Category Archives: Statements & Advisories

January 9th, 2014

I-1325 would contravene the Supreme Court’s McCleary decision

Rethinking and ReframingStatements & AdvisoriesThreat Analysis

Today, while Tim Eyman was busy trying to generate more publicity for his latest initiative by confronting House Speaker Frank Chopp in the statehouse, the Washington State Supreme Court ordered the State of Washington to submit, no later than April 30th, 2014, a “complete plan for fully implementing its program of basic education for each school year between now and the 2017-2018 school year.”

The order, signed by eight of the Court’s nine justices, also states (PDF):

This plan must address each of the areas of K-12 education identified in ESHB 2261, as well as the implementation plan called for by SHB 2776, and must include a phase-in schedule for fully funding each of the components of basic education. We recognize that the April 30, 2014 shortens the time for the State’s report, but it is clear that the pace of progress must quicken.

“Tim Eyman’s latest initiative violates Article IX of the Washington State Constitution by eliminating $1 billion a year in funding for education and our other vital public services if the Legislature doesn’t do what Tim wants,” said NPI founder and executive director Andrew Villeneuve.

“The Supreme Court was crystal clear in the original McCleary ruling two years ago, and again today: We are not fulfilling our paramount duty of providing every child in Washington with a quality public education. That’s because we are underfunding our schools. Tim Eyman’s I-1325 would make a bad problem much, much worse. It’s coercion: either the Legislature sabotages our cherished tradition of majority rule by voting to adopt a constitutional amendment that gives one third of one house the power to block new revenue, or the sales tax is reduced, wiping out billions every biennium. Either outcome would almost certainly lead to further violations of the state Supreme Court’s order.”

The sales tax and the property tax are the principal sources of revenue for Washington’s K-12 schools. Saying that full funding is needed “now”, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Randy Dorn’s office is proposing legislation that would trigger a one percent increase in the sales tax if the Legislature does not figure out how to comply with the McCleary decision by January 1st, 2018. (Eyman’s initiative, as mentioned, would decrease the sales tax by one percent unless Eyman gets what he wants).

“Tim Eyman and a number of Republican lawmakers would like us all to believe we can fully fund our public schools without reforming our broken, regressive tax system,” said Villeneuve.

“If it were that easy, we would have done it already. Where’s that money going to come from? What services do these guys propose defunding so we can rob Peter to pay Paul? Should we gut foster care? Eliminate state support for the disabled and mentally ill? Set all prisoners free and close the Department of Corrections? Or do Eyman and Republican legislators think we can get the funds by planting money trees?”

“We are not going to solve this problem by having this debate in a fantasy world. Arithmetic matters. The reality is, public services cost money, and it is our collective responsibility as a people to ensure our youth get a good public education. Our highest law requires it. More importantly, it’s at the heart of what we believe as Washingtonians. These are our values. We made a promise to our kids and to ourselves when our forebears ratified our Constitution. Tim Eyman would have us ignore that obligation. His toxic politics and destructive initiatives should be rejected.”

January 6th, 2014

Tim Eyman borrows from the Ted Cruz playbook, turns to coercion with latest initiative

Statements & AdvisoriesThreat Analysis

Perhaps galvanized by the headline-grabbing but ultimately failed tactics used by the Tea Party faction of the Republican Party during last autumn’s needless government shutdown, Tim Eyman today filed a revised draft of an initiative idea he’s been toying with for the last few weeks.

The latest incarnation, which does not yet have a number or a ballot title, demands that by July 1st, 2015, the Legislature put a constitutional amendment on the ballot requiring a two-thirds vote to raise revenue, or else the sales tax would be reduced by a penny, which would wipe out around $1 billion (with a b) in funding for public schools, universities, and other vital public services.

The state sales tax and property tax are the primary source of revenue for education, which the Constitution says is the state’s “paramount duty.” In McCleary v. State, The Supreme Court ruled in early 2012 that the state is failing to abide by the Constitution by underfunding its public schools.

“Tim Eyman’s latest initiative is unconstitutional, just as his I-601 clones were,” said NPI founder and executive director Andrew Villeneuve, who has organized opposition to Eyman’s destructive initiatives for nearly twelve years. “And that’s no accident. Eyman is just as interested in undermining and weakening our plan of government as he is in eviscerating the vital public services we all rely on. He’s a menace.”

Eyman’s latest destructive initiative seems directed at lawmakers, but we suspect Eyman also had the Supreme Court in mind when he wrote it. This, apparently, is his reply to the League of Education Voters decision.

For it is thanks to the Supreme Court that the main provision in Eyman’s undemocratic, unconstitutional I-601 clones is now gone, and majority rule restored to our statehouse. Last year, the Court struck down the two-thirds vote requirement for new-revenue imposed by those initiatives, affirming that the only lawful and legitimate way to change our Constitution is by amendment.

And ironically, amendments must begin in the Legislature and receive a two-thirds vote before going to the people.

Eyman therefore needs a two-thirds vote of the Legislature to make his unsound and undemocratic two-thirds scheme permanent. He needs lawmakers’ cooperation.

Since he doesn’t have the votes, he’s returning to his revenue-slashing roots and borrowing from the Ted Cruz playbook by introducing an initiative that would gut funding for public schools – and purposely defy the Supreme Court’s McCleary decision – if the Legislature doesn’t do what he wants.

Eyman’s latest initiative boils down to this: “Either comply with my wishes, or watch a billion dollars in funding for schools vanish. Clock’s ticking!”

“Tim Eyman is betting that Washingtonians care more about giving a third of lawmakers the power to block new revenue than they do about fulfilling our paramount duty, the education of Washington’s young people,” said Villeneuve. “We couldn’t disagree more, and in the months ahead, we will rally Washingtonians to join us in fiercely opposing this unconstitutional, coercive initiative.”

“We’re energized and we’re ready to work once again to protect our beautiful Evergreen State,” said Villeneuve. “But we find it sad that Tim Eyman has nothing better to do than to threaten the future of Washington’s youth.”

“Not once has Tim ever proposed an initiative that would help people. If he wanted, he could direct his energies towards ending homelessness, cleaning up Puget Sound, or ensuring vulnerable populations like the mentally ill get the care they need. But he’d rather burn than build. Instead of contributing to the betterment of our communities, he seeks their destruction.”

November 26th, 2013

With election results certified, the failure of Tim Eyman’s I-517 sets a new record

Election PostmortemStatements & Advisories

Today, elections officials from Washington State’s thirty-nine counties certified the results of the 2013 general election. The final results show that Tim Eyman’s I-517, one of two statewide initiatives on the ballot, was defeated with 62.71% of the vote, which is the biggest-ever defeat of a Tim Eyman initiative, percentage-wise.

The old record of 61.54% was held by the No on I-892 campaign, which opposed Eyman’s 2004 scheme to put electronic slot machines in every neighborhood of the state and use the increased tax revenue to lower property taxes.

I-892 was overwhelmingly defeated by voters.

Although 2013 was a low turnout election, more than one million Washingtonians voted to reject I-517.

In King County, the no vote climbed above 70% as counting went on, and it nearly reached 72% by the time most ballots had been tabulated. The No campaign, which NPI’s Permanent Defense worked to help organize, won with a majority or supermajority of the vote in all of the state’s key swing counties, including Pierce, Snohomish, Kitsap, Whatcom, Clark, Thurston, and Spokane.

“In overwhelmingly rejecting I-517, the people of Washington have reaffirmed that the purpose of the Seventh Amendment to our state Constitution was to create an initiative process, not an initiative business,” said NPI founder Andrew Villeneuve.

“Proponents of I-517, including Tim Eyman and Eddie Agazarm, claimed during the campaign that I-517 was about making it easier for grassroots groups to get on the ballot. But in reality, they wrote and promoted I-517 to help themselves. They profit from qualifying initiatives, and they were looking to make their business even more lucrative with I-517. Thankfully, they failed.”

Tim Eyman and Eddie Agazarm have each previously admitted that they love making money from initiatives and want to make even more.

  • On February 3rd, 2002, Tim Eyman called up David Ammons of the Associated Press and confessed to having taken more than $150,000 of his own supporters’ donations for his personal use… and then lying about it for months. “This entire charade was set up so I could maintain a moral superiority over our opposition, so I could say our opponents make money from politics and I don’t,” Eyman told Ammons. Eyman admitted that going forward, he wanted to be well-paid:  “I want to continue to advocate issues and I want to make a lot of money doing it.”
  • On April 18th, 2012, in an email to petition crew chiefs, Eyman associate Eddie Agazarm addressed complaints that petitioners were not being paid to collect signatures for I-517 by claiming that the inevitable passage of the initiative would make the signature gathering business more lucrative, and that this would be good for the very petition workers he exploits. He wrote:  “Somebody said that they’d have to be asking their people to work I-517 for free. That is definitely not the case as ALL petitioners and ALL managers will get paid very handsomely once I-517 passes. Think of the extra money we ALL make when we can work big turf ALL the time. Think of the money we can ALL make when we have petitioning year round. Think of all the extra petitions we can carry. Oh… we are gonna get paid for sure.”

The Public Disclosure Commission continues to actively investigate a complaint filed by Sherry Bockwinkel in August of 2012 that alleges numerous public disclosure laws were violated by Eyman, Agazarm and their associates during the I-517 signature drive, including failure to timely report contributions and expenditures.

NPI is monitoring the status of the investigation and urging the PDC to thoroughly investigate all of the allegations.

November 5th, 2013

Statement on the defeat of Initiative 517

Election PostmortemStatements & Advisories

Initial returns from Washington’s thirty-nine counties this evening indicate that Tim Eyman’s Initiative 517 is headed down to a big defeat. NPI founder and NO on I-517 steering committee member Andrew Villeneuve thanked the people of Washington for overwhelmingly rejecting I-517, which would have made it easier for Eyman and his associates to manipulate our state’s initiative process and profit from it.

“Congratulations to the people of Washington for having the good sense and wisdom to reject Tim Eyman’s self-serving I-517,” said NPI founder and NO on I-517 steering committee member Andrew Villeneuve. “Over the past few weeks, we’ve worked hard to help voters understand that I-517 would have infringed upon our constitutionally guaranteed free speech rights and property rights, giving petitioners special privileges that no one else would have. We’re thankful that our efforts were successful. The rejection of I-517 is a victory for the initiative process over the initiative business.”

I-517 was opposed by a broad and diverse coalition that included progressive organizations like NPI, retailers like Safeway, Fred Meyer, REI, Lowe’s, Home Depot, and Walmart, as well as labor unions like the Carpenters and the Inlandboatmen’s Union of the Pacific and sports teams like the Seattle Seahawks and the Seattle Sounders. Opposition was also bipartisan: Former gubernatorial rivals Jay Inslee and Rob McKenna each took a stand opposing I-517, as did the Washington State Democratic Party, the Mainstream Republicans of Washington State, former State Auditor Brian Sonntag, and former Secretaries of State Sam Reed and Ralph Munro.

The Yes on I-517 campaign remains under investigation by the Public Disclosure Commission for violating Washington State’s public disclosure laws during its signature gathering stage. The PDC acknowledged last month the investigation would not be completed ahead of the election.

NPI will be monitoring the status of the investigation in the weeks to come.

“Ending abuse of our state’s initiative and referendum process is a priority for us,” Villeneuve said. “We’re strong believers in the initiative and referendum and we want to return these instruments of direct democracy to their roots. It should be easier for grassroots activists to put together an initiative campaign, and harder for powerful interests to simply arrange a vote so they can purchase laws favorable to them.”

“In 2014 and beyond, we will working to end the exploitation of petition workers by outfits like Citizen Solutions that profit from qualifying initiatives while failing to comply with our worker protection laws,” Villeneuve added.

“We will also urge the Legislature to put a stop to the practice of ballot title shopping and require that petitions be more transparently laid out, so people have a clearer understanding of what they are being asked to sign.”

October 30th, 2013

Tim Eyman’s “advisory votes” are really costly, deceptive, and unconstitutional push polls

Rethinking and ReframingStatements & AdvisoriesThreat Analysis

NPI’s Permanent Defense today released a new critical analysis of the “advisory votes” required by Tim Eyman’s Initiative 960.

Titled “Tim Eyman’s “advisory votes” are really costly, deceptive, and unconstitutional push polls“, it explains that the five “advisory votes” on this year’s ballot are an expensive sham intended to maliciously influence voters, not provide our state’s elected leaders with any useful feedback about the state budget.

“We have begun calling these advisory votes push polls, because that is what they really are,” said Northwest Progressive Institute founder Andrew Villeneuve, who has been organizing opposition to Tim Eyman’s initiatives for nearly twelve years.

“Like all push polls, Eyman’s advisory votes consist of loaded questions that suggest their own responses. Regardless of what the outcome of these five votes are, Eyman has already won, because he has succeeded in cluttering up the front side of every Washingtonian’s ballot with his false ‘government is oppressing you and overtaxing you’ message. Where is the counterpoint? Where is the context?”

“It’s not there. It’s not even in the voter’s pamphlet; I-960 forbids it. The taxpayers of this state are unknowingly paying for Tim Eyman’s propaganda to be marketed to them. It’s ridiculous.”

“In computing, there’s a saying I like: Garbage in, garbage out. What this means is, if you put bad data into a computer program, it will spit bad results out. The computer will unquestioningly process what you give it, even if the data is invalid or makes no sense. That’s analogous to what’s going on here. Some voters may skip the advisory vote questions because they find them confusing or rigged, but most will try to answer them because they want to vote a complete ballot, as every good citizen should. But since the advisory vote questions are no good, the results will also be no good. We are advising all state lawmakers – Democrats and Republicans alike – to draw no conclusions whatsoever from the results of these push polls, except that our tax dollars are being wasted yet again by a Tim Eyman initiative.”

The analysis – which looks at what voters see and what they don’t see when they come across the “advisory votes” – concludes that Eyman’s push polls are costly, deceptive, and unconstitutional. It notes that recent news stories about the advisory votes have failed to discuss the true extent of the cost of the push polls. The approximately $130,000 that was spent to put the push polls into the voter’s pamphlet (which Eyman has ironically called “chump change”) is just the beginning. In any election, there are costs associated with printing, mailing, and tallying ballots. Those costs will be higher in 2013 as a result of the inclusion of Eyman’s five push polls.

Recent news stories have also neglected to discuss the constitutionality of Eyman’s push polls; the analysis explains why NPI believes them to be unconstitutional.

Read the full analysis: Tim Eyman’s “advisory votes” are really costly, deceptive, and unconstitutional push polls

October 11th, 2013

Momentum builds against Tim Eyman’s Initiative 517

From the Campaign TrailStatements & Advisories

The diverse and bipartisan group of organizations, businesses and concerned individuals working together to defeat Tim Eyman’s latest initiative is stepping up efforts to ensure that voters are aware of the cost and consequences of I-517.

I-517 would lengthen the signature gathering period, permit petitioners to go inside public buildings, prohibit businesses from reining in aggressive signature gatherers, and require that all local initiatives go to the ballot at taxpayer expense – even if they are invalid or unconstitutional.

“Voters need to know about the fatal flaws with Tim Eyman’s Initiative 517 before they make a decision,” said NO on I-517 steering committee member Andrew Villeneuve, the founder of the Northwest Progressive Institute.

“Our diverse, bipartisan coalition is committed to ensuring that Washingtonians know that I-517 threatens the free speech and property rights guaranteed to us by the U.S. Constitution and the Washington State Constitution.”

Organizations that have recently joined the opposition to I-517 include the Spokane Home Builders, the Tacoma-Pierce County Chamber of Commerce, the Tri-City Chamber of Commerce, and the Kittitas, Kitsap, and Whatcom County Democratic Parties. More groups and individuals are adding their names every week.

Also opposed to I-517 are Seattle Seahawks and the Seattle Sounders FC, the Washington State Democratic Party, the Mainstream Republicans of Washington, the Northwest Progressive Institute, and the Association of Washington Business. Current and former elected officials opposed to I-517 include Representative Sam Hunt (D-Olympia), former Attorney General Rob McKenna, former Auditor Brian Sonntag, and former Secretaries of State Sam Reed and Ralph Munro.

The NO on I-517 Coalition additionally welcomed the endorsements of The Seattle Times, The News Tribune of Tacoma, and Governor Jay Inslee, all received during the past seven days.

The News Tribune wrote of I-517, “The right to petition the government is a vital one. But all rights have limits. I-517 overreaches, giving signature gatherers privileges that infringe on those of private property owners and the public.”

The Seattle Times added, “[I]t would grease the signature-gathering process. It reads as if Tim Eyman wrote it to expand his initiative-manufacturing industry… I-517 overreaches by broadening the turf for signature gathering. The clipboard armies would be explicitly allowed in any public building, including any public sports venue, and on ‘all public sidewalks and walkways that carry pedestrian traffic.'”

And Governor Jay Inslee told public radio’s Austin Jenkins that he’s voting NO on I-517 because it violates the First Amendment rights of ballot measure opponents:

Inslee says he will vote “no” on the other measure on Washington’s November ballot. Initiative 517 would give ballot measure sponsors more time to collect signatures. It would also set penalties for interfering with or retaliating against signature-gatherers or petition-signers. Inslee says he thinks the proposal would intrude on people’s First Amendment rights to express their opinions.

To learn more about the campaign against I-517, visit the coalition’s website.

July 16th, 2013

Advisory vote costs are not “chump change”

Rethinking and ReframingStatements & Advisories

Earlier today, The Herald of Everett reported that the Secretary of State has scheduled five meaningless “advisory votes” following the Legislature’s passage of five bills that resulted in revenue being raised or recovered for the state treasury.

The advisory votes are required a provision of Tim Eyman’s Initiative 960, which narrowly passed in 2007 and was partially struck down earlier this year by the Washington State Supreme Court.

The Herald’s Jerry Cornfield sought comment for Eyman about the five advisory votes, and reported that Eyman was unconcerned about the cost of what amounts to very expensive, pointless opinion research paid for with taxpayer dollars.

In fact, Eyman even referred to the cost of incorporating the advisory votes into the voter’s pamphlet (estimated at $240,000) as “chump change”.

“Tim Eyman’s comments today again show that his real objective is weakening and destroying government, not making it function more efficiently,” said NPI founder and executive director Andrew Villeneuve. “Our Constitution provides for three kinds of statewide ballot measures: initiatives, referenda, and constitutional amendments. The Constitution does not authorize advisory votes. Consequently, I-960’s advisory vote scheme is unconstitutional in addition to being wasteful. It was purposely engineered to clutter up our ballots and give Eyman more fodder for emails to reporters.”

“Elections budgets at the state and local level are stretched tight enough as it is – Eyman’s unconstitutional advisory vote scheme just makes a bad situation worse.”

The thicker voter’s pamphlet is actually not the only additional expense related to the advisory votes.

Yesterday, in a separate article, The Herald’s Jerry Cornfield reported that the price tag for the special election to fill Jay Inslee’s House seat ended up being more than three quarters of a million dollars ($791,339.40). Though it was an even-numbered year (when counties are responsible for elections costs) the state agreed to help the counties out with the special election.

King County will be sent the lion’s share of the money, $529,057.02, while Snohomish County gets $106,576.13 and Kitsap County stands to receive $55,706.21.

The data just released by the state for the special election in Washington’s 1st Congressional District makes it clear that the cost of adding races or ballot measures to our ballots is not, in fact, “chump change”.

Because 2013 is an odd-numbered year, the cost of holding the five advisory votes will likely come out of the state treasury. The final bill may not be paid by the state until late 2013 or early 2014, but it won’t be an insignificant amount of money.

“What many people don’t understand is that elections are actually a public service,” Villeneuve said. “It costs serious money to hold elections. Every time there’s a public vote on something, we pay for it. Democracy is a great thing, but it isn’t free.”

“That’s why, when a vote is held, it should mean something. If Tim Eyman wants to do public opinion research, he can pay for that himself with his own PAC’s funds. The rest of us should not be forced to pay for it.”

In the coming weeks, NPI’s Permanent Defense will be releasing a report, Elections are a public service, too: Here’s what they cost which will delve more deeply into the subject of election expenses. Look for this report as election season gets underway later in the summer.

May 9th, 2013

Tim Eyman again borrows against his house as a fundraising gimmick for his latest initiative

Rethinking and ReframingStatements & AdvisoriesThreat Analysis

Tim Eyman acknowledged today that he is moving forward with his latest unconstitutional initiative by loaning his campaign committee a quarter of a million dollars, presumably so that he can begin a signature drive for the measure.

Eyman is once again borrowing against his house, as he has in years past – or at least that’s what he’s told reporters like the Everett Herald’s Jerry Cornfield. The quarter of a million dollar check was reported by Eyman’s treasurer yesterday as a cash donation (see the C3) but Eyman says it’s really a loan, and the PDC reports that treasurer Barbara J. Smith filed will need to be corrected to reflect this.

A reasonable person might think that after being involved in campaigns for some fifteen years (going back to the late nineties) Tim Eyman would have figured out how to run a squeaky clean operation, be in compliance with our public disclosure laws, and report contributions, expenditures, and loans correctly the first time.

Sadly, it’s apparent that Eyman doesn’t care about following the law, just as he doesn’t care about the constitutionality of his initiatives. Eyman doesn’t care how inaccurate or misleading his reports are.

There’s another irregularity on that C3 that caught our attention.

Contributors who donate large amounts of money to a campaign are, under the law, supposed to state their occupation. The C3 filed by Barbara J. Smith yesterday lists Eyman’s occupation as “Retired”.

Seriously? That’s what they put? Retired from what? Selling watches?

Tim Eyman is not retired. He is employed on a full time basis as as a public services demolition expert, in the tradition of Grover Norquist. (“Professional activist” would be more charitable, but we’re not sure how Eyman can be called a professional given how sloppily run his campaign committees are).

Eyman does not do initiatives as a hobby. He does initiatives full time, with the aim of profiting from his campaigns. As he told the AP’s David Ammons in 2002 after he admitted taking supporter donations for his own personal use: “I want to continue to advocate issues and I want to make a lot of money doing it.”

If he is able to successfully run a paid signature drive on this latest measure, he will have two initiatives on the ballot this year for the first time since 2000. And one of those initiatives, I-517, is explicitly intended to help him run more and cheaper initiatives in the future.

Eyman’s initiative factory is a lucrative profit machine. Last year, he and his buddies reported that they spent $1.2 million on the I-1185 signature drive. But we know from talking to petitioners on that campaign that they were only paid a dollar a signature. And less than 350,000 signatures were submitted. So if the petitioners got less than a third of the money that was spent on the signature drive, where’d the rest go? It seems reasonable to assume it ended up in the pockets of Eyman and his associates.

It appears to us that I-1185 funds were also used for the I-517 signature drive. This and other irregularities regarding the I-517 campaign’s PDC reporting were documented in a complaint filed by Tacoma activist Sherry Bockwinkel in August of last year, which alleged that Eyman and his associates violated our public disclosure laws.

The PDC announced several weeks ago that it had formally opened an inquiry and would investigate the complaint.

Tim Eyman’s eleven all-time top wealthy benefactors over the years are as follows:

  1. Michael Dunmire
  2. Kemper Freeman, Jr.
  3. Beer Institute
  4. Great Canadian Gaming
  5. Michaels Development
  6. British Petroleum
  7. Tesoro
  8. ConocoPhillips
  9. Equilon/Shell
  10. Wes Lematta
  11. American Beverage Association

We’ve been anticipating that Eyman would move forward with this latest initiative. Accordingly, we will be organizing to fight it.

Washington State simply cannot afford any more destructive Eyman initiatives intended to eviscerate our public services and sabotage our Constitution.

May 2nd, 2013

Tim Eyman again floods reporters’ inboxes with worthless ten-year cost projections

Legislation & TestimonyRethinking and ReframingStatements & Advisories

Just before 10 AM this morning, Tim Eyman sent out an email claiming that the House Democrats’ revenue package raises taxes by $5.3 billion. Eyman enclosed a table of ten year cost estimates prepared by the Office of Financial Management (OFM).

What Eyman neglected to mention is that these ten year cost projections are worthless, and OFM only prepares them because they’re required to under Eyman’s Initiative 960. Eyman, a master of media manipulation, put a provision requiring the projections into his initiative so that he can regularly send reporters tables like this, and inflate the amount of proposed revenue increases.

Anything sounds bigger when it’s stretched out over ten years. Tim Eyman may well make over a million dollars from his initiative factory…. over the next ten years. His campaign committee “Voters Want More Choices” may well be the recipient of more than $20 million in checks from powerful interests like BP, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and ConocoPhillips… over the next ten years.

Eyman knows as well as we do that the Legislature prepares and adopts biennial budgets, not decennial budgets. But he doesn’t care.

“$5.3 billion” sounds much scarier than $885 million.

Eyman also doesn’t care that his “advisory vote” scheme is unconstitutional and a colossal waste of money. He likes the prospect of twelve separate questions on the November ballot asking the people of Washington to give their opinion on any increases in revenue the Legislature approves – because he already knows what the results to those twelve questions would be.

But again, what Eyman doesn’t like to admit is that the answers you get depend on the questions you ask. If the Legislature put a bunch of “advisory vote” questions on the ballot asking Washingtonians if they like the idea of putting more money into universities, K-12 education, state parks, Apple Health, Disability Lifeline, and other vital public services, we’d undoubtedly see a whole lot of “yes” votes in response. Remember, we’ve seen initiatives that could be called unfunded mandates pass handily in the past. (I-728 and I-732 are good examples).

The Constitution provides for an initiative and referendum process; it does not provide for “advisory votes”. Eyman’s advisory vote scheme is unconstitutional, and it’s unfortunate that the Supreme Court did not strike it down in its LEV decision. It means that further legal action will likely be needed in order to remove the thirsty leech Eyman’s initiatives have slapped on the state and counties’ elections budgets.

February 21st, 2013

Tim Eyman continues his ugly, stinky, and disgusting behavior with repugnant attack on Jay Inslee

Rethinking and ReframingStatements & Advisories

Yesterday, after the House Democratic caucus unveiled its proposal for a new package of transportation improvements funded primarily by an increase in Washington’s fuel tax, we had a feeling that a hyberbolic rant was on the way from Tim Eyman, who the media has turned into Washington’s most visible and powerful unelected politician.

And sure enough, this morning, such an email arrived, devoid of substance and laden with inappropriate metaphors and a vile personal attack directed at our new governor, Jay Inslee. Eyman wasted no time in striking a low blow.

Candidate Inslee repeatedly promised to veto any tax increase. He said no way to higher transportation taxes in 2013. Inslee said he’d grow jobs to generate more tax revenue. What a lying whore he turned out to be. In recent weeks, he’s made it clear he’ll sign any tax increase the Legislature unilaterally imposes.  Is there any doubt that Inslee would have lost by a landslide if he’d been honest about his tax-hiking plans during the campaign?

Emphasis is ours. Our assessment of this message is that Eyman is being deliberately provocative in order to get his name and viewpoint into follow-up blog posts and stories on the transportation package.

He may already be planning to “apologize” in a few days’ time for his inflammatory comments, so he can garner even more media attention.

We urge reporters, editors, and producers not to take the bait. This isn’t news. Let the only response to this despicable commentary be from his opposition.

Eyman deserves to be called out for his inappropriate and disparaging remarks, but he does not deserve more headlines and on-air mentions by the traditional press. He has already shown he has nothing to contribute to a sane discussion about the value of public services in our state.

So let us do the calling-out, and don’t give Eyman what he wants. Don’t reward his ugly, stinky, and disgusting behavior.

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Permanent Defense works to protect Washington by building a first line of defense against threats to the common wealth and Constitution of the Evergreen State — like Tim Eyman's initiative factory. Learn more.

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