[00:00:08:09 – 00:00:33:11] Speaker 1 (Tracy Ellis): It’s the Elephant in the Dome, the official podcast of the Washington State Senate Republican Caucus. I’m Tracy Ellis with Senate Republican Leader John Braun and wrapping up the 2026 legislative session. And, oh, my, what a session it was. Obviously, the big thing that happened this session, we talked we’ve talked a lot about it and we probably will talk about it a lot more is the income tax.
[00:00:33:11 – 00:00:35:10] Speaker 1 (Tracy Ellis): One of the biggest bills that,
[00:00:35:16 – 00:00:38:11] Speaker 1 (Tracy Ellis): that I’ve ever seen, passed the legislature,
[00:00:38:14 – 00:00:40:15] Speaker 1 (Tracy Ellis): can you think of any bigger than that?
[00:00:40:18 – 00:01:06:26] Speaker 2 (Sen. John Braun): None in my time in the legislature and none I can think of… certainly in the last 3 or 4 decades, maybe longer. That that would go past my memory of legislative activities. But, you know, this is a bill that is, assuming the governor signs it, and he certainly seems, willing to do so, unfortunately, that’s going to have long term, negative impact on our state and our state’s economy.
[00:01:06:28 – 00:01:35:03] Speaker 2 (Sen. John Braun): opportunity for, folks to work in our state. I mean, it’s just it goes on and on. And it was rushed through in a 60 day session, without you know, reasonable regard for the impact on businesses and our, our economic climate. And I think, barring, some unexpected act from the governor or, you know, the… and of course, subject to some, some legal review, likely, and maybe even a vote of the people.
[00:01:35:06 – 00:01:38:13] Speaker 2 (Sen. John Braun): This is, this is, basically a train wreck coming at us.
[00:01:38:19 – 00:01:57:09] Speaker 1 (Tracy Ellis): Why now? Why do you think the Democrats need to do this? You kind of have to schools of thought on this: There are some Democrats who say we need to fix the tax code. It’s regressive. And, you know, we’ve talked about that before, and we don’t have to get into a big debate about whether or not it’s regressive.
[00:01:57:12 – 00:02:06:00] Speaker 1 (Tracy Ellis): But… some say you just the tax code needs to be fixed, but others seem to indicate that, hey, we just need more money. Which one do you think it is?
[00:02:06:05 – 00:02:22:29] Speaker 2 (Sen. John Braun): I think it’s some of both. I think, you know, they at least they give themselves, try to give themselves cover by saying, we need to fix the tax code. Of course, this bill does nothing to do that. Not in any real sense. I mean, if you want to, fix the tax code, you can’t just add billions of dollars in new taxes and hope for the best.
[00:02:22:29 – 00:02:46:13] Speaker 2 (Sen. John Braun): And it does have some some meager tax reduction, but mostly just spends money. And then, and that’s I think the real driver, certainly, for a lot of the folks in the Democratic caucus, they could they could check off kind of a progressive goal, but they really just they’ve gotten themselves in this runaway budget situation because they can’t seem to control their spending.
[00:02:46:13 – 00:02:54:26] Speaker 2 (Sen. John Braun): And this allows them to check off a progressive goal and, get more buckets of money that they think they can spend more wisely than the private sector.
[00:02:54:28 – 00:03:18:14] Speaker 1 (Tracy Ellis): Well, one of the senator, senators, one of the Democrat senators who’s pushing this says, oh, trust me, I’m going to get after this regressive nature of our of our tax code. I you know, you could trust me, come on board, be part of my committee that that deals with this. I mean, she seems like she’s serious, that she does want to get after it.
[00:03:18:17 – 00:03:27:28] Speaker 1 (Tracy Ellis): Do you think there will be some reductions in the future of, taxes? Like, b&o taxes, sales taxes, property taxes… that are all very regressive.
[00:03:28:01 – 00:03:48:23] Speaker 2 (Sen. John Braun): Yeah I found that entire speech somewhat frustrating. She’s serious. There’s no question about that. But what she’s serious about is taking more money from the private sector. She has never wavered in her willingness to add more taxes and has never and in any meaningful way, tried to reduce taxes and and the idea of being on a committee, with her is nonsense.
[00:03:48:25 – 00:04:15:05] Speaker 2 (Sen. John Braun): I mean, she ran, a statewide tax review committee for nearly three years, wrapped up just a couple of years ago. That committee unequivocally, came to the conclusion after meetings around the state with every committee, all communities across our state, unequivocally, said, nobody wants an income tax. And yet, having chaired that for three years, listened carefully to
[00:04:15:05 – 00:04:43:06] Speaker 2 (Sen. John Braun): the people of the state of Washington, she completely ignored it. So I don’t think there’s many people least on our side of the aisle, who are anxious to be on a committee with her because they have no faith, that she’s really there, to make the situation better. What she’s shown over and over again that she’s 100 percent committed to this progressive idea of of more and more taxes and class warfare used to justify them.
[00:04:43:09 – 00:05:03:05] Speaker 1 (Tracy Ellis): We should say that Senator Keith Wagoner was the co-chair of that committee, served in good faith. You know, I interviewed him a couple times during that whole process. He said, yeah, he goes, it’s interesting because this is what we’re hearing. People do get frustrated with with the amount of taxes they are paying, but nobody seems to want to an income tax at the end of it
[00:05:03:05 – 00:05:08:13] Speaker 1 (Tracy Ellis): like you said, here we are with an income tax. I mean, he was like, what was the point of the committee? Right?
[00:05:08:16 – 00:05:24:27] Speaker 2 (Sen. John Braun): Yeah. That’s right. I mean, if if you’re a genuine and you want to listen to the citizens and you spend all that time and money, frankly, to get around the state, you would you’d listen and not an act on what you learned. And in fact, they did exactly the opposite.
[00:05:25:00 – 00:05:41:02] Speaker 1 (Tracy Ellis): Beyond the income tax. There were some other bills that I know you were really concerned about. One that Republicans ended up defeating that you think is maybe the biggest win for Republicans this legislative session. What was that?
[00:05:41:05 – 00:06:00:09] Speaker 2 (Sen. John Braun): The one I’ve highlighted has been the bill that would have allowed, unionization within the agricultural sector. And then and some people will shrug and say, well, and isn’t that allowed already? And, the reality is, it’s not. And this bill not only would have allowed that, it would allowed that in a way that would have been enormously harmful to our ag sector.
[00:06:00:10 – 00:06:27:01] Speaker 2 (Sen. John Braun): And some people don’t realize that, especially here on the west side of the state, how big an agricultural state Washington is, we’re one of the top producers of many, agricultural commodities in the country, in some cases in the world, and that we’re having trouble. I mean, our ag, sector is large, but it’s struggling. We right now, we’re the lowest performing, agricultural, economy in the in the country.
[00:06:27:04 – 00:06:46:29] Speaker 2 (Sen. John Braun): And that has everything to do with additional regulations and additional taxes that have been placed on them by the Democratic majority. And this would have been just one more, one more cut that would have put them further underground. So this is a, a big, big deal. It hasn’t been brought up because it doesn’t make sense for this group.
[00:06:46:29 – 00:06:57:06] Speaker 2 (Sen. John Braun): There’s not a there’s not a demand from agricultural workers. This is really driven by a handful of activists. But it was a real threat. And I was very pleased that we were able to stop it in the Senate.
[00:06:57:08 – 00:07:05:20] Speaker 1 (Tracy Ellis): You’ve never come off to me as being someone who’s anti-union, necessarily. And, and been supportive of unions in some
[00:07:05:24 – 00:07:13:01] Speaker 1 (Tracy Ellis): at sometimes. But, you know, in this particular case, it just you feel like it just didn’t make sense. Is that kind of why you were against this?
[00:07:13:08 – 00:07:33:09] Speaker 2 (Sen. John Braun): Yeah. I mean, the challenge in, So there’s two things. One, and you’re right, I’m, I, I think we should support workers, whether they’re unionized or not unionized. We should work for the best conditions for them. But this is a bill that one didn’t really do that. That wasn’t, being asked for, demanded by people working in AG.
[00:07:33:09 – 00:07:50:03] Speaker 2 (Sen. John Braun): And we’ve seen that a few times in recent years where the majority thought they had policy that would help ag workers, when in fact we’ve had ag workers show up time and time again and say, no, it’s not helping me. It’s making, it more difficult for me to, to work in the sector and to provide for my family.
[00:07:50:06 – 00:08:18:28] Speaker 2 (Sen. John Braun): That’s exactly the case here is this was a small group of activists who wanted to do this. Would have potentially provided, done great harm to our ag economy, including ag workers. And I think that’s why ultimately, we were able to stop it is because at least some folks in the majority caucus, listened carefully and heard and understood that this is a this is this is a very tough thing in a agriculture economy where you’re a price taker.
[00:08:19:01 – 00:08:43:12] Speaker 2 (Sen. John Braun): You can’t really, there’s no effective way to, pass pricing cost increases on, to the customer directly. And you have to run a very efficient organization and running that organization in partnership with your, labor folks, with is is the key. And and we don’t need, to divide our labor and management and agriculture to be successful.
[00:08:43:14 – 00:08:48:03] Speaker 2 (Sen. John Braun): We’ve been very successful in Washington state up until recently. Exactly the way we are.
[00:08:48:06 – 00:08:54:08] Speaker 1 (Tracy Ellis): Beyond those two issues, income tax and, unionized agricultural workers.
[00:08:54:11 – 00:08:57:24] Speaker 1 (Tracy Ellis): which I’m telling you about this session, either good or bad.
[00:08:58:00 – 00:09:14:23] Speaker 2 (Sen. John Braun): I would, I’d mention two things. One, we’ve talked about a lot before, so I’m not going to go too deep into it. But the operating budget is a big, big problem in that it spend way beyond our revenue. I think it spent and and drains the rainy day fund, when in fact, we are not in a rainy day.
[00:09:15:00 – 00:09:33:22] Speaker 2 (Sen. John Braun): Our, our, our economy, while it has slowed, it is not negative. It’s actually still growing. And but we need that rainy day fund someday. And also, projects growth in a way that’s just 100% unrealistic. There’s likely going to end up as a huge deficit in the future. And that’s going to be a real big problem.
[00:09:33:22 – 00:09:52:11] Speaker 2 (Sen. John Braun): The other, kind of policy bill, I’d highlight that it died actually in the House, it it got out of the Senate. We fought it pretty hard. It got to the Senate is what they call the environmental crimes bill. And this was a bill I was very, very worried about, I’d say probably as worried about the as the ag, you know, it unionization bill.
[00:09:52:13 – 00:10:10:13] Speaker 2 (Sen. John Braun): It’s a bill that would, essentially make a felon of someone who was building something and made an honest mistake. And that could be a blue collar worker front line. It could be somebody that made a decision. But in our state, where we already have some of the best and I’d argue the best environmental laws in the country.
[00:10:10:16 – 00:10:31:29] Speaker 2 (Sen. John Braun): It just doesn’t make sense to do this. It would put enormous risk into building things when we need to be building things. And I think you’d find a direct, decline in investment to build, whether it’s residential housing or or commercial buildings or maybe most important, right now, additional electrical generation, all these things would be affected by this, would have been affected by that bill.
[00:10:32:06 – 00:10:43:11] Speaker 2 (Sen. John Braun): I would have put a real damper on building in Washington, would have hurt our economy, and it would have hurt our, our ability to build out of the real challenges we have when it comes to housing or energy supply.
[00:10:43:14 – 00:11:03:27] Speaker 1 (Tracy Ellis): What about law enforcement? We heard during the session that this bill passed last year that Senator Holy was kind of behind, and the governor got behind to hire more law enforcement really hasn’t resulted in more law enforcement being hired. Then it seemed like there was a bit of an attack on law enforcement, especially elected sheriffs, this session.
[00:11:03:29 – 00:11:04:26] Speaker 1 (Tracy Ellis): What do you make of that?
[00:11:05:03 – 00:11:26:05] Speaker 2 (Sen. John Braun): We have a majority and it’s still very anti law enforcement. They they’ve stopped saying the defund police thing because that was politically unpopular. But they’re going out after the same thing just different ways. I mean I was it was just only thanks to the governor’s support that we were able to get that bill with some additional money for hiring law enforcement out of the legislature.
[00:11:26:07 – 00:11:53:28] Speaker 2 (Sen. John Braun): But by the time it got out, it had been weakened so much that, we many of us expected exactly what we’ve gotten, which is it’s not being executed. It’s not resulting in any new hires. It’s really not moving the bubble in any manner. And that’s exactly what the Democratic majority had hoped for. They thought they had diluted it enough that maybe it wouldn’t work at all, because they continue to be committed, in my mind at least, to reducing the number of law enforcement in our state, even though we’re already the lowest in the country.
[00:11:54:00 – 00:12:14:23] Speaker 2 (Sen. John Braun): So that’s a big problem. And then you mentioned it. There was what we call the anti-sheriff bill that would here it did it did pass unfortunately did pass both chambers after a long fight in both chambers. But it would allow an unelected board to remove an elected sheriff. And I just think that’s entirely wrongheaded. This is a position that’s spelled out in the Constitution.
[00:12:14:25 – 00:12:37:03] Speaker 2 (Sen. John Braun): There are already clear mechanisms for removing a sheriff. If there is misbehavior in any fashion, it can be, recalled, by a vote of the people. Or they can also just be replaced in a normal, you know, every four years they come up for election. So the idea that we had to have an additional unelected body to provide oversight just never made sense.
[00:12:37:03 – 00:12:54:08] Speaker 2 (Sen. John Braun): And, and the other side would make the claim. Well, and also, you know, set some standards for qualification for, for the sheriff. And and but what they don’t acknowledges there was some agreement on that. There was a separate bill that did that. There were law enforcement organizations that supported that, but they didn’t support and I agree with them
[00:12:54:12 – 00:13:01:22] Speaker 2 (Sen. John Braun): was this idea that unelected body could remove an elected sheriff. That’s up to the voters. The voters should be doing that and them alone.
[00:13:01:24 – 00:13:18:06] Speaker 1 (Tracy Ellis): At the same time, the Democrats here in Olympia seemed be giving more power to the, attorney general here in the state of Washington. I really don’t understand this bill. Maybe you can explain it a little bit and explain why it has so many people worried.
[00:13:18:06 – 00:13:46:10] Speaker 2 (Sen. John Braun): Just gives the, the attorney general the right to kind of wade into private enterprise and demand, additional information. In and we did and they did it we did improve it both in the Senate and the House somewhere, so that the additional limits on what they can demand and some additional standards, on which they can demand it, but it’s still a big, big, threat to private enterprise around the state.
[00:13:46:10 – 00:14:11:15] Speaker 2 (Sen. John Braun): I mean, the reality is, you know, the attorney general has hundreds of attorneys. They got unlimited, you know, relatively unlimited sources of revenue. They can wade in and, and basically just harass businesses until they, you know, they they can’t survive. Again, our businesses are already struggling in Washington state due to the high tax load, due to high regulatory requirements.
[00:14:11:17 – 00:14:39:02] Speaker 2 (Sen. John Braun): The last thing is need is this kind of under, you know, this this additional authority with attorney general to go after businesses who may or may not be doing anything wrong and without, sufficient legal safeguards. And and what they don’t seem to understand is, you know, this is essentially, you know, free money for the attorney general, but every business that has to explain themselves, has to defend themselves, has to go hire legal counsel.
[00:14:39:02 – 00:15:03:12] Speaker 2 (Sen. John Braun): And that gets very expensive, very quick. And it makes it just one more thing that makes it is unattractive about doing business in the state of Washington. It’s going to contribute to all the other things that are having businesses across our state think hard about whether they want to continue to be here in Washington or not. And if if too many decide they do not wish to stay here, which, I’m worried that’s the direction we’re headed
[00:15:03:14 – 00:15:11:29] Speaker 2 (Sen. John Braun): that’s a and that could be an enormous, harm done to our economy. And therefore revenue for the state and therefore services provided by the state.
[00:15:12:06 – 00:15:27:24] Speaker 1 (Tracy Ellis): Somebody listening to this right now may say, well, it sounds to me like it was Olympia knows best and businesses are bad. If there was a theme to the session, what would that be something that you might, might pick, as the theme?
[00:15:27:24 – 00:15:42:14] Speaker 2 (Sen. John Braun): I think you pretty much nailed it. You might say, you know, they like to use the word villain instead of bad, and they might just expand it. Not just businesses, but any any citizens with any means are all bad. They… it’s class warfare and warfare against businesses when it comes to Democratic,
[00:15:42:17 – 00:15:43:15] Speaker 1 (Tracy Ellis): Democratic majority
[00:15:43:21 – 00:15:51:02] Speaker 1 (Tracy Ellis): That’s Senator John Braun. I’m Tracy Elllis. This is the Elephant in the Dome the official podcast of the Washington State Senate Republican Caucus.