An anti-tax millionaire behind last year’s statewide ballot measures in Washington is back and planning a new slate of initiatives.
Brian Heywood, the founder of Let’s Go Washington, has filed new proposals to curb property taxes, create a new school choice funding program, target trans student athletes, and repeal the state Legislature’s recent changes to the “parents’ rights” law.
It’s unclear if Heywood will focus the full force of Let’s Go Washington’s political resources to pursue all those proposals, or if he’ll file more initiatives on other topics. Heywood said he’s still strategizing on what the group’s final list of initiative campaigns will look like.
FILE - Brian Heywood at the Let's Go Washington election night party on Nov. 5, 2024.
Joshua McNichols / KUOW
Heywood spent millions of his own money to support last year’s round of statewide ballot initiatives, which sought to repeal or roll back policies championed by Democrats in Olympia — like the state’s major climate law, long-term care program, rules on police car chases, and the capital gains tax.
This year, taxes at the front of his mind, he told KUOW.
“They’ve really really screwed the working class,” he said of state Democrats’ recent changes to local taxes.
Parents’ rights will also be a major fight “no matter what,” he said.
Let’s Go Washington was instrumental in passing a parents’ rights law last year. This year, lawmakers made a swath of changes to the law under House Bill 1296, which was among the most contentious bills debated during the legislative session. Those changes made it tougher for parents to access their kids’ school-based medical and mental health records.
In March, weeks ahead of HB 1296’s final passage, Heywood filed a new initiative aiming to repeal the changes entirely. In order to send the issue to voters this fall, Let’s Go Washington must gather at least 308,911 signatures from supporters by the first week of July.
Backers of this year’s changes to the parents’ rights law argue that the original initiative was misleading and didn’t fundamentally alter parents’ access to their kids’ school information. They also say that this year’s changes were needed to bring the law’s language into alignment with various pre-existing regulations around student privacy.
The debate has at times grown especially tense with conservative leaders using it to criticize how schools navigate rights for transgender students.
But Heywood and other supporters of the initiative say the rights for parents to be informed and in control of their kids’ education — and to push back on the bureaucracy of government — remain their core focus.
“I can’t even believe we’re having this debate, in a way, because the state doesn’t have the authority — all authority the state has comes from the people,” Heywood said.
There are different paths Heywood could take with his new policy fights.
He could file initiatives “to the people,” requiring 300,000 signatures by early July for an issue to appear on ballots in the fall.
He could also file initiatives “to the Legislature,” letting lawmakers either pass them into law in early 2026 or send them to voters to decide later that year.
Last year, three of the initiatives Heywood backed — including the parents’ rights initiative — never went to voters, because lawmakers chose to enact them during the legislative session. Four other initiatives that year went to the ballot, but the only one to pass was a measure targeting natural gas regulations.
Jeanie Lindsay is a reporter with KUOW. This story comes to you from the Northwest News Network, a collaboration between public media organizations in Oregon and Washington.
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