WATCH: Rejected: WA SOS will not process referendum to repeal income tax law

(The Center Square) – A day after Governor Bob Ferguson signed Washington’s new income tax into law, opponents who have filed a referendum to repeal it have just learned the Secretary of State will not allow them to proceed.

Brian Heywood founder of Let’s Go Washington challenged the constitutional argument Democrats used to try to strip voters of say on the matter.

The bill sponsors attached a necessity clause to the legislation, declaring the income tax necessary for the support of state government, an argument they contend makes the new law “referendum proof.”

Heywood told The Center Square that argument is flawed.

“Within Washington state law with referendums, there’s only one reason that the legislature can stop a referendum, and that’s if there is an emergency, and there’s a comma for something within the state’s interest, right?,” he said. “And what they’ve done is they’ve interpreted that comma to be on both. So, if t...