OLYMPIA — Democrats control the state House and Senate, plus the governor's office and every other statewide elected position. And yet, in the legislative session that just wrapped up, they found themselves playing defense.
Even as lawmakers went about their usual routine of debating bills and budgets, six Republican-backed initiatives loomed large — including measures that would undo signature climate and tax-policy accomplishments of recent years for Gov. Jay Inslee and legislative Democrats.
After wrestling mostly behind closed doors with how to handle the elephant in the chamber, Democrats emerged to make a strategic bet.
With an eye on the November election, they split the six-initiative slate down the middle.
They enacted what they framed as the three less consequential initiatives:
— Rolling back controversial police-pursuit restrictions.
— Guaranteeing parental rights to school information.
— Banning income taxes in the state.
But Democrats dug in on the Big Three, declining to even hold public hearings on measures that would lop off billions of dollars in state tax revenues and jeopardize the programs they pay for — sending them to voters and queuing up an epic fight on the November ballot.
Now that the last gavel has fallen in Olympia for the year, Democrats and their labor and environmental allies will try to persuade the public to reject those initiatives and uphold key pillars of their policy agenda:
— A payroll tax funding a long-term care insurance benefit.
— A capital gains tax on the wealthiest investors.
— The state's landmark climate cap-and-trade law.
Inslee foreshadowed the coming campaign at a news conference after the Legislature adjourned Thursday.
"Those initiatives jointly would gut ... would kneecap, would blow a hole in all of these benefits Washingtonians are now enjoying," he said.
For a party in the minority in Olympia, Republicans were sounding pretty happy as the session wound down.
"I think we did a pretty good job this session, stopping us from continuing to go in the wrong direction," said House Republican Leader Drew Stokesbary, R-Auburn. He said the silver lining was that voters will get a shot at repealing the cap-and-trade law, which he said has driven up gas prices and other expenses, "but it's too bad the Legislature didn't repeal it ourselves."
As the 60-day session concluded on a relatively quiet note — in contrast with last year's final-day meltdown over a drug-possession law — lawmakers packed up. They left town having approved an updated budget with more spending to try to fight the state's fentanyl crisis and to shore up its behavioral health system, some new restrictions on gun dealers and owners and a retirement savings program for Washington workers who don't have access to one at their jobs.
They left behind a raft of progressive brass rings, like limiting rent increases, allowing local elections in even years and more forcefully regulating hospital mergers, exposing a divide between the more liberal and conservative wings of the Democratic majority. Democrats outnumber Republicans 58-40 in the House and 29-20 in the Senate.
Advocates for the rent measure said they would keep working on the issue as many of the state's renters struggle to stay housed.
"Inaction to address rent gouging continues racial inequities in housing and homelessness in our state," Michele Thomas, advocacy and policy director for the Washington Low Income Housing Alliance, said in a statement. "But the movement for rent stability is growing stronger every year. The problem isn't going away and neither are we."
Initiatives hung over the session
But it was the six Let's Go Washington initiatives — sponsored by state Rep. Jim Walsh, R-Aberdeen, the state GOP chair, and bankrolled largely by Redmond hedge fund manager Brian Heywood — that were the session's biggest dilemma for majority Democrats.
Depending on who you talk to, the Legislature's response was either a concession to time and political strategy, or to the citizens of Washington.
Either way, it was historic. The Legislature has never passed three initiatives in a single year in the century that Washingtonians have been petitioning their legislators to change state laws.
In the recently concluded session, on a single day, legislators agreed to pass Initiative 2111, prohibiting state and local governments from imposing an income tax; Initiative 2113, which rolled back restrictions they'd previously passed to rein in the dangers of high-speed police pursuits; and Initiative 2081, which laid out over a dozen rights for parents of public school students, including the right to access certain information about what their child is learning in school.
Headed for the November ballot are: Initiative 2124, taking aim at the long-term care insurance program and payroll tax; Initiative 2109, repealing the state's new capital gains tax; and Initiative 2117, ending the state's new climate law and carbon auction program.
"I think they did polling ... they switched from playing legislative strategy to playing electoral strategy," said Heywood, who poured more than $6 million into a paid signature-gathering campaign to get the six initiatives certified and sent to the Legislature with more than 2.6 million signatures.
Democrats have portrayed their decision to pass three of the Heywood-backed initiatives as a practical move that saved time and energy, and focused the November debate.
State Sen. Jamie Pedersen, D-Seattle, said the income tax, police pursuit and parent's bill of rights measures do not radically alter existing state law.
By choosing to clear them from the November ballot, he said, "the economic agenda of the folks who put the three tax-related ones on the ballot should be more obvious."
Still, the three measures lawmakers approved exposed internal splits in the party, with many progressive Democrats from Seattle and Tacoma voting against each of the initiatives, while suburban and swing-district lawmakers voted for them.
For Republicans, the passage of the three initiatives was viewed as an acknowledgment that Democrats know they have overreached and that voters are pushing back.
"Democrats are trying to find a way to climb down from a lot of the stuff they passed over the past three years," said state Rep. J.T. Wilcox, R-Yelm, the former House Republican leader, who is not seeking reelection this fall after serving 14 years.
Where gubernatorial candidates stand
Just as they helped define the legislative session, the three initiatives headed for the November ballot will partially shape the election in which voters also will be choosing a new governor.
The leading candidates in that race have already staked out differing positions.
Attorney General Bob Ferguson, the leading Democrat in fundraising and polls, said in a statement that he supports the Legislature's action to pass three of the initiatives and opposes the three that will appear on the fall ballot.
Ferguson said lawmakers should do more to address the short-term costs of the climate law and that he'd prefer reforms that help working and low-income households.
"Repeal only sets back critical work to protect our clean air and water and best position Washington for clean energy job growth," he said.
By contrast, state Sen. Mark Mullet, D-Issaquah, who is running as a moderate Democratic alternative to Ferguson, supports the initiative making the long-term care insurance program optional and the repeal of the capital gains tax. He says if he doesn't survive the primary for the governor's race, he would support the initiative to repeal the Climate Commitment Act.
"I feel the governor's office has a huge ability to control gas prices via the price of the carbon auctions," Mullet said in a text message Friday, saying he'd work to keep prices down if elected.
The Republicans vying for governor have supported the six initiatives.
Dave Reichert, the former congressman and sheriff who is the leading Republican candidate, thanked voters in a campaign Facebook post for signing the initiative petitions, and added: "We still need to pass the other 3 People's Initiatives in November!"
Semi Bird, a former Richland School Board member running as a conservative alternative to Reichert, also has expressed support for all the measures.
As the campaigns ramp up for November, Inslee predicted the voters who elected him three times will reject the initiatives before them, including I-2117, which would eliminate the cap-and-trade system he has long championed to cut greenhouse gases and transition to clean energy.
"I do not believe the Evergreen State wants more pollution for their children, fundamentally," he said.
Heywood said he believes Democratic leaders have grown "smug and arrogant" and "misunderestimated" the breadth of public backlash over taxes and rising gas prices and will see the results this fall.
The initiatives, he said, "have absolutely sparked a fire under people who have been depressed and not participating in the politics or participating listlessly and not having faith that something good can happen."
