes what happens to state spending if voters repeal the state's new tax on income above $1 million.
The Fifteen Words Both Sides Are Fighting Over Washington law requires the Attorney General's office to draft a "public investment impact disclosure" for any initiative that would meaningfully change state spending, and to attach it to the ballot title voters see.
It is not the first time this statute has faced a court challenge.
Let's Go Washington began circulating repeal petitions almost immediately, submitting more than 511,000 raw signatures to the Secretary of State on July 6 against a requirement of roughly 300,000 valid ones.
Ferguson, who has staked real political capital defending the threshold, has said he "would veto any legislative action that lowered the threshold below the million dollars," a preemptive line drawn against future legislative tinkering regardless of how the repeal vote goes.
An initiative signer and the repeal campaign itself have both sued over 15 words the state attached to Washington's I-645 income tax repeal, with a hearing set for Aug. 7.