August 7th, 2019

Referendum 88 certified; voters to decide whether to keep Initiative 1000 or not

Statements & AdvisoriesThreat Analysis

As expected, the right wing has succeeded in forcing a vote on Washington’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Act (Initiative 1000). Adopted by the Legislature on April 28th, 2019, I-1000 would empower state agencies and institutions of higher learning to conduct outreach to disadvantaged populations and underrepresented constituencies.

After the conclusion of session, the right wing mobilized to mount a referendum campaign against Initiative 1000, using a bevy of lies to convince voters to sign their petitions. The campaign began turning in its signatures several days prior to the deadline.

“Sponsors had ninety days to collect at least 129,811 signatures of Washington registered voters. 213,268 signatures were submitted during the week leading up to the July 27th deadline,” Secretary of State Kim Wyman’s office said in a news release. “The Office of the Secretary of State verified that R-88 had been signed by enough registered voters to meet constitutional requirements to make the November ballot.”

Referendum 88 is the second right wing measure to qualify for the November 2019 ballot, following Tim Eyman’s I-976. Twelve Eyman push polls will also be on the ballot, but unlike R-88 and I-976, they are not binding.

If R-88 is approved, Initiative 1000 will remain in place and go into effect as intended by the Legislature. If I-1000 is rejected, it will be repealed.

NPI is working with business, labor, and civic groups to build a strong coalition to Approve Referendum 88 and uphold Initiative 1000 this autumn.

We believe Washington’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Act is worth defending, and we’re committed to ensuring voters have the information they need to cast an informed vote on Referendum 88 this autumn.

August 1st, 2019

Journalists, when reporting on I-976 (devastates transportation funding), don’t forget about the impacts!

Rethinking and ReframingStatements & Advisories

Equations. They’re an essential element of mathematics: statements that assert the equality of multiple expressions.

There are two sides to every equation, but you wouldn’t know that from reading the materials that Tim Eyman sends out about the initiatives that he sponsors.

For example, consider the “info sheet” that Eyman distributed today for Initiative 976. It contains no discussion about what the people of Washington stand to lose if Eyman’s latest measure is adopted. There isn’t even a passing acknowledgment that the initiative could result in the cancellation of countless projects to improve mobility plus cutbacks to existing services.

The Office of Financial Management analyzed last week that I-976 would result in the loss of more than $4 billion for transportation investments in revenue at the state, regional, and local levels over six years.

Affected projects and services include:

  • Amtrak Cascades, a regional intercity rail service that provides Washington’s only rail link with British Columbia
  • Road and sidewalk maintenance in sixty cities, including road resurfacing
  • King Country Metro bus service funded by Seattle taxpayers
  • Essential freight mobility projects needed to ensure the smooth movement of goods
  • Sound Transit system expansion (ST3), including light rail, commuter rail, express bus, and bus rapid transit projects

Eyman is fully aware that services like Amtrak Cascades rely upon vehicle fees for funding and that the Washington State Constitution prohibits the use of taxes on fuel for non-highway purposes.

Eyman is lying when he suggests the funding for these projects and services could simply come from somewhere else. Where’s that $4+ billion supposed to come from? Money for the essential services our economy requires doesn’t grow on trees. It comes from taxes. Taxes are investments… essential investments. It is not possible to repeal billions in revenue and suffer no consequences. There are always consequences. This is basic math!

We saw this in the aftermath of I-695 in 1999 and I-776 in 2002.

For example, Washington State Ferries still hasn’t fully recovered from the impact of I-695, while the King County Department of Transportation still hasn’t recovered from the impact of I-776. Those measures were considered and voted on decades ago, but the impacts are still being felt today, as the elected officials and public workers who are responsible for providing mobility services to the public can attest.

Many communities lost funding against their will. For example, people in King County voted against both I-695 and I-776.

If I-976 is implemented, then there will be cuts to already-approved projects and services. These would be significant cuts that would be noticeable and widely felt. Cuts that increase traffic, make our tax code more unfair, and saddle us with costs we don’t need or want. For example, Everett and Tacoma could lose their planned light rail stations because it’s unlikely there would be sufficient funds to build them.

That’s the other side of the vehicle fee equation… the side Eyman doesn’t want you to ever talk about, but which you have a duty and obligation to cover so that Washingtonians can make an informed decision on I-976.

The truth is, Washingtonians and their elected representatives have voted repeatedly to fund multimodal transportation infrastructure.

(“Multimodal” refers to the concept of enabling people to get around through different modes, whether that’s walking, biking, taking the bus, taking the train, vanpooling, or using a scooter, as opposed to merely driving alone.)

Eyman is ideologically opposed to investing in any kind of transportation infrastructure that does not subsidize automobile travel… and in particular, single occupancy vehicle travel. (High occupancy vehicle lanes are part of our highway system, but Eyman opposes those because you can’t drive alone in them during peak hours, at least not without paying a toll, something else Eyman is opposed to.)

How do we know this? Because Eyman has previously sponsored initiatives to redirect money from mass transit to roads (I-745 in 2000), open high occupancy vehicle lanes to everyone during all but a few hours of the day (I-985, 2008) and prohibit variable tolling (I-1125, 2011). Washington voters rejected all three of those initiatives.

Sadly, Tim Eyman doesn’t care. He is just as determined now to undermine and destroy multimodal infrastructure as he was twenty years ago.

Eyman also doesn’t care that voters in Puget Sound voted repeatedly to expand light rail, commuter rail, express bus, and bus rapid transit projects by approving Sound Move in 1996, Sound Transit 2 in 2008, and Sound Transit 3 in 2016.

The outcome didn’t go his way, so he considers the will of the voters irrelevant. Meaningless. Not even worth acknowledging.

It is vital that voters understand both sides of the equation — not just Eyman’s side — before they return their ballots. So make sure when you’re covering I-976 to talk about the impacts. In detail. I-976 would wreak havoc in every part of the state, so no matter where your audience is, there’s a local angle (perhaps several!) to explore.

At the NO on I-976 website, home to the Keep Washington Rolling coalition, you’ll find a useful fact sheet which delves more deeply into the impacts, as well as frequently asked questions and a list of cities that would be directly affected by I-976.

July 24th, 2019

Second right wing measure appears destined for November 2019 ballot: Referendum 88 likely to qualify

Statements & AdvisoriesThreat Analysis

A right wing effort to overturn the Washington State Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Act (Initiative 1000) by referendum appears to have succeeded in collecting the necessary signatures to force a statewide vote this autumn. Backers of Referendum 88 today submitted what they said were almost 177,000 signatures and plan to turn in another 20,000 more by Saturday at 5 PM, which is the deadline for submitting signatures.

To be certified, petitions for a referendum like R-88 must contain the signatures of at least 129,811 registered voters. As set forth in the Constitution, the minimum number of valid signatures required for a referendum is equivalent to four percent of the number of Washingtonians who participated in the last election for governor.

NPI’s Permanent Defense has been monitoring the R-88 signature drive for the past several weeks and expected today’s developments.

Many people who were approached to sign a Referendum 88 petition reported to NPI that the petitioner told them R-88 was a measure to help veterans, or to make affirmative action legal. The truth is just the opposite. Backers of R-88 want to overturn I-1000, a legislatively adopted initiative that prohibits discrimination against veterans and allows state agencies to help disadvantaged and historically underrepresented groups. It appears that a significant number of signatures for R-88 were obtained under false pretenses.

To keep I-1000 the law of the land, a majority of voters in Washington must vote Approved on Referendum 88 this autumn.

NPI is working with business, labor, and civic groups to build a strong coalition to Approve Referendum 88. Below is the press release we published today in response to the submission of signatures for this measure.

Keep reading

July 5th, 2019

Statement on the failure of Tim Eyman’s I-1648

Rethinking and ReframingStatements & Advisories

This afternoon, Tim Eyman’s massively hyped, “unprecedented” effort to qualify an initiative to the November ballot to wipe out the Legislature’s 2019 revenue reforms imploded in spectacular fashion when the signatures Eyman was clamoring for from his followers failed to materialize.

As a consequence, I-1648 will not go before voters this autumn.

I-1648 sought to repeal all of the revenue reforms enacted by the Legislature this past session and slap a one-year expiration date on any future revenue reforms not subjected to a public vote. The measure would have jeopardized billions of dollars over the next four years for essential public services throughout Washington State, cutting taxes for big banks and oil companies in the process.

Northwest Progressive Institute founder and Executive Director Andrew Villeneuve, who has been organizing opposition to Eyman initiatives for over seventeen years, called the demise of I-1648 welcome news. I-1648’s implosion will keep Washington’s budget whole, preventing unexpected cuts to education, healthcare, environmental protection, and human services.

“More than seven million people depend on the essential public services funded by our state budget,” said Villeneuve. “Tim Eyman’s I-1648 would have put the progress we’ve made on progressive tax reform this year at risk. Thankfully, because Eyman and his cohorts were unable to gather sufficient signatures, I-1648 is no longer a danger to our communities.”

“Had I-1648 qualified for the ballot, it would have represented a grave threat to our schools, access to college, forest health and firefighting, sorely needed investments in behavioral health, the removal of barriers to fish passage, and the cleanup of polluted waterways.”

“Our elected representatives are required to produce a budget that goes out four years, not just two. They worked hard to craft a budget that takes into account the needs of Washington’s growing population. Although that budget only contained modest revenue reforms, Tim Eyman nevertheless professed himself to be enraged, and set about trying to overturn the will of the people that the voters chose to write a budget for our state.”

“Happily, he has failed, and I-1648 is dead. It will be a pleasure to add a new entry to Tim Eyman’s Failure Chart today.”

Ever the con man, Eyman tried to will success into existence through bluster and hyberbole, in an effort reminiscent of his disastrous attempt to subject LGBTQ+ rights to a vote in 2006. It didn’t work, as those who were on hand today to watch Eyman fail in person got to see for themselves.

Eyman and his followers did not even collect the minimum number of signatures required by the Constitution, which means none of their petitions will be counted or processed.

(The Secretary of State only accepts submissions of signatures that are beyond the minimum number required, currently 259,622. Sponsors are advised to obtain a cushion of signatures equivalent to 25% of the minimum required to offset duplicate and invalid signatures.)

Eyman already has an initiative on the ballot for November — I-976, which would wipe out billions in bipartisan transportation investments at the state, regional, and local levels. The Keep Washington Rolling coalition, of which NPI is a member, is working hard to build a strong NO campaign to defeat I-976. Learn more at no976.org.

May 13th, 2019

Tim Eyman’s I-1648 looks like another fake from a con artist with no shame

Statements & AdvisoriesThreat Analysis

Over the past four years, while doing his best to stonewall Attorney General Bob Ferguson’s investigation into his egregious violations of Washington’s public disclosure laws, Tim Eyman has attempted to qualify nearly half a dozen initiatives to the ballot.

Each time, with the sole exception of I-976 (which is on the November 2019 ballot), Eyman’s petition drives have ended in failure, because he didn’t have the money to purchase the signatures necessary to force a public vote on his bad ideas.

There was I-1421, I-869, and I-947, the three failed precursors to Initiative 976.

In between I-869 and I-947, there was I-1550, a failed scheme to gut property taxes.

And before those four, at the end of 2015, there was a initiative concept announced by Eyman and his associates Mike and Jack Fagan with an ice cream social in Governor Jay Inslee’s office. Eyman printed up prop petitions for that measure to use at his press conference, but then failed to actually launch a signature drive following the new year.

That initiative concept from almost four years ago is the basis for I-1648.

As with I-1648, each of the aforementioned fakes was unveiled and trumpeted by Eyman with all the fanfare he could muster through email blasts, social media postings, and right wing talk radio appearances. And each went nowhere, because Eyman simply does not have the network of support necessary to qualify anything to the ballot with just volunteer labor.

I-976 is Eyman’s first real initiative in years. It’s already on the ballot — Eyman claims he cashed out his retirement in order to finance the signature drive, although documents filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court suggest Eyman didn’t entirely empty his retirement fund to qualify the measure — but rather than focus on trying to sell it to voters, Eyman has decided to make another run at getting a second scheme on the November ballot.

Eyman’s initial plan to double up on the November 2019 ballot was to qualify Referendum 80, an attempt to void the new salary schedule for legislators and statewide elected officials adopted by the Washington Citizens Commission on Salaries for Elected Officials.

But he botched that effort and it imploded a few weeks ago.

Now Eyman is trying to resurrect the scheme he came up with a few years ago to follow his hostage-taking Initiative 1366, which would force any revenue reform agreed to by the Legislature to expire after one year unless approved at the ballot.

Initiative 1648 also seeks to repeal all of the modest revenue reforms just enacted by the House and Senate as part of the recently-concluded regular session of the Washington State Legislature. Since it’s trying to do two different things, it probably violates the Washington State Constitution’s single subject rule.

Because Eyman is aiming for the 2019 ballot, he is operating on a tight timeframe. He has less than two months to collect 330,000 signatures.

We can’t find any evidence that Eyman has found a wealthy benefactor to underwrite the signature drive for I-1648. And Eyman would need a wealthy benefactor to make this initiative go. Therefore, at this time, we assess that I-1648 is another one of Eyman’s fakes — a scam designed to part rank and file Republicans from their money.

If I-1648 becomes a credible threat, we’ll immediately begin organizing opposition to it.

March 1st, 2019

Statement on Senate passage of legislation to repeal Tim Eyman’s push polls

Legislation & TestimonyStatements & Advisories

This morning, the Washington State Senate adopted NPI-backed legislation to permanently abolish Tim Eyman’s push polls, which Eyman falsely calls advisory votes.

Senate Bill 5224, prime sponsored by Patty Kuderer, passed out of the Senate with bipartisan support.

Northwest Progressive Institute Founder and Executive Director Andrew Villeneuve issued the following statement following the vote.

“Congratulations to the Washington State Senate on the passage of Senate Bill 5224! For over half a decade, Washingtonians’ ballots have been burdened with the clutter of Tim Eyman’s push polls… anti-tax, anti-government propaganda falsely dressed up as plebiscites. Thankfully, we are now on the verge of getting rid of what has become an annual exercise in trickery and confusion. ‘Advisory votes’ are wasteful and deceptive. They are intended to shape public opinion, not measure it. Their very naming is dishonest. To ascertain where the public is on any issue, it’s vital to ask neutrally-worded questions. A question that suggests its own answer will not yield any useful data.”

In a presentation to the Senate State Government, Tribal Relations & Elections Committee one month ago, Villeneuve demonstrated how similar the advisory votes are to traditional telephone push polls, which are listed in the most recent version of Safire’s Political Dictionary under the entry DIRTY TRICKS. Not long after that hearing, the Committee voted unanimously to advance Senate Bill 5224, with all three Republicans voting aye.

Those same three Republicans joined most of the Senate’s Democratic members in voting for Senate Bill 5224, and were essential to the bill’s final passage.

“NPI is extremely grateful to Senators Hans Zeiger, Barbara Bailey, and Brad Hawkins for their votes in support of SB 5224,” said Villeneuve.

“These three Republican Senators listened to what we had to say in committee and then took a courageous vote twice to repeal Tim Eyman’s push polls, knowing full well that they were voting against Eyman’s wishes. They did the right thing instead of bowing to Eyman’s self-serving demands. This is what public service is supposed to be about: listening with an open mind and then voting for what’s in the best interest of our state.”

“We also want to thank Senator Patty Kuderer, who represents the Northwest Progressive Institute’s home legislative district, the 48th. Without Senator Kuderer’s leadership, this bill wouldn’t have been introduced, wouldn’t have earned a do pass recommendation, and wouldn’t have passed out of the State Senate today. NPI is honored to be represented by Senator Kuderer, and looks forward to continuing to work with her to raise Washington’s quality of life.”

February 15th, 2019

Statement on Tim Eyman’s theft from Lacey Office Depot

Statements & Advisories

Today, The Seattle Times published video provided by an Office Depot in Lacey which shows disgraced initiative promoter Tim Eyman stealing an office chair from the store.

Northwest Progressive Institute Founder and Executive Director Andrew Villeneuve issued the following statement after having watched the video.

“Seventeen years ago today, I founded Permanent Defense to combat Tim Eyman’s destructive initiatives and toxic politics. I did so because it was apparent that Eyman needed vigorous, effective, and year-round opposition. At the time, Eyman had just been caught funneling hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign funds into his own pockets and lying about it. Yet it seemed his political career was not over, especially with his associates and some of his donors making excuses for him. So, I resolved to do my part to stand up for Washington’s people and values by building a first line of defense against Eyman’s future attacks on our Constitution and common wealth.”

“Seventeen years later, that work continues, and it’s more important than ever.”

“I hope that the publication of this video helps more Washingtonians see Tim Eyman for who he truly is: a greedy, self-serving individual who thinks that dishonest, unethical, and even criminal behavior is okay. As Permanent Defense has documented, Tim Eyman has an extremely long track record of lying to the public, the press, and his own followers. Now he has been caught on tape committing petty theft.”

“It’s time Tim Eyman spent some quality time in jail. I wish I could say I’m shocked, but sadly, this is the kind of behavior I’ve come to expect from Tim.”

“I am an optimist, so I remain hopeful that the day will eventually come when Tim Eyman will reform and change his ways. I don’t expect him to abandon his core beliefs, but it sure would be nice if he would stop lying, constantly disrespecting our elected representatives, and stealing from others.”

February 9th, 2019

Wondering why King County doesn’t have more snow routes? Remember, Tim Eyman initiatives have consequences

Rethinking and Reframing

February 2019 is going to be remembered up and down the I-5 corridor as the month that much of Western Washington turned into a winter wonderland resembling C.S. Lewis’ fictional land of Narnia under the rule of the White Witch, Jadis.

Two walloping snowstorms have already upended normal life in and around the state’s largest urban centers of Seattle, Tacoma, and Everett, which normally see mild winters thanks to the influence of the Pacific Ocean. And more snow is on the way.

The wintry conditions are making travel difficult. Many people have wondered on social media why the state and local governments don’t have more resources available to deal with the snow and ice and keep the roads clear. On the snow and ice page of its website, King County’s Department of Transportation has an answer to this question:

Why are there fewer snow routes?

King County crews respond to weather events that affect the bridges and roads of unincorporated areas – the network that keeps communities connected. In past years, the county was able to plow and sand critical snow routes. But the county is no longer funded to plow and sand as much as it used to.

Unfortunately, nearly three decades of annexations, declines in gas tax revenues, and the effects of voter initiatives have led to the chronic underfunding of the local bridge and road system.

Fewer resources means fewer staff to perform work during inclement weather as well as year round, resulting in significantly reduced service levels for maintaining roads and bridges in unincorporated areas including plowing and sanding services. Key transportation routes for public safety will be plowed, however, in the past we were able to open secondary routes. The county used to plow and treat 30 percent of county-managed roads, but this year there are only resources to plow 15 percent of the county’s 1,500 miles of roads.

Read the Strategic Plan for Road Services (SPRS) update and the Line of Business Plan.

For a longer discussion of this topic that offers much more context, see: Must-read article: King County struggles to fund roads and bridges.

February 1st, 2019

Must-read article: King County struggles to fund roads and bridges

Rethinking and ReframingThreat Analysis

Journalist Aaron Kunkler has written an excellent article for Reporter Newspapers that nicely summarizes King County’s rural roads funding crisis, a problem rooted partially in the implementation of several Tim Eyman initiatives just after the turn of the century.

It’s a must-read:

Funding for roads and bridges in King County has been dwindling for years, and despite warnings as far back as 2014, money for capital investments in unincorporated areas is still set to run out within the next six years.

The scope of the problem has been well documented in various studies, including the 2017 annual bridges report released last August. The county owns or maintains 182 bridges that range in age from 10 to 100 years old, with the median age being 65 — or 15 years older than their typical useful lifespan.

Due to declining revenue between 2012 and 2018, no new standalone bridge replacements have occurred since 2014, and work is focused exclusively on daily safety and maintenance work, the report found. King County Local Services department public information officer Brent Champaco said when money for capital improvements runs out, other basic maintenance and operations services will be reduced to stay within budget.

The article goes on to talk about Republican King County Councilmember Kathy Lambert’s long running effort to draw attention to the crisis. Lambert represents the 3rd District, a mix of suburban and rural communities in northeast King County.

The 3rd includes a significant swath of rural King County, including the town of Skykomish, which is accessible only by travel through Snohomish County. The other predominantly rural King County Council district is the 9th, represented by Reagan Dunn.

Lambert has been on the Council for decades and has seen the impact that Tim Eyman’s destructive initiatives have had on her constituents, particularly these three measures, which Eyman got past voters early on his career:

  • Initiative 695 (passed in 1999, struck down in 2000, and reinstated that same year): Gutted the statewide motor vehicle excise tax
  • Initiative 747 (passed in 2001, implemented that same year, struck down in 2007, then almost immediately reinstated): Artificially caps property taxes
  • Initiative 776 (passed in 2002, partially upheld in 2003): Repealed the local motor vehicle excise tax collected by King, Snohomish, Pierce, and Douglas counties

Implementation of all three of these initiatives significantly reduced funding for essential public services in Washington State, including rural roads.

I-695 repealed an estimated $1.1 billion in the 1999-2001 biennium and $1.7 billion in the 2001-03 biennium. Before the motor vehicle excise tax was gutted, 24% of the revenue it was generating was going to local governments like King County, 29% was going to local transit agencies, and 47% was going to state-level transportation needs, according to the Office of Financial Management’s I-695 Fiscal Impact Statement.

When I-747 came along a short while later, it began a long and tortuous cycle of death by a thousand cuts that continues to this day. Cities and counties are still hurting from the combined one-two punch of I-695 and I-747 more than a decade and a half later.

Four counties, including King County, were dealt a third punch in 2002 with Tim Eyman’s I-776, which eliminated the local motor vehicle excise tax.

Seattle Times reporter Keith Ervin described the impact of Eyman’s I-776 on the county’s rural roads in an article published on November 12th, 2003. Here’s an excerpt:

A staff report to the Metropolitan King County Council yesterday said the ruling has made County Executive Ron Sims’ proposed roads budget “inoperable.” The Supreme Court last month upheld the constitutionality of voter-approved I-776, which rolls back car tabs to $30 a year.

The measure shuts off a yearly $4.8 million revenue stream for King County.

Sims has placed on hold his earlier proposal to set $11.3 million in road money aside as an incentive for cities that agree to annex unincorporated urban areas. The county also may postpone or scrap the sale of $80 million in bonds that would have sped up long-awaited road improvements.

Budget director Steve Call said yesterday the impact will be more severe than the initial revenue loss suggests because the county road fund is used to finance bonds and obtain matching funds from the federal and state governments. On bridge projects, the federal government pays up to 80 percent of the cost, Call said.

Among the projects at risk are expansion of Coal Creek Parkway and Novelty Hill Road on the Eastside, and an improved intersection of Benson Road and Carr Road near Renton.

“We all need to sit back and go back to the drawing table and figure out where our construction projects are,” Call said. “This has put a huge hole in the region’s ability to address transportation needs.”

While officials haven’t precisely calculated the impact of several voter-approved tax cuts, County Council budget analyst Rebecha Cusack said the road-construction fund might be reduced by 20 percent over the next six years.

The County Council’s budget chairman, Larry Phillips, D-Seattle, said the county’s ability to improve roads fund will be “devastated” by I-776 and by Initiative 747, which caps the growth in property taxes to 1 percent a year.

While elected leaders across jurisdictions have tried gamely to backfill budget holes caused by destructive Eyman initiatives like I-695, I-747, and I-776, they have not been able to restore funding levels to a sufficient level for all services. That has resulted in facility closures, deferred maintenance, and failure to replace aging structures.

Arguably no public service has been harder hit than rural roads.

While cities like Seattle have secured voter approval for transportation levies like Bridging the Gap and Move Seattle, small unincorporated communities have been left bereft of needed investments. Many of these communities are represented by Republicans who are reluctant or unwilling to speak out publicly against Eyman’s bad ideas (and the harm caused by his past initiatives) for fear of retribution by Eyman’s small but vocal band of right wing activists, which includes many Republican PCOs.

Not content with the damage he has already caused, Eyman has proposed Initiative 976, which would repeal funding for Amtrak Cascades, freight mobility, Sound Transit 3 system expansion, King County Metro service hours, and yes, road maintenance and street repairs in sixty cities. Eyman makes it sound in his talking points like he’s only targeting Sound Transit, but that’s a lie. Rural roads are once again going to take a hit if Eyman’s Initiative 976 isn’t defeated this November.

To learn more and join the coalition fighting Eyman’s latest awful initiative, visit no976.org.

January 24th, 2019

Tim Eyman’s tax increase figures don’t belong in anyone’s reporting

Rethinking and ReframingStatements & Advisories

This morning, Tim Eyman sent out an email which claims that the Washington State Legislature has “recently imposed $24 billion in higher taxes”.

Don’t be fooled: These and other figures Eyman included in his email are misleading numbers that do not belong in anyone’s reporting.

The statistics Eyman sent are derived from the ten year projections that a Tim Eyman written law requires the Office of Financial Management to produce.

When Eyman says the numbers came from OFM, what he’s not telling you is that OFM only publishes these ten year revenue projections because they’re required to by self-serving language that Tim Eyman repeatedly put in his initiatives.

Here’s the provision that requires them (RCW 43.135.031):

For any bill introduced in either the house of representatives or the senate that raises taxes as defined by RCW 43.135.034 or increases fees, the office of financial management must expeditiously determine its cost to the taxpayers in its first ten years of imposition, must promptly and without delay report the results of its analysis by public press release via email to each member of the house of representatives, each member of the senate, the news media, and the public, and must post and maintain these releases on its web site. Any ten-year cost projection must include a year-by-year breakdown. For any bill containing more than one revenue source, a ten-year cost projection for each revenue source will be included along with the bill’s total ten-year cost projection. The press release shall include the names of the legislators, and their contact information, who are sponsors and cosponsors of the bill so they can provide information to, and answer questions from, the public.

And here is the page OFM maintains in compliance with that RCW.

According to OFM, there were three hundred and eight bills passed in the 2018 session. Just seventeen were classified as tax or fee bills. See OFM’s session summary page.

Eyman simply loves ten year projections because they have lots of zeroes in them. They’re big numbers. Take Eyman’s number for 2018… $13,384,000. That is the amount of revenue that Senate Bill 6269 (see text) was projected to generate over a ten year time period. In 2018, the amount of revenue generated was only $280,000. For 2019, the oil spill response tax authorized by Senate Bill 6269 is forecast to generate $1.37 million.

Anyone can play the game Eyman is playing here. It’s easy. Any amount sounds more impressive when you take it out over ten years.

For example, how much money will you make in the next ten years? Probably a lot more than you’ll make this year or the next two years. How much will your retirement account grow over the next ten years? Probably a lot more than the next one or two years (unless something really bad happens to the markets over the long term).

Budgets, however, are written for one or two years as opposed to ten years. Taxes are collected at the time of sale, or monthly, or quarterly, or annually, or bi-annually… not in ten year increments. Attempting to look ahead ten years (or further) can be useful as a planning or thought exercise, but that is not what Eyman is doing here. Instead, he is trying to deceive the public and press with misleading statistics.

Eyman has no interest in sound governance or long range planning. His objective has always been to wreck government so it can’t work the way it’s supposed to. He is a destroyer, not a builder.

There has never been a Tim Eyman initiative to address homelessness, clean up Puget Sound, spur economic development development in rural communities, or anything else worth doing to improve our state… and there probably never will be, because Tim Eyman is just not interested in strengthening our communities.

Eyman ascribes to the philosophy of Grover Norquist, who told NPR in 2001: “I don’t want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.”

From Tim Eyman’s email this morning:

In early 2013, the state supreme court reversed 20 years of judicial precedent and overturned the voters repeated decision to require the Legislature to pass another tax increase with a 2/3 vote.

What’s happened since then?

  • In 2013, they did 5 tax increases costing us $ 877,500,000.
  • In 2014, they did 2 tax increases costing us $ 26,201,000.
  • In 2015, they did 4 tax increases costing us $ 5,173,000,000.
  • In 2016, they did 2 tax increases costing us $ 2,000,000.
  • In 2017, they did 3 tax increases costing us $17,600,000,000.
  • In 2018, they did 1 tax increase costing us $ 13,384,000.

So WITHOUT the 2/3 rule, those 6 legislative sessions cost the taxpayers $23.692 billion (as calculated by OFM, the state’s budget office).

One final note: the State Supreme Court did not break with precedent when it struck down Eyman’s two-thirds scheme for revenue in 2013. Quite the opposite… the Court’s decision was entirely in keeping with its prior rulings, like the Gerberding decision. The Washington State Constitution is clear: bills pass the House and Senate by majority vote. Majority means greater than fifty percent: no more, and no less.

A supermajority is not a majority, just as a submajority is not a majority, because in either case, the outcome is in the hands of a few as opposed to the many.

Our Founders understood this, and that’s why they created Article II, Section 22.

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