VOTE YES. YES. YES.
One ballot, three yeses: the initiatives, the Supreme Court, and every Republican running for the Legislature in your district.
Initiative
to the People
Keep Washington income tax free.
On March 30, 2026, Gov. Ferguson signed ESSB 6346, a 9.9% tax on income above a $1 million standard deduction. It takes effect January 1, 2028. Not one dollar has been collected yet. Initiative 645 makes sure none ever is.
"It's only on income over a million dollars. Why should I care?"
Because that is the exact sentence Washington heard in 2021, about a different tax, and the number moved anyway. Read the four reasons. The argument for 645 is not that the tax hits you today. It's that the threshold is a number in a statute, and the Legislature has already shown what it does with those.
We have watched this exact movie
2021: a 7% capital gains tax on gains over $250,000, sold as touching 0.2% of taxpayers. 2023: the Supreme Court upholds it in Quinn v. State by calling it an excise tax. 2025: the Legislature stacks on a 2.9% surcharge (simple majority, no public vote), taking it to 9.9%. 2026: a brand-new income tax arrives at exactly 9.9%.
The threshold is a statute, not a promise
The $1 million standard deduction is a number in a bill, adjusted only every two years. Changing it takes the same simple majority that already moved the capital gains rate. Nothing in the law requires a vote of the people to lower it, and nothing stops the next Legislature from doing it.
It taxes marriage
Married couples share one $1 million deduction. Two single people earning $600,000 each owe nothing. The same two people, married, report $1.2 million against a single deduction and owe 9.9% on $200,000. That is $19,800 for signing a marriage license.
Washington has answered this ten times already
Voters have been asked about a state income tax eleven times since 1932. They have rejected it ten times, under every kind of economy and both parties. A yes on 645 makes it eleven, and this time it closes the door behind it.
The argument printed on your ballot, answered honestly
Your ballot will carry a public investment impact disclosure from the Attorney General: repeal is estimated to cost about $16.6 billion through 2032, and may void the capital gains tax, roughly $500 million a year, most of it for K-12.
Most of that $16.6 billion is a forecast of money the state has never collected. The income tax does not take effect until January 2028, and no one has paid a cent of it. The capital gains exposure is real, but it exists because the Legislature chose to stack a brand-new income tax on top of a tax the courts only upheld by agreeing to call it something else. That is an argument about how Olympia built this. It is not a reason to accept a tax voters have rejected ten times.
Initiative
to the Legislature
Girls' sports, for girls.
445,187 Washingtonians signed to put this on the ballot. The Legislature had a full session to act on it and adjourned without holding a vote. So it comes to you.
- Initiative filed
- 445,187 signatures submitted
- Certified and sent to the Legislature
- Legislature adjourns without acting, so it goes to the voters
- You decide
The category exists for a reason
We do not have a girls' division because girls need a smaller trophy. We have one because, without it, the results table stops reflecting how hard anyone worked. That was the whole bargain when Title IX opened school sports to girls: a category of their own, and a real shot at winning it.
Finals, records, and rosters are finite
A state final has eight lanes. A podium has three places. A varsity roster has a last spot. Every one of them that goes to an athlete competing outside the category is one a girl trained years for and does not get back.
The Legislature had its chance
Nearly half a million signatures put this in front of lawmakers in January. They let the clock run out in March. Whatever you think of the policy, the people who signed earned a decision, and this is the only way they get one.
It settles a rule schools are guessing at
Right now the standard varies by association guidance and by district. One clear, statewide rule tells every athletic director, coach, and family the same thing before the season starts, instead of after a protest is filed.
The strongest objection, stated fairly
Opponents argue the verification requirement is intrusive, that it puts a medical question between a kid and a tryout, and that in practice it risks outing transgender students, including students nobody was asking about.
That is a serious concern and it deserves a serious answer: the measure asks for a provider's statement of eligibility, not a public record and not a disclosure to classmates, and schools already handle sports physicals under medical privacy. But a yes here is a judgment that a category with a clear rule is worth more to the girls competing in it than an unwritten one that gets argued out after the race is over.
Initiative
to the Legislature
Give parents their law back.
In March 2024, the Parents' Bill of Rights passed the Washington House 82 to 15 and the Senate 49 to 0. Not one senator, of either party, voted against it. Fourteen months later the Legislature rewrote it on a party-line vote. Initiative 001 puts it back the way it passed.
- I-2081 passes the House 82 to 15 and the Senate 49 to 0
- The Parents' Bill of Rights takes effect
- Gov. Ferguson signs HB 1296, rewriting it on a party-line vote
- I-001 certified with 400,000+ signatures, sent to the Legislature
- No hearing held. It goes to the voters
Every senator voted for it. All forty-nine
Every Democrat and every Republican in the state Senate voted for this law. You will not find many bills in Olympia that can say that. Whatever changed between March 2024 and May 2025, it was not the merits.
Citizens put it there; the Legislature took it out
I-2081 reached lawmakers because more than 400,000 people signed for it. When the Legislature adopts an initiative it can amend it later by simple majority, and in 2025 it did. I-001 is voters saying: we meant the version we signed.
The rights at stake are ordinary ones
Look at the actual list. See the textbook. Read the curriculum. Get your kid's academic and medical records. Be told when something serious happens. Opt out of sex-ed. None of this is exotic. Most parents assume they already have all of it.
Good schools want parents in the loop
Teachers do not benefit from a system that keeps families guessing. A clear statutory floor for what parents can see and when they get told protects the schools too. It replaces an argument about what a district should have shared with a rule about what it does.
YES to independent judges
The court decides what the rest of it means.
Washington's Supreme Court is where every one of these measures ends up. The capital gains tax survived in 2023 because seven justices agreed to call an income tax an excise tax. Five of the nine seats are on your ballot, and unlike everything else on it, these races carry no party label at all.
Why does a nonpartisan race belong on a partisan guide?
Because judicial races are the ones voters skip most, and they are decided by whoever is left paying attention. Supreme Court candidates run with no party next to their name, which is exactly why a name you have never seen wins a statewide seat with a fraction of the ballots cast. These five are the ones we think will read the law as written. You are free to disagree; just do not leave the lines blank.
YES to the Legislature
Every YES needs someone to defend it.
Initiatives can be amended by the same Legislature that ignored them. I-2081 passed unanimously and was rewritten in fourteen months. The only thing that makes a yes stick is who you send to Olympia to defend it.
We'll make sure your ballot counts.
Ballots mail about three weeks before Election Day, and every year thousands go unsigned, unstamped, or left on a kitchen counter past the deadline. Three boxes and we'll make sure yours is not one of them.
All three fields are required.
You're on the list.
We'll be in touch when ballots drop. In the meantime, the fastest thing you can do is check your registration and send this to three people who agree with you.
Make sure your YES counts.
Check your registration
Ballots mail about three weeks before Election Day. Moved, changed your name, or not sure you're still active? Two minutes, on the state's own site.
Vote the whole ballot
Legislative races turn on a few hundred votes and always have the biggest drop-off. Build your ballot above, keep the card, and fill in every line.
Bring three people
About three in ten registered voters returned a ballot in the August primary. The people who agree with you and skip it decide more races than the people who disagree.