A long­time Repub­li­can polit­i­cal oper­a­tive and advi­sor to unsuc­cess­ful guber­na­to­r­i­al, sen­a­to­r­i­al, and con­gres­sion­al can­di­date Dino Rossi appears to be mov­ing for­ward with an effort to repeal Wash­ing­ton State’s recent­ly-enact­ed state cap­i­tal gains tax on the wealthy through a statewide initiative.

J. Van­der Stoep, an attor­ney based in Chehalis who has been active in Repub­li­can pol­i­tics for many years, has filed the ini­tial text of a mea­sure that would com­plete­ly repeal Engrossed Sub­sti­tute Sen­ate Bill 5096, the leg­is­la­tion that cre­at­ed Wash­ing­ton’s new state cap­i­tal gains tax on the wealthy and ded­i­cat­ed the rev­enue it gen­er­ates to child­care, ear­ly learn­ing, and K‑12 pub­lic schools.

ESSB 5096 is already being chal­lenged in court by a group of plain­tiffs rep­re­sent­ed by for­mer Repub­li­can State Attor­ney Gen­er­al Rob McKen­na, but Van­der Stoep and oth­er Repub­li­can oper­a­tives (who sim­ply can’t stand the idea of requir­ing the wealthy to pay their fair share of dues to our great state) are con­cerned that law­suit could end in fail­ure with a deci­sion uphold­ing ESSB 5096 in the Wash­ing­ton State Supreme Court, which will have the final word on the case.

Van­der Stoep formed a state-lev­el polit­i­cal com­mit­tee last Decem­ber to begin work on a bal­lot mea­sure with the help of oth­er Repub­li­can oper­a­tives, includ­ing Mark Funk, a vet­er­an of many statewide bal­lot battles.

The com­mit­tee has thus far received only $47,200 in con­tri­bu­tions from a few very wealthy peo­ple (Steve Gor­don, Bri­an Hey­wood, Howard Behar, John Blox­om). It has spent $39,100.31 and incurred $108,262 in debt, most­ly to its con­sul­tants (Funk, Peri Hall & Asso­ciates) and law firm, Davis Wright Tremaine.

Get­ting on the bal­lot will require far more mon­ey, but plen­ty of Repub­li­can donors have mil­lion and bil­lion dol­lar for­tunes and are eager to keep Wash­ing­ton State a tax haven for the rich. They can eas­i­ly afford what­ev­er it will end up cost­ing to hire peti­tion­ers to col­lect 425,000 or more sig­na­tures to force a pub­lic vote on their scheme to roll back the progress that Wash­ing­ton’s elect­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives have made towards bal­anc­ing our upside down tax code.

Van­der Stoep’s ini­tia­tive is short. Com­ing in at two pages, it con­sists of a few edi­to­r­i­al com­ments fol­low­ing by lists of statutes to be removed from the Revised Code of Wash­ing­ton. To put it suc­cinct­ly, it’s a straight-up repeal attempt. There are no oth­er pro­vi­sions in Van­der Stoep’s mea­sure, in con­trast to the var­i­ous schemes Tim Eyman and Jim Walsh have tried to get fund­ing for.

Invest In Wash­ing­ton Now, which like NPI is a 501(c)(4) com­mit­ted to secur­ing pro­gres­sive tax reforms for Wash­ing­ton State, not­ed in a state­ment released this morn­ing that polling has repeat­ed­ly shown that vot­ers want the super-rich to pay their fair share in dues to our state and coun­try. That includes our own research.

NPI has been ask­ing Wash­ing­ton State vot­ers whether they sup­port levy­ing a cap­i­tal gains tax on the wealthy for more than half a decade. We have found sup­port every sin­gle time that we have asked… and sup­port stays intact even after vot­ers hear the oppo­si­tion’s most stri­dent argu­ments.

Last autumn, we test­ed vot­er inter­est in one of Eyman and Wal­sh’s schemes to get rid of the cap­i­tal gains tax and also ban income tax­es, and found a yawn­ing lack of enthu­si­asm. Van­der Stoep, Funk, and the oth­er oper­a­tives work­ing on this cam­paign may believe that call­ing the state’s new cap­i­tal gains tax an income tax will set them up for a suc­cess­ful out­come, but our polling sug­gests that’s sim­ply not the case. By forc­ing a pub­lic vote on ESSB 5096, they are tak­ing the risk of hand­ing pro­gres­sives a big vic­to­ry to sus­tain pro­gres­sive tax reform in the court of pub­lic opin­ion. Does­n’t seem like a wise use of funds.

NPI’s Per­ma­nent Defense project, which recent­ly cel­e­brat­ed its twen­ty-year anniver­sary, will be sup­port­ing the coali­tion work­ing to ensure Wash­ing­ton’s progress towards secur­ing a more equi­table tax code is not rolled back.