Tim Eyman has responded to a complaint jointly filed by Permanent Defense, TaxSanity.org, and Taxpayers For Washington’s Future, but refuses to address any of the charges it presents.

Calling it “our opponents’ latest slime attack”, Eyman said he had reviewed the complaint “and it’s all lies.” But the initiative profiteer didn’t counter or address any of the charges against him.

If the contentions made in the complaint are so easily disproved, why didn’t Eyman try to refute them? His refusal to answer them lends credence to the truth of the contentions.

Eyman’s past history suggests that he is indeed willing to violate public disclosure law over and over again. He’s notorious for taking a salary while lying about it, but his history is more extensive than that.

More than once, he’s been late filing his records, has twice solicited supporters for personal checks made out to “Tim Eyman, Taxpayer Advocate” – even in the midst of one of his initiative campaigns.

It seems that Tim likes raising money even more than he likes running initiative campaigns. Why else would he be willing to apparently spend $26,305 of donations to Initiative 864 on a mailing for his personal compensation fund?

The answer is that Tim’s political activism is his income. He cares more deeply about making money than he does about making policy. Even when his initiatives fail, Tim comes right out and asks supporters to compensate him for his “effective work on behalf of taxpayers”.

To Eyman, supporters are like ATM machines. Punch in the right code and you can collect the money. And never mind that Tim Eyman is like an identity thief.

He promised supporters repeatedly that, “Voluntary donations to the 25% Property Tax Initiative will be used to qualify this important tax reduction initiative for the ballot,” and that Help Us Help Taxpayers was completely seperate.

Apparently, Help Us Help Taxpayers isn’t so seperate after all. It’s one thing to lie about taking money for personal use. It’s another to continue doing it again.

Eyman figured he wouldn’t be caught. But that’s what he thought before he was forced to confess about taking a salary in February of 2002.

Eyman can think it’s “borrowing”, but he’s run out of excuses. He told supporters all the way up to July 2nd that their money was being used to qualify Initiative 864 for the ballot. When apparently, a sizable chunk wasn’t, after all.

Eyman’s silence on the charges raises their credibility. The PDC must now act to ensure that the public disclosure law was not violated. And if it was, Eyman should be penalized for not following the rules like everyone else.

It’s only fair to the citizens of Washington State.