May 2nd, 2011

When new is old: Eyman’s scheme to restrict tolls based off a recycled provision from failed I-985

Statements & AdvisoriesThreat Analysis

Yesterday, through the Associated Press, Tim Eyman announced that he intends to try to qualify an initiative for the 2011 November ballot, after initially planning to take a year off due to lack of access to a wealthy benefactor.

The scheme Eyman says he’s running with was filed back in January, and was assigned the number 1125 by the Secretary of State.

What Eyman neglected to mention in his announcement is that I-1125 is based on recycled provisions from Initiative 985, which voters overwhelmingly rejected more than two years ago.

The provisions in question sought to constrain the Legislature’s toll-setting authority in almost exactly the same ways: first, by trying to prevent the Legislature from delegating its toll-setting authority to the Transportation Commission, and second, to prevent toll money from being used for anything except projects concerning the facility where each dollar in toll revenue was originally collected.

In 2008, we argued that these and other provisions in Initiative 985 would lead to more traffic and less flexibility for planners working to alleviate our region’s traffic problems. Voters resoundingly agreed: 59% of those participating in the 2008 presidential election voted I-985 down.

“If Tim Eyman respected the will of the people, he wouldn’t be running Initiative 1125,” said NPI founder Andrew Villeneuve.

“The people have already decided this question. They said no to Initiative 985 in a landslide only two and a half years ago. They made it plainly clear they weren’t interested in Tim Eyman’s plot to hamstring the Legislature and WSDOT.”

“But Tim has shown that he only cares about the outcome of elections when voters make the mistake of agreeing with him. I-985’s failure is immaterial to him; as far as he’s concerned, I-985’s defeat never happened. I-985 never happened.”

“When Tim first began running initiatives over a decade ago, his target was our common wealth. Since the mid-2000s, he’s moved on to a bigger, more ambitious target: Representative democracy. Quite simply, Tim Eyman wants to undo the plan of government our founders gave us, because he doesn’t like how it works.”

“That’s why he keeps proposing initiatives designed to paralyze the Legislature. His mantra is that there should be a public vote on any decision of importance. How many times have we heard him say, ‘Let the voters decide’? But in a representative democracy, the voters do get to decide. They choose who represents them in the Legislature every two and every four years. Eyman just doesn’t like most of the representatives the people have chosen. So he’s responded by trying to subvert our Constitution and cripple the institutions it created.”

“If voters continue to go along with Eyman, which would be a tragedy, it wouldn’t be long before our Legislature was reduced to little more than a ceremonial body, unable to govern as our founders intended it to.”

“We cannot allow this to happen. Washington simply cannot afford any more undemocratic, ill-conceived Tim Eyman initiatives. Our economy can’t afford it, our common wealth can’t afford it, and our quality of life can’t afford it.”

The Tacoma News Tribune’s Jordan Schrader has astutely noted that the Supreme Court has previously ruled that the people “cannot, by initiative, prevent future legislatures from exercising their law-making power.” This ruling was referenced in an opinion released by Rob McKenna’s office in December, which concluded the Legislature is free to re-delegate its toll setting authority as it wishes.

While that may be the case, there are other provisions in I-1125 that may not be so easily reversed.

It remains to be seen whether Tim Eyman has a wealthy benefactor lined up to fund I-1125. He needs one, especially with only ten weeks to collect signatures. If he doesn’t have one, there’s no way I-1125 can get on the ballot.

If petitions become available for I-1125, we will strongly urge the people of Washington State to think before they ink and decline to sign this latest Eyman plot.

April 12th, 2011

The Associated Press: Tim Eyman’s P.R. agency

Rethinking and Reframing

Researchers looking for evidence that American traditional media is effectively brain-dead need look no further than the Seattle and Olympia bureaus of The Associated Press, which inexplicably continue to put garbage like the following out on the wire for member newspapers and broadcast outlets to use:

SEATTLE — Initiative activist Tim Eyman won a $20,000 award from the Sam Adams Alliance. The group calls him a modern day Sam Adams for his commitment to cutting the size of government in Washington state.

The Seattle Times reports the “Sammies” awards were handed out Friday in Chicago.

Eyman sponsored I-1053, which reinstated the requirement of a two-thirds vote in the Legislature to raise taxes.

—

Information from: The Seattle Times

That’s it. The above isn’t an excerpt – that’s literally all there is.

As best we can tell, the source for this P.R. piece is a blog post on Politics Northwest by Seattle Times reporter Jim Brunner. The post describes a national right wing outfit’s decision to take pity on Tim Eyman and dump $20,000 into his coffers, as well as present him with a commendation for doing such a fine job of wrecking government in Washington State so it can’t work like it’s supposed to.

The post isn’t very long. It’s what many folks – including the team at NPI – would consider to be standard fare for the Seattle Times’ Politics Northwest blog. (Like many other blogs, Politics Northwest routinely covers offbeat political developments that aren’t necessarily important or newsworthy.)

Somebody at the Associated Press saw Brunner’s post, decided to rephrase a few paragraphs from it, prefixed a dateline (“Seattle”) and then put it out on the wire. Incredibly, no attempt at all was made to add any value to what Brunner reported, which didn’t deserve to be put on the wire in the first place.

All that happened over the weekend was that Tim Eyman got a five-figure check and an “attaboy” from fellow followers of Grover Norquist. That’s nothing remarkable. Tim regularly takes in large contributions from deep pocketed corporations and cash-rich right wing groups – his initiative factory couldn’t survive without them.

Even using Eyman’s fortunate Friday to generate a lengthy profile of Eyman would have been an indefensible idea. But the person who generated this tripe didn’t even do that. It’s so worthless that it can’t even be called a semblance of an article or a report. The average Tim Eyman email contains more depth than what’s in the blockquote above, and that’s saying something.

Eyman himself blogs, leaves comments, and approaches reporters and editors constantly (whether they want to hear from him or not), so he hardly needs the Associated Press as a P.R. agency. But they seem to think that they’re obligated to give him publicity, as if they were under contract to promote him.

If that sounds like a harsh characterization, that’s because this isn’t the first time something like this has happened. Or the second.

For background, read the following:

We’ve criticized the Associated Press in the past for similar tripe mostly related to Eyman’s activities, but they’ve shamelessly continued to generate more of it for no good reason. It’s like they don’t have anything better to do.

But of course that’s not the case. There’s legitimate news out there that needs to be reported, but is getting ignored or being given short shrift because the Associated Press’ employees have forgotten how to be journalists.

Instead of providing quality coverage of the 2011 legislative session or seeking to deepen public awareness of ongoing societal problems like crime or pollution, they’re celebrating Tim Eyman’s weekend – as if his good fortune was an important breaking news alert that needed to be communicated instantly, without being fleshed out into a proper story.

That they behave more like a P.R. agency for colorful characters they find fascinating, rather than a professional news organization (which is what they say they are) shows just how poor their content has become.

This has to be the dumbest AP article — ever

March 28th, 2011

Tim Eyman’s desperation is showing

Rethinking and ReframingStatements & Advisories

This afternoon, Tim Eyman sent out a fourth consecutive email begging for money and instructing his followers to send messages of condemnation to NPI’s founder, Andrew Villeneuve, and Olympia City Council candidate Brian Tomlinson. Andrew composed the following statement in response.

After all these years, it’s kinda funny that we have suddenly become the object of Tim’s attention. His desperation is showing. We simply pointed out that the gears of his initiative factory cannot turn without cash from a wealthy benefactor, something we’ve said previously on many occasions. If you read his emails – which he claims to have carbon copied to the press and to lawmakers – you’ll notice he does not even attempt to refute what we’re saying. That’s because he knows he can’t. If he tried, he’d be contradicting his own reporting to the PDC.

So instead, he’s playing the victim. Trying to make it look like we’re picking on him. According to Eyman, we are “arrogant” and “hate-filled” and our reports on his activities amount to “gloating”. (Other nouns and adjectives Eyman has used include: anger, spite, negativity, ugliness, vile, mocking).

And, of course, Eyman describes his own followers as “coming back with grace and good humor”. That’s an interesting choice of words, considering we have received several obscenity-laden emails from Eyman followers, some of whom can’t even spell their hero’s name correctly. Oddly enough, Tim hasn’t shared those.

Eyman has also described his supporters as passionate. That’s a characterization that my team and I can agree with, and respect. We’re passionate too: passionate about protecting Washington’s common wealth, our quality of life, and our tradition of majority rule, which has served us well since statehood.

We believe Tim knows full well that we try to practice what we preach at NPI. We do not publish people’s private contact information online for the world to see. We do not lace what we publish with profanity. We do not wish harm upon people we disagree with. Our Code of Ethics forbids it.

And yet, Tim has repeatedly suggested that we’re full of hate.

Why is he doing this? Because he needs money. He chose to put himself in debt to get I-1053 on the ballot. Now he’s trying to pay it off, and raise money for his next initiative campaign at the same time. It’s been slow going. And so he’s getting desperate. A few weeks ago, he told his followers that he was ‘hitting the big panic button’, trying to compel them to open their checkbooks.

Now he’s on to his next gimmick: Using us as a punching bag. He figures his followers are more likely to give him money if they’re riled up, versus being calm. Perhaps he’ll get a few checks out of this, but we seriously doubt these gimmicks will help him secure the money that he really needs.

He just doesn’t have the huge base of support he claims to have.

If history is any indication, Eyman will not be back on the statewide ballot until he has a sugar daddy again – old or new. We think it’s likely Eyman will ultimately find a new wealthy benefactor.

What else is he going to do? Go back to selling fraternity wristwatches? In the meantime, it looks like we the taxpayers may be able to save some money on elections costs, which is great. We need every penny we can get these days.

March 23rd, 2011

Eyman followers to Permanent Defense: A republic is not a democracy

Rethinking and Reframing

A week ago, we published a report (Voters Want More Choices begins 2011 with no wealthy benefactor in sight), which affirmed a point that we’ve been trying to make to the press and to the people of Washington for years – namely, that without big money, Tim Eyman’s initiative factory simply could not exist.

Naturally, Tim Eyman read this report, since he’s a regular Permanent Defense visitor. Not long after seeing it, he decided to make it the centerpiece of a fundraising email, which he sent out last Friday. His email included the entirety of our report, and was followed by (what else?) a shameless appeal for funds, along with instructions to his followers to send emails to Permanent Defense’s founder and Olympia city council candidate Brian Tomlinson, who recently expressed his frustration with Eyman’s mischief-making at a public forum.

A tiny fraction of Eyman’s followers subsequently wrote in. Many butchered his last name – among the spellings we saw were “Eyeman”, “Eiman”, and “Iman” . One supporter even butchered his hero’s first name, despite getting the last name correct (Time Eyman). But what was more interesting than the misspellings was the contention that several of these people made: that a republic is not a democracy.

Here’s an example:

Our form of government is a republic – not a democracy. The difference is that in a republic the individual retains personal rights and freedoms where in a democracy the rights and freedoms of the individual are controlled by the majority rule.

And here’s another:

By the way, last time I checked, we are a republic (a government in which supreme power is held by the citizens entitled to vote), not a democracy.

And still another:

Your contempt for the initiative process and lack of knowledge about what type of government the constitution directs us to abide by,
(Representative Republic) not democracy, has confirmed the need to continue to support Mr. Eiman in his future initiative drives.

These people sure do seem confused, don’t they? (Note, names are withheld because, unlike Tim Eyman, we believe in respecting people’s privacy as much as possible).

Let’s consult American Heritage’s Cultural Dictionary:

re·pub·lic – noun. A form of government in which power is explicitly vested in the people, who in turn exercise their power through elected representatives. Today, the terms republic and democracy are virtually interchangeable, but historically the two differed. Democracy implied direct rule by the people, all of whom were equal, whereas republic implied a system of government in which the will of the people was mediated by representatives, who might be wiser and better educated than the average person. In the early American republic, for example, the requirement that voters own property and the establishment of institutions such as the Electoral College were intended to cushion the government from the direct expression of the popular will.

Our plan of government, as Permanent Defense’s supporters know, is a constitutional republic. Most state constitutions, particularly those that had no other roots (for instance, colonial charters), were modeled after the Constitution of the United States of America, which does not provide for an initiative or referendum process. Initially, Washington’s Constitution didn’t either, but it was amended in the 1900s by progressives to give citizens the power to make laws directly.

Washington still has a representative government elected by its people, but since it also has the initiative and referendum (as well as the recall), it is unquestionably a democracy in a broader sense as well.

The modern definition of democracy is any system of government in which rule is by the people. A republic is thus a democracy – although not every democracy is a republic (the United Kingdom, for example, is a constitutional monarchy).

This really isn’t that hard to understand. Anybody who paid attention in their high school civics class should know that a republic is a democracy. Unfortunately, it appears that many of Tim Eyman’s s followers either didn’t pay close attention in their high school civics course, or didn’t take one at all.

No wonder, then, that they don’t have a problem with getting rid of our cherished tradition of majority rule. They don’t understand what democracy is truly all about (individual liberty, majority rule with minority rights, free elections, competing political parties) because they don’t think Washington is a democracy.

Ironically, by displaying their ignorance, Tim Eyman’s followers are providing compelling evidence in favor of the argument that we need stronger, better-funded public schools with a more robust civics curriculum.

March 16th, 2011

Voters Want More Choices begins 2011 with no wealthy benefactor in sight

Eye on Money: Developments

New reports filed with the Public Disclosure Commission last week indicate that Tim Eyman is still searching for a new benefactor to prop up his sputtering initiative factory, two months after the Mukilteo profiteer revealed he didn’t have the money lined up to buy his way onto the ballot this year.

Excluding a large money transfer from Help Us Help Taxpayers (another one of his PACs), Eyman’s reincarnated Voters Want More Choices committee has brought in just $15,200 so far this year. This sum, along with the aforementioned transfer, is being applied towards the loan Eyman took out against his house last year, leaving Voters Want More Choices with a deficit of $196,101.06.

Years ago, such a debt would have been insignificant, because Eyman’s wealthy benefactor would have taken care of it with a check or two. But so far in 2011, nobody with deep pockets has come to Eyman’s rescue.

If Eyman can’t find a benefactor, he will likely end the year still in debt. At present, Voters Want More Choices is taking in an average of only $7,600 a month. Even if Eyman managed to double his monthly average starting this month, he’d still finish 2011 with only $152,000 raised – not enough to cancel the debt.

Eyman won’t be able to use all of what he raises to pay off his loan, either, because he’ll presumably need to pay himself and his associates.

Eyman no doubt recognizes the predicament he’s in, which explains why he sounds so desperate in his recent letters and emails. Without money – lots of money – the gears of his initiative factory cannot turn.

That was quite evident two months ago when Eyman revealed that, for the first time since the new millennium began, he wouldn’t be doing a signature drive this spring. Instead, he used his annual press conference in the Secretary of State’s office to announce his plans for 2012. It was a telling moment.

Without his initiative factory, Eyman has no real power. He needs it to be in operation so he can enjoy the occasional success and remain relevant.

If history is any indication, Eyman will find a new wealthy benefactor. That’s why it’s important that we spend 2011 in infrastructure-building mode. We have to assume that an I-1053 clone will be on the ballot in 2012, and we have to be prepared to respond forcefully. Voters need to understand what measures like I-1053 are really designed to do: take away majority rule and sabotage representative democracy.

March 7th, 2011

The anger, spite, and negativity of Tim Eyman

Rethinking and Reframing

Well, that didn’t take long.

This morning, Tim Eyman sent out an email very similar to one he sent out a week ago, again making it look like an editorial board said something mean about him, when in fact it was simply the opinion of one person writing in:

RE: EVERETT HERALD: “Hopefully Eyman will lose his house. Maybe that will keep him quiet.”

Can’t you just feel the love:

RUN FOR OFFICE OR PIPE DOWN: I predict that in two years the Legislature will water down Initiative 1053 because there is simply no alternative. That is why I will vote against any Eyman initiative in the future no matter the merit. I-1053 is not about waste in government; it’s about greed. I’m sick and tired of Tim Eyman trying to be the dictator of Washington from his little watch shop in Mukilteo. If Eyman wants to run the state let him get some guts and run for office. But I don’t think he has any guts. The voters of this state should send Eyman a message by voting down every measure he proposes. Hopefully he will lose his house. Maybe that will keep him quiet.” Steven Bates, Everett

The subject line of Eyman’s email, which contains the last two sentences of Bates’ letter, do not identify Bates as the author. Instead, the comments are attributed to the Everett Herald. The Herald may have printed Bates’ comments, but no one working for The Herald wrote them. Eyman could have easily prefaced Bates’ comments with “LETTER TO THE EDITOR”, but he chose not to do so. He used “EVERETT HERALD” instead to convey the impression that he’s being picked on.

And he ended his email with this instruction (to his supporters):

Take his anger and spite and negativity and use it as fuel for something positive.

Negativity breeds negativity. Steven Bates is fed up with Tim Eyman’s constant attacks on our common wealth and on the very fabric of our representative democracy. That’s understandable. If love is what Eyman wants to feel, he should start treating the people he deals with more kindly.

What part of the idiom, Ye reap what ye sow, does Eyman not understand? His rudeness and hostility are legendary… so he shouldn’t be surprised that people have negative opinions of him. He can’t expect others to be polite and respectful towards him when he is unwilling to extend them the same courtesy.

The Golden Rule is pretty simple: Treat others the way you wish to be treated.

Eyman has repeatedly proved himself to be utterly incapable of adhering to the Golden Rule. In one breath, he plays the victim. In his next breath, he’s unapologetically trashing elected leaders and public workers.

Let’s take a look at the anger, spite, and negativity of Tim Eyman, shall we? The following are all snippets from some of the emails he has sent over the years.

From September 17th, 2009:

Congratulations to the Evergreen Freedom Foundation for making the crazies in Seattle even crazier by bringing FOX NEWS’ Glenn Beck to speak at Safeco Field on Saturday, September 26th. Bringing him into Jim McDermott’s district, the lion’s den of Seattle, to speak should make things especially interesting.

From January 14th, 2009:

Queen Christine, King Sims, and Knight Nickels are an embarrassment. None of them is showing any sympathy for the average taxpayer who is currently buried under our state’s enormous tax burden and tough economy. None of them has even an ounce of compassion for struggling working families and fixed-income senior citizens who simply can’t afford any more. Their reckless disregard for the additional tax burden this mega-uber-project will put on our state’s tapped-out citizenry is maddening.

From April 27th, 2010:

During this year’s legislative session, Democrat politicians in Olympia and the ‘Public Interest Groups’ (PIGS) that support them imposed $800 million in higher taxes — but that turned out to be just an ‘opening bid.’

From July 14th, 2007:

Justice occurred in King County today when Superior Court judge Catherine Shaffer, a Gary Locke appointee, rejected arguments by opponents of I-960 who sought to prohibit a vote of the people on the measure. Whacko lefty environmental group Futurewise (formerly 1000 Friends of Washington) and whacko lefty labor union SEIU argued that since they receive a lot of tax money from state government, they’d be harmed by I-960 because it may limit the flow of revenue to them.

We could go on.

Those four excerpts, by the way, don’t even come close to the meanest things Eyman has said. He questions motives and uses put-downs all the time. He regularly instructs his supporters to blast people who are in his way with harsh comments.

But occasionally, he goes even further. He’s accused opponents of criminal activity. He’s made private contact information public. We know because we’ve seen it happen. We’ve been monitoring Eyman for years.

Sometimes, we’ve been the target.

When NPI’s Steve Zemke interrupted one of Tim Eyman’s press conferences some years ago (because Eyman was blatantly lying about the state budget) Eyman’s response was to tell the Secretary of State’s staff to “get this guy out of here” even though he had chosen to hold his media event in a public building.

Through his conduct, Tim Eyman has pretty much turned his own name into a synonym for hypocrisy. And he has only himself to blame.

February 23rd, 2011

Willful deception: Eyman deliberately misattributes degroatory comment about himself to Seattle P-I

Rethinking and Reframing

As we have previously documented on numerous occasions – both here and at the NPI Advocate – Tim Eyman is no fan of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. The publication, formerly Seattle’s oldest newspaper and now its most-visited online-only news source, has consistently opposed Eyman’s ill-conceived initiatives over the years, and it also exposed his illicit money transfers from his campaign committee to his own personal bank account in a stupendous article written by Neil Modie nine years ago this month.

No surprise, then, that Eyman rarely misses a chance to demean the P-I in some way. Today, he did so by misattributing something a P-I commenter said to the P-I itself.

Here’s the subject line of his email:

Subject: SEATTLE PI: “Yes, I think Eyman should be retired or taken out and shot.”
Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2011 14:21:25 -0500

If you were looking at this subject line, you might be led to believe that a P-I columnist, or someone working for the P-I, had written those words. But if you open the email, you’ll notice a longer version of the quote is attributed to “Donald”:

“You have an article in the paper about Tim Eyman … It ended with, has he done enough for the state.  I think he’s done it to the state.  Yes, I think Eyman should be retired or taken out and shot.” – Donald

No citation was provided for the quote, which initially made us wonder if it ever existed at all. However, our team was able to track it down after just a little bit of searching; it’s from a P-I “Soundoff” from July 11th, 2003.

Obviously, Donald’s rhetoric does not represent what the Seattle Post-Intelligencer believes as an institution. Nor would most progressives consider shooting someone to be a remotely acceptable means to an end. True progressives are against violence, and don’t condone the extreme, un-American idea that “second amendment remedies” should be used to intimidate or eliminate political opponents.

Eyman himself uses the same kind of derogatory hyperbole when talking about people who stand in his way, whether they be elected leaders, public servants, or activists. Permanent Defense has an archive of Eyman emails going back many years, and we can readily produce venom-laden messages authored by Tim and sent to his supporters, reporters, and state lawmakers.

Before Eyman condemns a commenter for wishing that he be “taken out and shot”, he should look at his own past invective and tone down his language.

Hate speech is a precursor to violence. And more violence is the last thing our republic needs.

February 22nd, 2011

In fundraising letter, Eyman claims he has “whittled down” I-1053 debt to “below $200K”

Eye on Money: Developments

Since announcing to his followers that he was “hitting the big panic button” a few weeks ago, Tim Eyman has managed to shave $38,000 plus off the total amount of his outstanding debt from last year. Or so he claims in a fundraising appeal recently sent out via snail mail and forwarded to NPI’s Permanent Defense.

The letter doesn’t say how Eyman managed to “whittle” his I-1053 down to “under $200k”; nor does it disclose exactly how much of Eyman’s debt is still outstanding.

Given how anemic Eyman’s fundraising has been, we’re inclined to think at least a chunk of that money is from either wealthy conservatives (like Bellevue Square owner Kemper Freeman Jr., an Eyman fan) or from corporations (Association of Washington Business chieftain Don Brunell urged lobbyists last fall to help Eyman cover his debt).

Reports for contributions received in February are due March 10th, so at that time, we should be able to see just who has been funneling money into Eyman’s presently idle initiative factory… if Eyman’s treasurer files the reports on time.

February 13th, 2011

Nine Years: Statement from the Founder

AnnouncementsThreat Analysis

Today and throughout this month, Permanent Defense celebrates its ninth anniversary, marking the conclusion of one hundred and eight months of continuous operation. PD now begins its tenth year of existence. Remarkably, in fifty-two weeks, it will reach the end of its first decade.

When Permanent Defense first went live on February 13th, 2002, it was devoted to a single purpose: defeating Tim Eyman’s Initiative 776, which sought to prevent Sound Transit from constructing Central Link by taking away one of ST’s two principal sources of revenue. Unfortunately, PD’s first mission was unsuccessful: Initiative 776 passed narrowly despite the best efforts of a well-organized opposition coalition.

But unlike the NO on I-776 campaign and other campaigns against Eyman initiatives from years past, PD did not go away, dissolve, or close its virtual doors after that disappointing election. Rather, it was strengthened by the loss. In the spirit of its name, it became a permanent campaign against right wing initiatives.

And it has made a difference. Prior to Permanent Defense’s formation, Eyman had gotten an initiative past voters for several years running. After Permanent Defense’s first year, Tim Eyman’s streak of consecutive victories ended. Since I-776, voters have approved just three Eyman initiatives: I-900, I-960, and I-1053.

Unfortunately, Eyman needs to be successful only occasionally to remain relevant, as the last election showed.

There’s no question this last year (PD’s ninth) ranks as the toughest in its history. We fought five right wing initiatives, and regrettably, two of them, including Eyman’s I-1053, got through… and by sickeningly large margins.

Eyman has already announced he intends to run I-1053 again in 2012. Thankfully, it appears that his initiative factory has run out of money for a spell, and consequently, he doesn’t have an initiative in the works for this year (2011). But that doesn’t mean Eyman won’t be trying to cause mischief.

And it doesn’t mean Permanent Defense can go on hiatus. There may be other right wing initiatives to fight, and we need to begin laying the groundwork to stop Eyman’s I-1053 clone in 2012. It will take a Herculean effort to show voters that nullifying majority rule goes against everything our country and our state’s founders believed in. They gave us a system of representative government which has endured for centuries. I-1053, like I-960 and I-601 before it, are purposely intended to wreck that system.

The campaign against I-1053 failed because it came together too late. Resources were not committed until the very end, and by that point, the battle had already been lost. We at Permanent Defense are committed to making sure this never happens again. We’ll be spending our tenth year in infrastructure-building mode, so we have greater resources to commit early and often against Eyman and his schemes.

We’re taking a critical step forward today by forming a Rapid Response team, which will respond and react to right-wing misinformation in the media through comments and letters to the editor on an ongoing basis. If you’d like to be part of the team, you can sign up on our volunteer page.

Although we endured some significant setbacks during the past twelve months, there were some bright spots. A few days after our last anniversary, we gave PD’s virtual home its biggest overhaul to date with Version 8, codenamed “Camano”, transforming it from a collection of static web pages to a powerful, database-driven site. PermanentDefense.org has never looked better, and it’s much simpler to implement changes, thanks to the ease of administration offered by WordPress.

We’re also proud of StopGreed.org, the combined campaign site we built to provide information about the corporate fronts behind each of the five right wing initiatives on the 2010 ballot. Three of them (I-1082, I-1100, I-1105) were overwhelmingly defeated by voters; the other two (I-1053, I-1107) passed, as mentioned previously. Some of the features and tools we built for StopGreed.org will probably be incorporated into Permanent Defense itself, to help activists, voters, and reporters better track and understand right wing initiatives.

Finally, we’re thankful that Tim Eyman was unsuccessful in his efforts to prevent records of who signed his initiatives from being turned over to interested citizens. Our state has a tradition of open government, and open government doesn’t just mean accountable elected leaders. People who sponsor and sign initiatives are not entitled to anonymity. The process of citizen lawmaking must be transparent, and we’re glad the courts have recognized that.

Significant obstacles lie ahead on the path towards a better quality of life for our state and our country. There really hasn’t been a better time to get involved. If you are not already, consider becoming a volunteer.

Your voice and your ideas are Permanent Defense’s greatest asset.

February 2nd, 2011

Eyman says he’s “hitting the big panic button”

Eye on Money: Developments

Apparently unable to convince either corporate lobbyists or Michael Dunmire to pony up the cash needed to pay off the $250,000 loan he took out against his house to help finance I-1053, Tim Eyman is shaking his electronic tin cup harder than ever, pleading with his supporters to help pay off the debt so he can move forward with his next scheme. In a message sent out this morning, Eyman says:

I haven’t been showing it, but I’m seriously concerned. We are raising funds for the next 2/3’s initiative and to pay off my 2nd mortgage loan (when donations weren’t coming in fast enough to pay the bills for last year’s I-1053 signature drive, I loaned the campaign $250,000 that got I-1053 over the finish line). I said to myself “it’s either this or we fail” and decided that I-1053 was just too important to fall short. So I jumped off that steep cliff hoping and praying that our supporters — all of you — would catch me this year. We have spent the last month highlighting some bad anti-1053 bills, asking you to email legislators, and helping with some local initiatives. But thus far, we’ve not hit the big panic button on this top priority.

I’m doing so now: THIS IS ME HITTING THE BIG PANIC BUTTON.

Eyman claims he has only managed to pay off $12,000 of the $250,000 loan, leaving him with $238,000 in debt. “[I]magine how scary that is for the Eyman family,” he says later in the message.

Wait a second… Tim Eyman is asking for sympathy? Now that’s rich!

Considering the way he treats others (belittling elected leaders, demonizing public servants, and attempting to undermine the public’s trust in government), he’s the last person in the state who is deserving of anyone’s sympathy.

Eyman created his own financial crisis by using his house as collateral to secure funds for his 2010 initiative. He took a risk and now he’s going to have to deal with the consequences. Given how little money he raised independently last year (more than 80% of the money for I-1053 came from corporations) we’re guessing the loan won’t be paid off until Eyman hooks up with a new sugar daddy… or an old one.

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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 Brian Heywood's initiative factory. Learn more.

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