Note: The following e-newsletter was sent to Sen. Leonard Christian’s subscribers Feb. 20, 2026. To subscribe to Sen. Christian’s e-newsletters, click here.
A tax on millionaires? Don’t you believe it. In this speech, I point out that the income tax bill passed by the Senate Monday applies to everyone in the state – with a standard deduction of $1 million that could be eliminated with a simple majority vote of the Legislature. How long do you think that would take? To see speech, click here.
Dear Friends and Neighbors,
If I had a dollar for every time I heard the word “millionaire” this last week, I think I might fall in that tax bracket myself. My Democratic colleagues in the Senate this week passed an income tax they don’t want to call an income tax. They’d rather call it a “tax on millionaires.” But if this tax passes the House and is signed into law this session, it’s only a matter of time before it applies to you and me.
Senate Bill 6346, approved 27-22, is one of the most momentous bills to come before the Legislature in the last decade. For years advocates of higher taxes and spending have been trying to convince the voters of Washington state to pass an income tax. But the people keep saying no, 10 times since 1934, so this year’s proposal solves that problem by ducking a public vote and cutting the people out of the loop. It’s part of a strategy that aims to shift the battle from the ballot to the courts. Supporters think they will have a better chance of winning if the people have no say in it.
Call me dismayed and not at all surprised. Olympia is all about subterfuge and strategy, power plays and diversions. The fight has just begun.
Last chance to sound off
Next stop for this bill is the House Finance Committee, which will give it a hearing Tuesday at 8 a.m. You can sign in to the Legislature’s website to express your opinion on this bill until an hour before the hearing begins. This is the last chance you will have this session to let the Legislature know what you think of the idea. Let’s just say the count is a bit lopsided so far. As of Friday morning, 3,887 people had signed in to express support for the bill, and 50,439 were opposed.
Will quickly expand
Our colleagues are trying to pitch this as a tax on the wealthy, but it’s really not. It’s actually a straight-up 9.9 percent income tax that applies to everyone in the state. It comes with a standard deduction of $1 million, but all it would take to expand this tax to the rest of us is a simple majority vote. I expect that would happen in short order, within a few years, as it has everywhere else an income tax has been imposed.
Nor is this tax really limited to millionaires. The same deduction applies to married couples as well as individuals, so there is a marriage penalty. More importantly, the tax would apply to small business owners who report business income on their personal income taxes, and few of them could be considered wealthy.
Good news for Idaho
Already we are seeing an exodus of high earners from the state of Washington. Real estate agents in Las Vegas and elsewhere report they are seeing large numbers of Washingtonians looking to relocate. According to a survey from the Association of Washington Business, 44 percent of Washington business leaders are considering relocating their personal residences outside the state. These are the people who create the jobs that keep our economy humming. We’ll miss them when they are gone.
I wish my “progressive” colleagues could see what we see in the 4th District. As this state increases the tax burden, it has created a thriving shopping district just across the state line, where gas already is cheaper by a dollar or more and Washington laws do not apply. A new income tax would be passed on to consumers in Washington state and would only hasten the flight of business to Idaho.
Who can blame us for gassing up in State Line or Post Falls? But my sympathies are with the business owners in Washington state who are already are feeling the effect of excessive taxation. This income tax, if it passes, is the beginning of the end for the prosperity this state has enjoyed over the last 40 years.
Military-base school construction bill passes Senate
The income tax bill came amid of a torrent of legislation that passed the House and Senate as we approached a Tuesday deadline for passage of bills from their chamber of origin. We passed hundreds of bills over the last two weeks. Hundreds more died when they failed to advance.
I am pleased to report that one of my bills made the cut, a measure that fixes a longstanding inequity for school districts that operate schools on military bases. Senate Bill 5901 excludes base schools from school-construction funding calculations. This has been a big problem for the Medical Lake School District, which operates Michael Anderson Elementary School at Fairchild Air Force Base, and for the Clover Park School District at Joint Base Lewis-McChord.
In Medical Lake’s case, excess capacity at the base school means it doesn’t qualify for state school construction funding. Yet the school is restricted to children of military families living on base, and that excess capacity cannot be used for students who live elsewhere. If this bill passes, the district hopes to obtain $14 million in state funding for school modernization projects in the city of Medical Lake. The bill cleared the Senate 49-0 and moves to the House for further consideration.
‘Initiative Killer’ bill, DCYF oversight measure die at session cutoff
Among the hundreds of bills that died for lack of a vote on the Senate floor are two measures I’ve mentioned in previous newsletters.
The casualties included the ‘Initiative Killer’ bill, Senate Bill 5973, which would have made it difficult, if not impossible, to run effective initiative campaigns in Washington state. The bill would have banned petition drives that pay by the signature. Other requirements would consume time and money and make it harder for campaigns to meet tight deadlines to turn in signatures. Democratic sponsors called it “reform,” but to everyone else it seemed a transparent attempt to prevent the people from exercising their constitutional right to pass legislation that overrides Olympia.
Also dead is a bill that would have eliminated public oversight of the Department of Children, Youth and Families, Senate Bill 5942. This is a special concern of mine because I am the lead Republican member on the Senate Human Services Committee. The bill would have eliminated the oversight responsibilities of the DCYF Oversight Board, a terrible idea given the problems this agency is facing in child protective services and juvenile rehabilitation. I’m sure this idea will return next year. I’ll be ready with a counterproposal. This is one agency that needs more oversight, not less.
Other bad bills continue to advance in this year’s session, however. Among them is Senate Bill 5974, which would give an unelected board the authority to remove elected sheriffs from office who don’t toe Olympia’s line, and Senate Bill 5360, which would allow felony prosecutions for violations of state environmental laws. Tax bills, meanwhile, remain alive for consideration until we adjourn our session on or before March 12 – and there are many more to come.
Thanks for reading,
Leonard Christian
4th Legislative District
Contact me!
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Mailing address: Post Office Box 40404, Olympia, WA 98504
Email: Leonard.Christian@leg.wa.gov
Phone: (360) 786-7606
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