The state Public Disclosure Commission, acting on a complaint filed August 26th, 2004, by Permanent Defense, TaxSanity.org, and Taxpayers for Washington’s Future, fined Tim Eyman and his associates three hundred dollars for again violating Washington’s public disclosure law at an enforcement hearing Tuesday morning.

The complaint accused Tim Eyman, his associates, and his three PACs of a broad array of campaign finance and public disclosure violations.

The PDC fined Eyman one hundred and fifty dollars each for two occasions on which PDC staff found that Eyman, his associates, and his PACs had violated the public disclosure law:

• By failing to timely disclose an in-kind contribution received from Tim and Karen Eyman in the amount of $1,500 for a poll conducted in October of 2003.
• By failing to timely disclose an in-kind contribution received from the Voters Want More Choices PAC in the amount of $2,109 for a mailing.

Permanent Defense Chair Andrew Villeneuve called the enforcement action significant. “Tim Eyman has a long history of violating the public disclosure law, and he somehow thinks that it doesn’t apply to him. The PDC is making clear once again that his careless disregard for the rules will not be tolerated.”

“Eyman also claims, and continues to claim, to his supporters that his committees are completely separate from each other, but the boundaries between them seem to be pretty transparent.”

He noted that Tim Eyman made the following comment last September in a letter to the PDC regarding the complaint: “Our campaign committee [Voters Want More Choices] pays for these mailings and the accounting and other costs associated with our compensation fund [Help Us Help Taxpayers].”

“It’s just been a continual pattern of infractions, both small and large, which continue to land Eyman in trouble,” concluded Villeneuve. “He wouldn’t be getting fined if he would just follow the rules like everybody else.”