November 8th, 2006
Victory! Four for four against right wing initiatives in 2006
Election Postmortem
Yesterday, Permanent Defense won an astoundingly incredible victory that can hardly be described in words. It was historic, it was monumental, it was titanic in size and scope. It was in almost every respect a complete rout of the regressive right wing agenda and a victory for progressives and Democrats.
Anti-tax zealots are reeling after the massive rejection of Initiative 920 (which would have repealed millions of dollars for public schools) and the approval of additional revenue increases to pay for more bus service in King County and infrastructure improvements in Seattle.
And the right wing’s out-of-state funded Initiative 933 is, without a doubt, completely dead as well. Voters across Washington State said “no thanks” to jeopardizing land use protections that preserve the quality of life in our communities.
Meanwhile, Initiative 937, which will help secure our clean, green energy future, has passed. We swept the initiatives this year and gave the other guys a sound beating they won’t soon forget.
On the federal and state levels, Democrats swept to victory on a blue tidal wave that washed across America and splashed into every region in the country.
There are now more Democrats in both houses of our own state Legislature, which is very exciting news. In the upcoming legislative sessions we will be working closely with many of the newly elected legislators to fight for tax reform and a fairer tax structure.
These victories all come on top of Tim Eyman’s earlier failures to qualify Referendum 65 and Initiative 917 for the ballot. Eyman is mired in a losing streak which we have helped make possible. His losses this year top earlier defeats in previous years such as I-864, I-892, I-807, and I-267.
He is a powerless ideologue — and Washington State has had enough of him.
Eyman, who attended the Republicans’ election night party in Bellevue, was forced to concede that his ideology had suffered a major repudiation, calling the series of losses “brutal.”
Eyman today told his supporters they need to “fight back with an aggressive proposal” in 2007 and whined about Christine Gregoire and the Legislature’s revenue increases from recent legislative sessions. Of course, he failed to note that the taxes were sanctioned by voters with the rejection of I-912 (keep the gas tax) and I-920 (keep the estate tax).
Voters are not interested in gutting public services to reward wealthy Washingtonians with tax cuts.
We will continue to vigorously oppose Tim Eyman and defeat him, as we have this year and in the past. Our organization is stronger than it has ever been.
With your help and your support we will stand strong against right wing initiatives in 2007 and in the years beyond.