Note: The following e-newsletter was sent to Sen. Wilson’s subscribers Feb. 26, 2026. To subscribe to Sen. Wilson’s e-newsletters, click here.
The income tax bill was among hundreds we passed during marathon sessions on the Senate floor over the last three weeks. On the other side of the Rotunda, the House was doing the same.
Dear Friends and Neighbors,
We’ve set a record in Olympia. Or rather you did. About 100,000 people signed on to the Legislature’s website this week to express their opposition to the income tax proposal our Democratic colleagues are pushing this year.
So now we can call Senate Bill 6346 the most unpopular bill in Washington state history, or at least the most unpopular bill in the five years since the Legislature has been allowing the public to share their opinions online. Our Democratic friends are undaunted. They don’t want to let a little matter like dead-set public opposition get in the way. They released budget proposals this week showing they already have plans to spend the money. So the income tax is steaming right ahead, and sometime soon we can expect the House to vote on this measure.
All of which means the next two weeks are going to make a spectacular finish for our 2026 legislative session.
We are scheduled to adjourn March 12. Many of this year’s dramas have already played out, thanks to the system of deadlines in our Legislature that forces bills to advance or die. I’ll offer a few highlights in this e-newsletter.
But the income tax is in a class by itself. I’m not sure what angers the public more – the point that this would devastate our economy and make us one of the highest-taxed states in the country, or the fact that so many politicians just aren’t interested in what the people think.
Are you a bot?
Actually, there are a couple of signs the Democrats are paying attention. When they held their first hearing on the income tax bill a few weeks ago in the Senate, 61,369 people signed in against it. We started hearing dark muttering that this couldn’t be coming from the people. It must be bots. Last week this bill passed the Senate 27-22 and moved to the House for another hearing. A whopping 116,874 signed in against it – and the attempt by the other side to discredit these numbers got all the louder.
House Democrats began spinning accusations of fraud and duplication of staggering proportions. Truth be told, some people did sign in more than once. We took a close look and weeded out duplicate sign-ins. The corrected tally for the Senate hearing is 17,679 in favor and 52,118 against. The corrected tally for the House hearing is 11,167 for and 96,498 against. And the grand total, if we add both lists together and strike duplicates, is a total 118,421 unique sign-ins against this measure.
No matter how we analyze these figures, they are a record and a pretty impressive one at that. Yet our colleagues still want to quibble. They say this is hardly a bulletproof measure of public opinion. I agree. There is a much better way to go about it. What we could do is remove the emergency clause from this bill, put the tax on the ballot and give the public a chance to vote. The people of Washington have voted against an income tax ten times since 1934, and I am sure they would do it again. All we need to do is ask. I think this is a splendid idea, don’t you?
During last week’s income tax debate in the Senate, I joined Republicans in warning that the proposal for a high-earners income tax would quickly become a tax on everyone. To see speech, click here.
A quiet defeat for the ‘Initiative Killer’ bill
Did our colleagues run out of negative energy?
One of the best bits of news out of this year’s session is the defeat of what my side calls the ‘Initiative Killer’ bill. Senate Bill 5973 was the latest in a long series of proposals from legislative Democrats to improve the initiative process to death. Changes included a ban on pay-per-signature drives, a requirement that 1,000 signatures be submitted when initiatives are filed, and a “private right of action” allowing third-party lawsuits to tie up campaigns in court. Our colleagues said these new requirements are justified by a “recurring pattern of fraud” that never actually has surfaced, unless you count a handful of signature-fraud cases caught by elections officials and the campaigns themselves more than 13 years ago.
The only real problem addressed by this bill is the people’s disturbing tendency to think for themselves. Lately they have been using their right of initiative to challenge the “progressive” agenda of the Democratic majority. Since 2023 they have presented nine initiatives rolling back the majority’s efforts to raise taxes, weaken public safety and increase government control over our daily lives. The easiest initiative for our friends to defeat, of course, is the one that never gets enough signatures in the first place.
Because I am the ranking Republican on the Senate State Government, Tribal Affairs and Elections Committee, last week I was all set to lead our side into battle over this bill on the Senate floor. But it never came up for a vote. Exactly why, we’re not sure. Maybe it was the eloquent opposition offered by my side in committee, or maybe it was that 10,520 people signed in against the bill. Maybe the income tax consumed so much of the Capitol’s negative energy there wasn’t enough left for this one. But the relief is only temporary. I fully expect this battle to resume next year.
Anti-sheriff bill advances
Pacific County sheriff would be first victim
A bill giving an unelected board the power to fire elected county sheriffs would claim its first victim in our district. Senate Bill 5974, passed by the Senate Feb. 13, would give the Criminal Justice Training Commission the ability to override the voters and remove sheriffs from office if it doesn’t like the way they enforce the law. The bill also would impose a long list of qualifications on county sheriffs, police chiefs and town marshals, and would terminate law enforcement executives who don’t meet them.
That’s bad news for Daniel Garcia, a Navy veteran elected in 2022 as sheriff of Pacific County without law enforcement experience. If this bill passes, Garcia will be just shy of the five years’ prior experience it requires. It’s also bad news for the people of Pacific County, who ought to be able to pick their own sheriff without interference from state government. The bill passed on a party-line vote of 30-19 and moves to the House for further consideration.
This bill is widely seen as a measure allowing Olympia to eliminate independently elected officials who make their own judgments about police procedures and law enforcement issues. It’s really the same problem as on the Initiative Killer bill. Too many people thinking for themselves. I guess the Legislature needs to crack down on that.
An innovative approach to sea lion predation comes to a disappointing conclusion
State nickname, kit home bills continue to advance
My biggest personal disappointment of the session has been the failure of my sea lion bill to advance. Each spring these hungry sea creatures swarm the Columbia from Astoria to Bonneville Dam, taking a big bite from our struggling salmon runs. I’ve spent the last three sessions seeking a modest appropriation for the Department of Fish and Wildlife to take the battle to the Lower Columbia tributaries, where sea lions are congregating in big numbers and the state already has a permit from the feds to start culling. All it would take is $300,000 to purchase shallow-draft equipment suitable for the Cowlitz and other rivers.
These year we discovered money isn’t the problem. I came up with a new idea: Senate Bill 5851 would have allowed boaters to make voluntary contributions to the cause when they renew vessel registrations. Not a penny would have come from the state. But I couldn’t even get a hearing for my bill. I got word that DFW is worried that expanded lethal removals might increase public opposition. I thought we needed to educate the Legislature, but when the state agency responsible for control efforts is balking, we have a real problem on our hands.
Other bills I have introduced continue to advance. They are:
Senate Bill 5000, adopting “The Evergreen State” as Washington’s official nickname, and correcting an oversight that dates back to the 1890s,
Senate Bill 5552, clearing the way for kit homes by directing the state Building Code Council to develop regulations specifically for kit homes of 800 square feet or less. The idea is that standardized kits should only have to undergo review only once, bypassing the one-by-one reviews required for custom-built stick homes,
Senate Bill 5840, adjusting schedules for campaign finance reporting, changing deadlines to align them with Washington’s by-mail voting schedule, and
Senate Bill 6149, changing the definition of rural counties to include counties with no city of more than 45,000 people. This would add Cowlitz County to the 29 counties currently designated as rural, for purposes of financing public facilities and economic development.
Thanks for reading!
Sen. Jeff Wilson
19th Legislative District
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Telephone: (360) 786-7636
Email: Jeff.Wilson@leg.wa.gov
Mailing address: P.O. Box 40419 /Olympia, WA 98504
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