Press Releases

Seattle – Proponents of a state income tax are gathering signatures for Initiative 1077, which for the first time would impose an income tax in Washington state. The new tax would be imposed on people with annual incomes of over $200,000 for individuals and $400,000 for couples. Research shows, however, that a state income tax would have a number of negative impacts on the economy and people of our state.

Olympia – WashingtonVotes.org has released its annual Missed Votes Report, detailing missed roll call votes on bills for every legislator during the 2010 Legislative Session, including the special Session. Read the report in pdf format...

Spokane – The national health care reform plan signed into law by President Obama today will have far-reaching effects across the nation and right here in Washington state.

Washington Policy Center, a non-partisan public policy research organization with offices in Seattle, Olympia, Spokane, and Tri-Cities, is analyzing the new law.  Dr. Roger Stark, a retired surgeon and a health care policy analyst with WPC, has made some startling findings about its impact in Washington...

Olympia – In the wake of a bill on its way to Governor Gregoire implementing a two-year repeal of Initiative 960, Washington Policy Center today announced it will publish the public disclosure information that would have appeared in the voters' pamphlet if Initiative 960 had remained in place.

Passed by voters in 2007, Initiative 960 required a two-thirds vote of the legislature to raise taxes. It also included several public information provisions. For each tax increase, the...

Seattle – Yesterday Carl Gipson, director for technology and telecommunications research at Washington Policy Center, submitted comments to the Federal Communications Commission in response to the agency's “Notice of Proposed Rulemaking” proposing new regulations that would impact the future growth and quality of the Internet by subjecting it to the whims of federal regulators.

In Washington Policy Center’s comments, Gipson stated:

Statement of Washington Policy Center Environmental Director Todd Myers on the Governor’s State of the State Address

Seattle - “In her State of the State address today, the Governor announced a program to retrofit state buildings with a ‘green building program’ that she claims will save $60 million. Washington politicians frequently make such claims, but in the past they have been consistently inaccurate and even retracted by the agencies overseeing the projects.

Olympia – The 2010 Legislative Session convenes on Monday and WashingtonVotes.org, the premier legislative information resource in Washington state, will once again provide easy access to plain-English bill summaries and voting records.

So far legislators have already pre-filed more than 275 bills for 2010 on a variety of issues such as taxes, environment, health care and more.  The proposed legislation includes:

Seattle - Claiming that Washington families and workers benefit from her executive order on climate regulation, Governor Christine Gregoire is preparing to head to Copenhagen to attend the conference on climate change. Despite those claims, however, internal briefing documents marked “confidential” show...

Seattle—If you own a home, a farm, a small business or a piece of land in the state of Washington, you should be disturbed to learn the results of a new study released by the Washington Policy Center.

The report, “The Use and Abuse of Washington’s Community Renewal Law,” concludes that, because of Washington’s Community Renewal Law (CRL), home and small-business owners of the Evergreen State are not protected from eminent domain abuse—local government officials can take anyone’s...