I 1648 will not be on the ballot

Initiative 1648, the Term Limits on New Taxes, fell short of the the required number of signatures to qualify for the next ballot.  The most likely reason is the petition drive was given only 4 weeks to gather signatures.

As things stand now, $27 billion in new taxes will fall on the citizens of Washington State starting this year.  If you wish to avoid this disaster, you have two options:  Flee the state, or; Be sure the tax-wild Democrat majority does not stay in power in state government.

Tim Eyman made the following state (by email):

"At 4:41pm, we announced that 1648 had fallen short (the signature count was a little over 198,000 ... but that number didn't include an additional 4300 signatures that were hand-delivered after that).  With 259K valid signatures required, a little over 202K wasn't enough.  I'm not gonna sugar-coat it -- it's a gut punch. So many heroic people put forth a tremendous amount of effort for this extraordinary initiative and it's heartbreaking we didn't make it."

Eyman added:
*  if we had more time, it would've qualified.
*  if we had more money, it would've qualified.
*  if we had qualified it, voters would've passed it by a huge margin.
*  the seeds of later victory were sown by this campaign.


See also Initiative 1082 - citizens' right to approve new taxes, which is son-of-1648, sort of, and still viable.