This correction request was sent to The Seattle Times editorial board on 9/23/2026.
Seattle Times Editorial Board members,
Thank you again for inviting me to discuss Initiative 645. I appreciated the invitation and the lively debate about the initiative. People can hold strong, sincere views on either side and I respect that your board reached a different conclusion than I have. But one claim in your editorial merits correction.
Your case against I-645 rests on a claim about the Legislature’s authority to change the tax relief that would remain after repeal. In your editorial opposing the initiative, I am requesting a correction to this statement:
“It maintains a bevy of promised tax credits that, without the income tax to fund them, would dig an even deeper budget hole. And it would prevent legislators from altering any of the initiative’s impacts for two years, absent a supermajority vote.”
This statement is incorrect for a couple of reasons.
Most basically, the tax relief is scheduled to take effect on January 1, 2029, while the two-year restriction would expire on December 3, 2028. Using your argument’s timeline, the restriction would still expire before the relief begins.
The claim is also wrong legally.
I-645’s text says that it repeals the income tax and prohibits taxes on individual income. It does not reenact the sales tax relief, business tax relief, or the Working Families Tax Credit expansion. It also repeals the original law’s intent section, which described the income tax and accompanying relief as an “integrated reform of the state tax code”. Voters in November will be deciding whether to repeal and prohibit income taxes, but the initiative does not mention the tax relief, leaving the legislature to change those provisions.
Article II, Section 41 requires a two-thirds vote in each legislative chamber to amend a voter-approved law during its first two years. It does not automatically place every law affected by an initiative behind that requirement.
Former Attorney General Eikenberry’s office addressed this governing distinction in AGO 1988 No. 25. The opinion explains that lawmakers may legislate on the same general subject as an initiative while leaving its “essential purpose and effect” intact. It also recognizes that legislation can amend an initiative indirectly, without changing its wording. The relevant question is therefore not whether a later bill touches a policy that appeared in the same original legislation, but whether that bill would amend I-645’s essential purpose and effect.
A change to a sales tax exemption would not restore the income tax. An adjustment to the Working Families Tax Credit would not restore the income tax. Neither measure would repeal or undermine I-645’s operative prohibition on taxes on individual income. The Legislature therefore may amend, delay, or repeal those separate tax relief and credit expansion provisions by a simple-majority vote in 2027 or 2028, prior to the tax relief’s effective date of Jan. 1st, 2029.
The editorial states as fact that legislators would be barred from altering “any of the initiative’s impacts.” That claim should be corrected. An accurate replacement would read:
I-645 would repeal the income tax while leaving the accompanying tax relief in place. The constitution requires a two-thirds legislative vote to amend a voter-approved law during its first two years, but that restriction does not automatically apply to every separate provision or policy affected by repeal. The Legislature would have the 2027 and 2028 sessions to amend, delay, or repeal the remaining tax relief and credit expansion provisions. The two-year restriction would expire on December 3, 2028, before the tax relief is scheduled to take effect on January 1, 2029, and before the first payments under the tax would be due.
I appreciate your willingness to engage on this issue and would welcome a response. Readers deserve an accurate explanation of the law and timing on which your opinion rests.
