John Braun: Make Washington better by voting Republican

Friday, November 1, 2024

While every election is consequential, it certainly feels like more is riding on this one.

There’s the presidential election, of course, and the question of who leads Congress.

But as Republican leader in our state Senate, I am understandably focused on what happens at the state level.

For instance, the outcome of the four money-saving ballot measures will do much to shape the agenda for the upcoming legislative session.

I'm confident all four propositions — Initiative 2117, I-2109, I-2124 and I-2066 — will pass if voters remember one thing: Vote yes, pay less.

The “vote yes” acknowledges how historically, voters say no to protect themselves from higher taxes.

The opposite is true in this case, because all the costly policies — like the ones that have raised gas prices and shrunk paychecks — are already in place. The savings will come from voting yes on the initiatives.

The “pay less” cuts through the campaign ads churned out by the billionaire-funded initiative opponents, which claim the initiatives are intended to confuse voters.

That’s nonsense. It’s just hard for the initiatives to be reader-friendly when they have to correspond to the complicated language in the partisan laws they would repeal.

In addition, Attorney General Bob Ferguson got to take a shot at the initiatives by writing so-called “warning labels” for the state voters guide that are confusing on their own, and threaten budget cuts that would not happen.

The bottom line is that voting yes on the initiatives will let Washington families keep more of their own money — especially lower- and middle-income people who need it most.

Let’s back up and remember why these initiatives are on the ballot in the first place.

It’s because of the extremist agenda being imposed on the people of our state by Democrats, who have controlled both the legislative and executive branches of state government for far too long.

The answer is to vote more Republicans into the state Senate and House, and statewide offices like governor and attorney general, public lands commissioner and superintendent of public instruction.

And by all means, elect Dave Larson to the state Supreme Court. By denying that Washington’s capital-gains tax is an income tax, which goes against the Internal Revenue Service and every other state with such a tax, the court showed it was unable to uphold the constitution. Larson would provide a sorely needed voice of rationality in our judicial branch.

Here are a few recent examples of why legislative elections matter.

The Republican win of a specific seat in the 2012 election enabled the creation of a bipartisan coalition that ultimately led the Senate for the next five  years.

During that time, Washington families and employers had no better friend at the state Capitol than our majority-Republican coalition.

We repeatedly protected them from tax increases proposed not only by the Democrat-led House but also by Governor Inslee, who had quickly forgotten the no-new-taxes pledge he had made when initially campaigning for chief executive.

Then cancer took the life of Republican Sen. Andy Hill, one of the finest legislators to ever serve our state. Democrats won the special election for that seat, and in doing so regained one-party control of Olympia starting in 2018.

That set the stage for the Democrats’ passage of a 10-year, $25 billion package of state-level tax increases and legislation that opened the door to higher local property taxes.

The election of 2020 saw Democrat T'wina Nobles defeat a Republican incumbent to win the Senate seat in the 28th Legislative District, south of Tacoma.

That not only tilted the Senate Democrats farther to the left; the new Senator Nobles provided the deciding vote on both the cap-and-tax law and the income tax on capital gains, adopted in 2021.

On her campaign website, Senator Nobles says she is proud to have supported the Climate Commitment Act, which drove up the cost of gas and home heating – but at the same time she claims to be a champion of policies that bring down everyday costs.

Besides voting to repeal the CCA by passing I-2117, and head off a universal state income tax by passing I-2109, the people of the 28th District should let Senator Nobles know she can’t have it both ways, and replace her with Republican Maia Espinoza.

An unusually large number of Senate seats are “open” this year because the incumbents chose not to seek reelection.

Some of those present opportunities for Republicans to gain ground in the Senate, particularly Chad Magendanz in the 5th District (King County) and Marcia Kelbon in the 24th District (Olympic Peninsula). They are better choices than the Democratic candidates, both of whom are attempting to move across from the House of Representatives.

To keep other open Senate seats in the Republican column, voters should also elect Paul Harris in the 17th District (Clark/Skamania) and Brad Benton in the 18th District (Clark).

Also, voters in the newly redrawn 14th Legislative District, in the Yakima Valley, should return Curtis King for another term. That would send a strong message to the Democrats who, in their quest for more political power, “gerrymandered” the boundaries of that district and the neighboring 15th District by finding a friendly federal judge.

Besides disenfranchising the 15th District’s state senator — the first Latina Republican elected to that position — this Democrat judge simultaneously reduced the district’s proportion of Hispanic residents and swung its political makeup toward Democrats.

The judge defended this move by asserting Hispanics want to elect Democrats, as though they can’t think for themselves. That’s outrageous.

Having more Republicans in the Legislature would obviously make it harder in general for Democrats to keep pushing their agenda. It would also offer two immediate benefits.

First, legislators may have to deal with a multibillion-dollar budget deficit in 2025, caused by Democratic overspending.

Democrats aren’t good at saying “no” to the spending requests from state agencies that also benefit their political allies. They would much rather pursue tax increases. Republicans are the best defense against more taxes and overspending.

Second, we should expect Democrats to do everything they can to undermine the initiatives that pass on Nov. 5 as well as the three initiatives passed by the Legislature while we were in session this year.

The hundreds of thousands of voters who signed the petitions to qualify those initiatives can count on Republicans to defend those policies.

No matter how the legislative elections turn out, Republicans in the legislative branch could also use allies in the executive branch.

Voters can help most by putting Dave Reichert in the governor’s mansion, electing Jaime Herrera Beutler as commissioner of public lands, and ousting the incumbent superintendent of public instruction, in favor of David Olson.

And, once more, let’s elect Dave Larson to the state Supreme Court.

You may have noticed that some major news-media organizations in our state are commissioning polls of voters, then reporting the results in a way that could cause some voters to think their ballots are meaningless if the poll shows a large gap between certain candidates.

My advice: Don’t be dismayed. Polls don’t decide elections. And the past dozen years alone have provided clear examples of how the outcome of a single Senate election can ripple throughout our state for years. One vote can make the difference.

Be sure to vote your ballot and get it turned in no later than Nov. 5, by dropping it in the mail or a drop box or taking it directly to your county elections office.

Vote yes on the initiatives to pay less, and vote Republican to make our state better.

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Sen. John Braun of Centralia serves the 20th Legislative District, which spans parts of four counties from Yelm to Vancouver. He became Senate Republican leader in 2020.

https://chronline.com/stories/john-braun-make-washington-better-by-voting-republican,364858?