Here’s Gov. Chris Gregoire’s statement on the failure of I-1033:

“I am pleased that the voters appear to have rejected Initiative 1033. Voters understood that this misguided proposal would have precluded our ability to recover from these extraordinarily difficult economic circumstances and would have made providing quality health care and education to our citizens virtually impossible.

“Although we still face a $1.7 billion shortfall that needs to be addressed in the coming legislative session, passage of this initiative would have made the problem in the short and long term significantly worse.”