Political analysts weigh in on WA midterm initiatives

Matt, thank you so much. So we are on the eve of election night, a big day for our state and the country with many high stakes initiatives and races. As Matthew mentioned, I'm Hannah Kim, and for David Rose here as well with me. And we want to welcome our FOX 13 political analyst, Randy Pepl, on the Republican side of things, and Sandeep Kaushik for the Democrats. Thank you so much for being here, you guys. Thank you. All right. So let's dive right into the voter initiatives, because that's really a big topic right now, starting off with the biggest one. I know David and I have been talking a lot about this one for four months now and so have a lot of viewers, I'm sure. It's the millionaire tax. Right. And Sandeep, I want to mention that, you know, for just full disclosure here, you are actively working on the campaign on the no side, on the no side, as in you support the millionaire tax. You support the high earner tax. So, yeah, I mean, where where are you guys on this campaign? How are you feeling going in? Well, it is a really high profile battle. Right. And it's it's we have a long history around an income tax or income taxes in Washington state. So this is a kind of a version of that, a very high earners tax. We feel pretty good going into Election Day that the voters will retain the tax. They'll vote no on it. All of the polling so far. has shown us with a double-digit lead on this. So, you know, but I'm not going to declare victory until we actually see what the voters say. Well, let me turn to Randy. Randy, are you getting paid by anybody? No, not getting paid by anybody. Okay, all right. Well, we'll clear that up. A lot of people are saying, though, if this continues, it's the start of a universal income tax, which is prohibited by the Constitution, but they're saying that takes us down that road. What are your thoughts? Of course it does. I mean, the entire purpose of the Democrat effort in passing The tax this year was to get it in front of the Supreme Court, get the Supreme Court to rule that it wasn't as unconstitutional as it is, because if they read the Constitution, it's fairly clear that it's unconstitutional. But they wanted to get that out there. And you already have Democrat legislators saying, you know, a million seems a bit high. Two fifty would be fine. Right. People can live on two fifty. So they're already trying to move it down and they haven't even passed it yet. So yeah, that's the ulterior motive here. Senator Jamie Peterson, who's the sponsor of it, has been very clear about his desire to have the cases in the past, which have declared an income tax unconstitutional state. He says the judge has got it wrong. And so they want to put it back in front of this Supreme Court to have them overturn it. Well, Hannah interviewed him and she went after him pretty hard trying to get him to talk about putting some limits on this thing. Right. And he's like, we can't legislate the future. Right. Well, yeah. I mean, the question that I had was it was just more of the question on whether or not why did the legislature not put a cap on it? Right. So if they wanted to quiet the opposition down and saying this is not a universal income tax, why did they not put it? a cap on millionaires so that way it doesn't go down the lower threshold as Randy was talking about. And he his answer was like, look, I can't legislate the future. I can't cap what future lawmakers are going to do. But he was honest about his viewpoints on on the income tax in general. He supports a universal income tax. He just believes that other lawmakers are not there yet. He believes it's still unpopular to do a universal income tax, but he believes that the millionaire taxes is like where the fight is going to be. How do you respond to people, Sandeep, who are concerned that it's going to reach $250,000 or $500,000? I hear that concern, but I will tell you this. Yeah, Jamie Peterson may support a broader base to income tax as part of a bigger tax reform package. He's talked about cutting things like the property tax, which he thinks is too high. But Democrats are divided on this issue. There is nowhere near majority support, even on the Democratic side. For changing the thresholds on the millionaire's tax, the governor himself has repeatedly said if a future legislature tries to lower the threshold on this tax, he will veto it. Right. He's publicly committed to doing that. And we all know we have a robust tradition of direct democracy in the state, just like this millionaire's tax version is going in front of the voters. So they have the final say if some future legislature tries to. Lower the threshold, you can bet that it's going to end up in front of the voters and they'll weigh in. But aren't we already seeing some impacts from this, Randy? Aren't we already seeing wealth leave this state, selling their houses, taking their businesses, and leaving their state because of this tax? Yeah, I mean, you've seen a lot of anecdotal evidence, particularly out of the real estate industry, of people that they have helped move along. And, of course it is. It's also, in California, same thing. They've got a billionaire's tax on their ballot down there. And they're... People are moving companies out of the out of the state in Washington state. You know, the fallacy that this will stay at the millionaire tax at the million dollar level was demonstrated by the Democrats by not allowing. Any of the other options to pass, to set a minimum, to not exempt pensions as they decided that, no, we can tax pensions as well. I mean, they voted down on a party line basis, vote after vote after vote amendment to make the income tax a little bit more palatable. The reason they did that, it is their goal. It is their holy grail. The Democrat Party has been pushing for a state income tax since the Supreme Court threw it out in the 30s. And they've lost 11 straight times this time because of the way initiatives have been changed and the stacking of things that Democrats have done to make it that much harder to challenge their laws. No referendum, stuff like that shows you their intent. Okay. Let's talk about another initiative. This one affects a lot of people. There's heated discussion on both sides. It's initiative 001. It's the initiative to keep parents with their parental rights so they can be notified about what their kids are doing in a timely fashion. Why don't you explain this initiative a little bit? Well, the initiative is seeking to reinstate largely an initiative that was passed by the legislature in 2025 after voters put it before them. And they immediately passed it because they saw it was going to pass in the fall. And they knew that they would be able to change it within a year. And that's exactly what they did. In one of the most hypocritical moments of the recent Democrat majority saying, oh, yeah, we're going to pass this parental bill of rights. Next year, we're going to change it. And that is what's brought us back to this. And what it literally says is you're not going to have biological men participating in girl high school athletics. Yeah, we were, you know, initially we were going to talk about that, too. But as far as the parental rights concern, I want to bring it back to parental rights for a second. You know, one of the things about parental rights issue, like Randy had brought up the fact that like, oh, hey, you know, they did pass it. Right. And then they went ahead and changed it a year later. Why? Why is it such a big deal right now on that campaign side, especially the Democrats? We've seen Governor Ferguson come out. We've seen, you know, other lawmakers come out and say, hey, we need to vote against this initiative, Initiative 001. What is their main issue with 001? Yeah, both this one and the next one we're going to talk about really focuses in on the trans issues. Right. And the question was. Once this initiative was passed by the legislature, Randy's absolutely right. Some of the advocates for LGBTQ folks said, you know, there are some provisions of this that go too far. And put at risk youth that are in the process of transitioning, if they have a family environment where they're not safe and they're not welcome, they have some rights that need to be respected here. So those are the changes that Democrats in the legislature made to the measure. Now Brian Haywood, who's actually behind all three of these measures on the ballot this year, has pulled this to the ballot, and we're going to vote on it. I will say a second thing about this, which is this one has received the least attention of any of the three. Are you talking about the parental rights? The parental rights one, yeah, the one we're talking about right now, 001. And it's pretty confusing to voters about what it actually is and what it does. It's kind of all technical. It's in the details of this about what policies are going to be. So I think there's a lot of... Voter confusion about it, and I've certainly seen in polling a lot of indecision from voters, not quite sure how to read and interpret this. Well, maybe they're getting it crossed with 638, or they're lumping the two together, just like we did a second ago, Initiative 638. That one, people seem pretty clear on, though, right? Where biological males cannot play girl sports, or that's what the initiative would say. Right now, they can do that, and of course, we've seen... A lot of attention on this case. So, Randy, are you seeing any polling either way, which way this might go? You know, I've only seen a few publicly released polls. I haven't seen anything private. I'll try to describe it. But I think that the Camas cross-country situation over the last couple weeks has really brought this to the fore that it's athletes that are saying. We want this change. And this is the girls who are running, who declined to run because there was a biological boy. A young man who started the season on the boys' team and switched. And, you know, it is confounding to me that the administrators down there didn't realize, no, you started with one team. That's your team. Well, look, this is one of this trans girls in sports measure is one of five around the country that are on the ballot this year. There are a number of other states. So I do think it has national implications. A lot of people are going to be watching about how the vote goes here in Washington state in particular, a blue state like this. What's the vote going to look like on this? Look, the national polling on this stuff is pretty clear nationally that these issues are kind of 70 30, you know, in favor of. Um, requiring, uh, uh, people to play on the team that, uh, uh, coincides with their biological sex, um, here in Washington state. Could it be different? We'll see, right? It's a bluer state. There's also concerns about some of the language in this particular version of it that the opposition side is saying is going to require these intrusive genital exams. It's going to require every girl to get some kind of further medical examination. And so I think that's become a concern in the later stages of This is the race for a lot of folks. We even might. In theory, I agree that there's a fairness issue, but then when you get into the details of how this initiative mandates, how it's implemented, you could see some opposition development. But you bring up something where I am pretty sure that you had a doctor who has come out to clarify this, that there is a difference between... You know, sexual identification and verifying. So, you know, the other side is making it sound like you're going to go to a doctor and they're going to have this invasive. But we do know that in this state, if you're playing sports in any level, you have to go and you get a physical. And that can be just a verification check, not necessarily them invading, you know, your child and checking that. So I think there was some fear mongering going on there on that. Potentially, but there's confusion around what this actually means. There was just a Seattle Times story about this this week that was trying to take a look at as they implement this, assuming that it passes, what is it actually going to require? And what the language of the initiative says, it's a little confusing. It says you can do a kind of genetic test or you can do a physical exam and there's a testosterone level test that you can do. So there's it spells out three different choices. But when they talk to doctors about, well, what exactly happens with a physical now for athletes, a lot of doctors are saying, well, we never do any kind of genital check. We've never done that before, and we may have to do that now. Look, there's a lot of hyperbole on both sides of this. This is a hot-button issue. Yeah, even the doctors don't seem to, because I've heard the opposite of that, where a doctor says, we are not going to do that, and that that's not the case. And now you're saying there's another doctor who's saying, so, I mean, going into election, this is very confusing. It is, and there's real disagreement, right? This is a pretty intense culture war issue. As I said, it's got national implications now. There are other states that have these measures on. Most red states have already barred trans girls from participating in girls' sports. But if blue states, by voter initiative, start to do this, that could have some real impact. Have you seen any polling you trust on this issue? I will say this. I think this one will be, like I said, nationally, it seems like this is a kind of 70-30 issue. I think in Washington state, this one's going to be closer than, significantly closer than that. Yeah, before we take a quick break, last words on that issue. I agree with Sandeep on that. I think we won't know for a couple of days necessarily, unless it's a blowout. But, you know, Colorado is the other blue state that is considering the same issue. And watch to see what goes on in Colorado and see what kind of difference there is. All right. All right, Randy and Sandeep, stay here with us. We're going to take a quick break and we'll be right back. Welcome back to election coverage on Seattle News Today. Joining us is Democratic political analyst Sandeep Kaushik and Randy Peppel, the Republican analyst here for Fox 13. Really nice to see you here back again. Thank you so much for joining us. So let's talk Supreme Court races. We have five of nine seats up for grabs. The midterms will really reshape, you know, this whole, the highest court of the state. David and I have been talking about this one again many, many times because it's so interesting because back in the day, David, Nobody was talking about, your eyes just glaze over like what the state Supreme Court was right, but it's crucial this time and there's one particular race. Now you hosted the debate between two Supreme Court judges. Yes. So, you know, Sean O'Donnell and Ian Burke. They want to be Supreme Court judges. Right, want to be Supreme Court judges, and they are fighting, and they, I did a debate, I moderated a debate recently, and it was fascinating because, of course, the questions had to be a little bit different. There were questions they couldn't answer because, you know, as state Supreme Court justice races, but, so this one is interesting because at last check, O'Donnell and Burke And combined have more than $2 million poured into this race. That is unprecedented money. That is unprecedented attention. So, Randy, I want to start with you. Break down why people care about these races. Well, first and foremost, you have to start from the fact that the Washington State Supreme Court currently consists of nine members who vary from left to very far left. There is no diversity on the court from that perspective. And so... The case is coming before the court, having the impact they do on society, like the income tax that we talked about earlier as an initiative, but which is also a court case going up to the Supreme Court. And the recent natural gas initiative that was overthrown by the Supreme Court has shown just how important it would be to have one rational voice on the Supreme Court. And it just so happens, because of the way it goes in Supreme Court races in this state, The justices serve into a term, resign before the election, allowing a Democratic governor to name a new member who then runs as the incumbent judge. That has worked very well for them over the last 20 years to stomp out any conservative moderate member of the state Supreme Court this year. We have five candidates on the ballot on each side, and, you know, the left, as is typical, it's all, they're all endorsed by the Republicans, these are all Democrats, you know who to vote for. And in the O'Donnell race, that's harder to do because he's supported by such well-known Republicans as Christine Gregoire and Gary Locke, you know, Adam Smith, those types of Democrat Republicans. For those of you who might not know, long-time Democratic leaders in this state. And so it's not working as well on Sean. And last week, I got a mailer that is one of the most noxious. Partisan mailers I've ever received in the Supreme Court race. And it was allowed because the Public Disclosure Commission decided a little over a week ago that there were no longer any limits at the last minute contributions that have been the way the state has governed itself for the last 50, 60 years or since 72. And they just said, nope, no limits. And lo and behold. The trial lawyers and big public employee unions came up with a quarter million dollars overnight to put out this trash piece. Wow. I hope the people of Washington see through that. But just so people know, explain the campaign mailer. What exactly did it say? Why are you saying that? Well, it's all innuendo. It's all... Sean O'Donnell's bad because somebody who supported him worked for Chevron. We're on. Big tobacco, big pharma. That was all the thing. But it wasn't him. His campaign has taken no money from those sources. They're insinuating that he's MAGA and that he's a partisan MAGA judge is what the mailers are. So let's first of all, you're being paid by Sean O'Donnell. I'm working with Sean O'Donnell in that race. It's like Sean is... Maybe the only candidate in these five Supreme Court races that has that kind of broad bipartisan support. Yes, he is endorsed by Republicans. He's also, as Randy was saying, endorsed by more than 100 Democratic elected officials. And he's also endorsed by Democratic LDs. Both state parties have recommended him. So his opponent is turning the Republican piece of that against him, trying to say. Because he has any Republican support at all, he must be, you know, a puppet of MAGA and stuff. And, of course, Sean and our side is pushing back, saying, wait a minute, these judicial races are not the same as a congressional race. Aren't we supposed to have judges that are impartial and have broad support across both sides of the aisle? That's the argument that Sean is making. To Randy's point, though, a lot of money has poured in on the other side. To kind of make this argument, to turn this race partisan, and, you know, we'll see. But let me just ask, just as an outsider, isn't that supposed to be illegal? Wasn't that the big debate between Burke and O'Donnell in your debate where he was accusing him of this? And he's not supposed to be allowed to bring partisanship in, is he? These mailers are paid by third-party groups. No, a judicial candidate who said the things that were on that mailer would be disbarred. I mean, they literally it's against the judicial canon of ethics to talk in that manner, because what the mailers also saying is, hey, you know, you know, this is the way he's going to be deciding his race, his decisions. Right. Supposed to be nonpartisan. But I think what it got very partisan during the debate that I was moderating and I wanted to bring up that question. Burke was asked about that. I was asked about the fact that, like, you know, your campaign did send out those campaign emailers basically saying that. Sean O'Donnell cannot be impartial because he has support from, you know, GOP or Republicans. And Sean O'Donnell was just basically saying, like, look, we are not. They're not supposed to decide on issues based on who endorses us. They're unsolicited endorsements anyway. They're not supposed to look at that. But it's interesting because I remember the days, Randy, when somebody said, I have bipartisan support. That's supposed to be a good thing. You have Democrats that support you, independents, Republicans. But in this case, you understand kind of the climate of Washington state when a campaign emailer says, oh, this person, Republicans like him, so therefore he's MAGA, you can't vote for him. And it made it into a very partisan race, which I've never seen before. You know, I mean, one of another one of the most pathetic things I saw is the text message sent out by the same independent group, the trial lawyer labor group that said, you know, Sean O'Donnell worked for Slade Gordon. He even said a prayer at his funeral service. Really? That disqualifies you from being on the Supreme Court because you say a prayer, a funeral service for one of the state's finest leaders who was your boss? That's how low the Democrats are going on this. So read your voter guide. Get the voter guide out. Read it. It's very helpful. You can decide for yourself and you can shut out all the noise, essentially. But I do want to say, because Burke is not here and, you know, we have him working for the O'Donnell side. I do want to mention Burke's point, though, was he he's saying, look, if you're going to vote for somebody, you should still be able to know. Who they're endorsed by. He said that that was important. He felt that the voters had the right to know who endorsed Sean O'Donnell, because then we can glean information from that. Well, he's endorsed by the Sierra Club and by Governor Ferguson. Do you need to know anything more? Well, that's that's what he's saying. Basically, he's saying, hey, look, you are a representation of You know, who endorses you. Do you agree with that? Because if you do agree with that, then that means, you know, that campaign emailer shouldn't be a big deal, really, right? Well, I would disagree because I think the campaign emailer, mailer went over the top. However, absolutely endorsements matter. The people who endorse you. But like on this campaign mailer, they say he's MAGA. They didn't say he's endorsed by Trump or anything like that. It's just, it's this guilt by association. That, frankly, Democrats have built their campaigns on for the last 20 years very successfully. And until Republicans succeed at stopping that guilt by association in partisan races and judicial candidates succeed, and hopefully Sean will show the way there, you're going to see the same type of tactics. Until they... If they lose, they'll keep doing it. One of the things that's happening here is that our judicial races used to be a category on their own, and we didn't treat them as partisan races, but now we've seen this happening around the country. Look at what happened in Wisconsin with their Supreme Court. Hundreds of millions of dollars were flowing in, and people were running openly as Democrats or Republicans. We're starting to see some of that seep into our Supreme Court races here. And I don't like it, personally. See that happen? Obviously, I'm supporting Sean O'Donnell, who's, I think, a really experienced down-the-middle jurist that's respected by all sides. But that's the reality of our politics these days. Okay, let's move on to the millionaire's tax again. It's projected to go in front of the state Supreme Court in the near future. And would people and campaigns care as much for the Supreme Court race without them? So we kind of talked about this a little bit, but I really want to focus on not just the millionaire's tax, but this Supreme Court is going to decide some important things. One of the things they're going to decide on is bail reform. There is a push right now by public defenders in King, Snohomish, Pierce County to... Allow defendants in certain cases to post $200 bail to the court and to go home. So, you've cut the bail system out of this entirely, and they've moved this hearing until after the election. That seems very dirty to me, first of all, but that means that this is a very, very important issue. This matters a lot to those of us who are following crime and justice, Randy. Is this just one of the things the Supreme Court's going to be tackling? Well, yes, it's one of the things, but it's a large thing. There have been a number of crime and safety issues that have come before this court in recent years. and You know, the current court is much more favorable towards the trial bar, the lawyers on the trial side and defendants and not so much on the prosecutorial side. And that's going to be the type of activity that or issue that will come before the next court, because we'll have we'll have, you know, some of these races will turn out and you'll either have, you know, five, five new ones or three new ones and two were retained. And. The Supreme Court, though, income tax case, I think, is the one that will get the most attention next year. But the other sleeper issue here is the question of questions around tort reform. Right. So the state right now is paying out more and more every year in settlements for, you know, and payouts for legal. More than $600 million last year alone. Hannah sends me an email every time DA said she has to get stuck with another $27 million bill. Yeah, there's $30 million here, $27 million here. It starts to add up, right? So that's a live thing that could be an issue that really comes before the legal system. And that's why you've got the personal injury bar. Putting really large amounts of money behind some of these candidates like Ian Burke, because obviously they're opposed to any kind of reform that might limit the kinds of settlements and payouts that are happening. So that's an issue that's not getting the attention, I think, that it deserves. But that's. Driving a lot of the flow of money in this race. Sadie, you bring up a really good point. It is a sleeper cell issue, but so important. I mean, I did a story on this just recently and it's mind boggling how much money we are losing to lawsuits. And they're talking, counties talking about how they're going to go bankrupt if they don't get a handle on this situation. So that's a whole nother, we can go on forever on that topic. I do want to move on. Really quick, the District 3 race, Marie Guzenkamp-Perez, obviously the incumbent, to John Braun, who is on the Republican side, trying to unseat her, trying to make that district, again, another red district, because it once was in the past until, you know, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez came along. Real quick on your take on that race. Yeah, well, the polling has this race a dead heat. I will say this, when I look at the primary numbers that came out of that race, the total Democratic vote in the primary. In Washington 3, which is a district that Trump won all three of the last presidential elections. So it is a red-leaning district. But in the primary, 56% of the vote was Democratic in that district. Now, some of them did not vote for Marie because they voted for a more progressive candidate. They didn't like some of the votes she's taken where she sided with Republicans. But as a political consultant, I will say I'll be very, very surprised if those Democrats don't come home in the general. And end up voting for her, even if some of them think she's not, you know, progressive enough for them, because this is an election where control of Congress hangs in the balance, the ability to check the Trump administration hangs in the balance. So I think Democrats come home and the primary is a good sign for her. Did you want to weigh in on this? No, I think he's absolutely right about the Democrats. The question is, will enough Republicans turn out? I mean, we have, unfortunately, a huge motivation gap. Between Republicans and Democrats right now, if you look at the returns of early ballots across the country. I mean, Democrats are over the top beating out how they did in the last four and eight years ago in similar elections. And Republicans have to turn that around. That's one of the reasons why the income tax initiative is important, because that gives Republicans something to move for. In the third district, they've got a candidate, John Braun, who, for the first time since Representative Gluesenkamp Perez ran, she's facing a normal opponent. Someone who's actually qualified to serve as opposed to Joe Kent, the clown who was there the last two elections. And Senator Braun, State Senator Braun, is a much needed breath of fresh air down there. Comparatively speaking, but can he get all the Republicans out to vote? Because there's a big chunk down there that thought Joe Kent was the answer. So I want to kind of talk about turnout because you bring up a good point. It seems to me nationally and locally, there's way more interest in the midterm elections than there has been in the past. Is that because of the Trump effect? I think that this is really a referendum on the Trump administration. Look, I mean, from from my perspective, Trump is a polarization machine. Either you really like him. Or you really don't like him. If you look at the polling about Trump himself, you see people have very strong feelings on both sides of that. You know, and right now. His numbers overall are quite low, right? His approval ratings are anywhere between the low 30s to about 40%. So you have a lot of voters that voted for him in 2024 that are not happy with the way that the Trump administration has conducted itself the last few years. That's why you're seeing this motivation gap in terms of turnout. And it's true what Randy's saying. I saw some of the matchbacks from last week about who had already voted. We can go back and look at the, you know, parties can look at the voter file and see Are they people we've identified as D's or R's? And right now, statewide, it was close to 60% Democratic votes. So that's very strong in the Democrats' direction. Now, that may even up as Republicans come in late and vote. Maybe they're less willing to vote by mail because of some of that stuff. So I would take all that with a grain of salt. But at least from the early returns, it was looking very dark. All right. On that note, we have to end it here for today. But of course, a lot more coming the big day tomorrow. Hope everyone votes. We will continue this conversation with, you know, Sandeep Kaushik and Randy Pepple tomorrow for election coverage. So David and I will see you there. Matthew Smith downstairs, checking all the developments that's going on across our region. Matthew, I hope everything is okay down there and not big news, right? We are tracking a few stories down here in the Seattle News Today desk. The good news is some of those are election related. So here's what we're going to do. We're going to take a short commercial break. We'll jump back in. We'll talk about the stories that we've been watching behind the scenes while you guys were listening in to our legal and elections experts with Fox 13 News anchors Hannah Kim and David Rose. And we'll be jumping into a conversation with Fox 13 News reporter Lauren Donovan about her story today. Sneak peek at what's to come on Seattle News Tonight. We'll be right back.