Just before 10 a.m. on a Wednesday in mid September, more than 40 drivers lined up outside a gas station in Kent, Wash., for a special treat: a rare opportunity to fill up the tanks of their cars and trucks with gas priced at the national average.

During the two-hour promotion, more than 200 motorists filled up for $3.82 a gallon, at a time when the average price for a gallon of gasoline was over five dollars in Washington State.

In addition to the cheap — or relatively cheap — gas, the motorists also encountered people gathering signatures for a petition to repeal Washington’s new cap-and-trade system, which opponents say has driven up the cost of gas in the state by as much as 50 cents a gallon. Washington now competes with California and Hawaii for the nation’s highest gas prices.

Two months after the gas promotion, backers of the repeal effort were back in Kent for a press conference, arriving in a truck filled with boxes of petitions — enough, they believe, to qualify for next year’s November ballot — which were turned in to the secretary of state that day.

Opponents of Washington’s cap-and-trade system believe it is wildly unpopular with most voters in the state. In addition to jacking up gas prices, it’s also leading to increased utility costs.

It’s the kind of law that Brian Heywood said is passed by Democrats in the state who have grown so accustomed to and arrogant in their power that they no longer worry about the political ramifications of their decisions or their impact on their voters.

Heywood, the CEO of a Redmond-based hedge fund, is one of the leaders of the cap-and-trade repeal. But his efforts don’t stop there. Through his Let’s Go Washington political committee, Heywood is part of a group of Washington conservatives trying to get not one but six initiatives in front of voters next year, aimed at turning back what they see as Democratic overreach.

Heywood told National Review he has invested close to $6 million in the effort so far. They have until 5 p.m. on December 29 to turn in 324,516 valid signatures for each initiative. Heywood believes they’ll get enough signatures to get all six initiatives across the finish line.

In addition to repealing the cap-and-trade system, the initiatives would: repeal the state’s new capital-gains tax, ensure that no governmental body is able to impose an income tax, allow Washingtonians to opt out of a union-backed long-term insurance scheme, end new state restrictions on police pursuits, and institute a parental bill of rights.

“This is to put common sense back on the ballot,” Heywood said.

In addition to allowing voters to directly check the Democrats’ increasingly far-left agenda, supporters of the initiative effort also look at it as an opportunity to rebrand and revive Washington’s wilting Republican Party. The initiatives should signal to Washingtonians what the state’s Republican Party is about: safe neighborhoods, a reasonable cost of living, efficient state government, strong families, and parental rights, said state representative Jim Walsh, who is also the new chair of the party and the drafter of the initiatives.

“We are the party that represents the interests of real people,” he told National Review.

The initiative effort has drawn concern from left-wing labor unions, climate activists, and political progressives. A writer for the left-wing Northwest Progressive Institute called it “an unprecedented effort, at least in modern political times.” A Seattle Times columnist said it was “the first sign of a pulse for Republicans in almost a decade.”

Opponents of the initiatives, like the Service Employees International Union, are scared, Heywood said. “They’ve never had anyone hit him like this. Never,” he said.

From One ‘Overreaching Regime’ to Another

Heywood, a Mormon who sprinkles conversations with exclamations like “fricking,” said he grew up in a small Arizona town, but headed east to study Russia and the Soviets at Harvard.

“There seems to be a quota of one white, poor, Mormon, Arizona kid that Harvard lets in every year,” he said. “That’s me.”

A church mission trip to Japan ultimately changed the direction of his studies and of his life. He ended up living and working there for most of the 1990s, and still has close ties to the country. The hedge fund he founded in 2001, Taiyo Pacific Partners, specializes in investments in the Japanese market.

Heywood initially ran the business out of Monterey, Calif., but decided to move the entire operation to Washington in 2010. There were more Japanese cultural opportunities for his employees in Washington, a state he described as stunning and beautiful. He was also looking to escape California’s high-tax environment, which was getting out of hand.

“There was no tax that they didn’t think that they could raise higher, and anything that was still moving that they didn’t think they could tax more,” he said.

Because Washington has no state income tax, the move essentially provided all of his workers with a significant raise, he said.

But Washington has been a Democratic stronghold for two generations now — it hasn’t elected a Republican governor since 1980, the longest streak in the nation, hasn’t voted for a Republican for president since 1984, and has had a Democratic state house of representatives since 2002. After Democrats won control of the state senate in 2017, consolidating their power in Olympia, the state has increasingly leaned hard into leftist politics and policies.

“Things started happening that were just fricking crazy,” Heywood said, noting the anti-police sentiment after George Floyd’s killing in 2020. Coming from California, he said, “we know what an overarching regime looked like. And it started happening here.”

Taking Aim at the ‘Stupid Things’ Democrat Did

A few years ago, Heywood helped launch Project 42, a nonprofit dedicated to building the infrastructure within Washington to support conservative ideas and Republican candidates who will prioritize personal liberty and free markets. “And to give sane people in the middle a reason to not be ashamed or afraid of voting for the Republican ideas, because they are common sense,” Heywood said.

In 2022, Heywood and Walsh were part of a group that tried to qualify eleven initiatives for the ballot — but the effort failed. They tried using volunteers to gather signatures, but learned that they didn’t have enough control and that there was a lack of grass-roots support.

“It was just too much, it was too broad,” Walsh added.

Rather than give up and lick their wounds, they decided to refocus and try again.

Heywood said that early this year he made “a list of all the stupid things” Washington Democrats have done recently, and conducted a poll of about 600 people in the state’s western counties and in Spokane. The six initiatives they’re proposing had broad support across the political spectrum, Heywood said.

Walsh said they picked the six initiatives that they believe will “do the most good.”

“The initiatives are really based on the best legislation that common-sense people tried to get through Olympia, and couldn’t get even a hearing” from the Democrats in charge, he said.

This time, instead of utilizing volunteers, Heywood set up a company to hire and pay signature gatherers. So far, it appears to be paying off.

Attacking the Left’s ‘Religion’

Heywood said that Initiative 2117 — the proposed repeal of the state’s cap-and-trade system — has been the most popular so far, even if it has gotten the least support from hard-left Democrats. “We’re attacking their religion, right?” he said. “This is their new sacrament.”

The cap-and-trade system, the centerpiece of Governor Jay Inslee’s climate effort, requires the state’s largest carbon polluters to pay for a shrinking number of credits for each ton of greenhouse gas they produce. The state has socked companies for over a billion dollars so far, money that is supposed to be spent on green initiatives.

The carbon-pricing system has hit oil refineries and energy companies hard. Opponents of the measure warned that the companies would pass the added costs on to consumers at the pump.

Supporters claimed that it would just eat into oil-company profits. Inslee pooh-poohed warnings that gas prices would skyrocket, predicting it would be just “pennies.” They were wrong.

Puget Sound Energy, which had to pay $16.8 million for carbon credits, is now hiking its customers’ utility bills to cover the costs. However, a state commission has prohibited the company from telling its customers why, allegedly because it would be too “confusing.”

Last month, a 35-year state economist filed a legal claim against the state alleging that he was forced out of his job because he refused to hide his prediction that the cap-and-trade program would increase gas prices by 45 to 50 cents per gallon, according to a King 5 News report.

Heywood believes Democrats want gas prices to go up to incentivize people to ditch gas-guzzling cars for expensive electric vehicles.

Taxes, Taxes, Taxes

Three of the other proposed initiatives target taxes.

Initiative 2109 would repeal Washington’s capital-gains tax, which Inslee signed in 2021.

It imposes a 7 percent tax on the sale of personal property over $250,000, excluding real estate. Last year, the Washington supreme court deemed the tax a constitutional excise tax, and not an income tax. Opponents argue that it should be considered an income tax under the IRS definition of income.

Initiative 2111 would preemptively prevent “any county, city, or other local jurisdiction in the state” from taxing income, using the IRS definition.

Heywood said that because of the court’s ruling that the capital-gains tax isn’t an income tax, “the cities are all starting to plan on how they can implement an income tax on the city level, but calling it an excise tax or calling it something other than an income tax.”

Heywood doesn’t think it’s a coincidence that many of Washington’s wealthiest residents — and biggest taxpayers — are now fleeing the state. While Amazon founder Jeff Bezos said last month that he moved to Florida to be closer to his parents, the relocation shields him from Washington’s capital-gains tax and a proposed wealth tax.

Heywood said he believes Washington’s economy has benefited immensely from not having a capital-gains tax or an income tax, because “we basically invite people to our state — we invite entrepreneurs to our state — to come and take a risk and make a business that is going to employ a lot of people and change the world.”

Another initiative, 2124, would allow Washingtonians to opt out of a new state-run and union-backed long-term care program and payroll tax.

The program, known as WA Cares, provides eligible Washingtonians with a one-time $36,500 payment for nursing care. The program is paid for with a new 0.58 percent payroll tax. But opponents say the program was designed so that many people who pay in won’t receive benefits.

To be eligible for the money, beneficiaries must have paid in for a decade. If they leave the workforce for more than five years — including to raise kids or to care for a sick loved one — they have to start over. It’s also not portable, so Washingtonians who paid in but retire out of state aren’t eligible.

If any company tried to set up a program like that, it would be insurance fraud, Heywood said.

“It was designed by the SEIU to guarantee more money for its members,” Walsh said. “They know it’s bad public policy.”

Heywood said they’re not trying to end the program, but to instead give people a choice.

“They’re the party that’s all about choice,” he said of the Democrats.

‘A Fricking Right to Know’

The last two initiatives involve public safety and parental rights.

Initiative 2113 would change a state law that curtails police pursuits and return the decision-making on the issue to local jurisdictions. Heywood said a recent legislative fix wasn’t enough.

Initiative 2081 would create a parents’ bill of rights in the state. It would establish parents as the primary stakeholders in the upbringing of their children, and would, among other things, guarantee parents the right to examine their kids’ textbooks and school curriculum, along with discipline records and their medical and mental-health records. It would also provide parents with the option to opt their kids out of instruction on sexual activity.

Heywood insists that he doesn’t want to be in the “culture war.”

“That’s not what this is for,” he said.

Heywood noted that earlier this year, Washington Democrats passed a law exempting youth shelters and host homes from having to contact the parents of children between 13 and 18 who are seeking gender-affirming care or reproductive health services. The law, Heywood said, essentially flips the presumption of innocence, and starts with the assumption that all parents are abusive. Heywood says the initiative isn’t aimed at overturning that law.

“I’m going back saying, let’s start with a basic idea, which is, parents have a fricking right to know, and anyone who says otherwise is peddling dangerous ideology,” he said. Heywood said the intent isn’t to enforce one ideology over another, pointing out that the same law would prevent conservative Christians teachers from proselytizing to the child of an atheist couple without their knowledge.

An Underestimated Effort?

If Heywood and Walsh turn in enough valid signatures, their initiatives would first go to the Washington legislature, which can approve, reject, or ignore them.

If lawmakers approve any of the initiatives — a real long shot — it would automatically become law and would be immune from an Inslee veto. If not, the initiatives would appear on next November’s ballot. Lawmakers also could approve alternative measures to appear alongside the initiatives on the ballot.

To become law, the initiatives need a majority of votes, or 50 percent plus one.

In October, the SEIU and the left-wing Washington Conservation Action conducted a poll on three of the proposed initiatives, and claim to have found support hovering only in the 40-percent range. Walsh called the poll a “joke.” Heywood alleged it was a “push poll,” a marketing ploy designed to make people believe the initiatives can’t win.

Heywood said he believes the SEIU is particularly concerned about voters approving the proposed long-term care opt-out. “That’s their gravy train,” he said.

While getting on the ballot and winning in November may still be something of a longshot, Heywood and Walsh both believe the initiatives in question are broadly popular.

While Washington may have a far-left reputation, “it’s always been a very sort of libertarian-like state” that is pro–Second Amendment and “very anti-tax,” Heywood said.

Heywood said he’s running the signatures they’re getting against voter rolls.

“What the voter model tells me is that 45 percent of my signatures are coming from Republicans, 20 percent are coming from independents, and 35 percent are coming from Democrats,” he said. “That’s pretty fricking awesome. So, I have broad support.”

Walsh said the initiatives should help put Democrats on defense in next year’s legislative session. They could also help change the messaging in November, making the election about more than just Donald Trump and abortion, which Washington Democrats would love.

“By Olympia standards, what we’re doing they’re calling extreme and reactionary and MAGA and every name they can throw at us,” Walsh said. “I would characterize what we’re doing as representing the people of the State of Washington instead of entrenched left-wing interests. So, it’s real reform.”