February 21st, 2018

Panicking Tim Eyman tries new gimmick to stop initiative reform: Impersonating Secretary of State Kim Wyman

Legislation & TestimonyRethinking and Reframing

Bipartisan legislation that would address abuse of our state’s initiative and referendum powers by combating issues like signature fraud and petitioner misconduct continues to progress closer to becoming a reality in Olympia, thanks to the new dynamic in the statehouse created by Manka Dhingra’s victory in the 45th District last year.

That’s welcome news for Washingtonians, but not for disgraced initiative promoter Tim Eyman, who is in full-blown panic mode over the prospect of the bill’s passage.

This week, following the Senate’s overwhelming passage of ESSB 5397, Eyman tried to convince Washington Secretary of State Kim Wyman to publicly oppose the bill by instructing his followers to email her at both her official and nonofficial email addresses, and to copy him on those messages. But Wyman hasn’t budged. She’s chosen to be neutral.

Frustrated, Eyman decided today to send out an email with a false premise and false subject line… one that made it sound like Wyman had come over to his side (Sec of State Kim Wyman’s heroic & courageous opposition to anti-initiative bill).

“In the Legislature, ninety-nine times out of one hundred, powerful special interest groups call the shots, politicians bow to their will, and the voices of grassroots citizens are completely ignored. That’s what makes what Sec of State Kim Wyman did today so unique. Don’t you find this statement inspiring?” the email began.

Eyman then proceeded to impersonate Wyman in a lengthy statement that made a lot of bogus and erroneous arguments against ESSB 5397.

Only at the end of his message did Eyman concede the whole thing was a fabrication made up by him, sulkily admitting: “Too bad Kim Wyman didn’t send out that statement. Instead she skipped yesterday’s hearing [in the House State Government Committee] and just sent out an email this morning saying she’s neutral on the bill.”

Eyman did not bother to include the text of Wyman’s message from her Legislative Relations Director stating her actual position. But we’ve included it below for reference.

Sadly, this kind of duplicitous communication is par for the course for Eyman, who has a long history of resorting to inappropriate stunts and gimmicks in an attempt to attract media coverage and dupe people into backing his agenda.

NPI’s Permanent Defense project has now worked for sixteen years to counter Eyman’s misinformation and remains committed to ensuring that Eyman gets the vigorous, unceasing opposition that he deserves.

Kim Wyman’s actual position on ESSB 5397

Thank you for reaching out to the Office of Secretary of State to communicate your concerns regarding Senate Bill 5397.

To be clear, this bill does not change or alter the process in which the Elections Division of the Secretary of State’s office certifies an initiative or referendum, nor does it create any additional requirements for volunteer signature gatherers.

It would, however, require entities [campaigns] that hire petition signature gatherers to disclose to the public the identities and other information of those [companies] who employ paid signature gatherers. The bill places those disclosure processes with the Public Disclosure Commission.

Both the initiative and referendum filing and certification processes would remain unchanged by this bill. The State Elections Division checks every signature sheet submitted for evidence of fraud and also checks suspect petition signatures against signatures in the Washington State Voter Registration Database. The courts have found that our signature-checking process is the most effective way to prevent fraudulent signatures from getting an unqualified measure on the ballot.

The Washington State Constitution guarantees citizens the right to initiative and referenda – a right I fully support and do not want to see diminished. I also support transparency in the elections process, which is critical to maintaining the integrity of the system and upholding the public trust.

For these reasons, and because this bill has no impact on [legitimate] petition signatures, does not change the initiative and referendum process, nor does it change my office’s role in certifying a submitted ballot measure, I have taken a neutral position on Senate Bill 5397 and its companion, House Bill 1537, throughout this legislative session.

I encourage you to contact your representatives in the Washington State Senate and House of Representatives and share your concerns, as they will ultimately determine the fate of this legislation.

 

February 19th, 2018

Reality check: Petitioning disclosure bill was crafted to be constitutional

Legislation & TestimonyRethinking and Reframing

Last week, the Washington State Senate voted overwhelmingly to pass a much-needed bill [read the text] that would clean up the initiative process by combating problems like signature fraud and petitioner misconduct: ESSB 5397.

Sponsored by Republican Senator Judy Warnick, ESSB 5397 requires ballot measure campaigns to report within ten days when they have hired a signature gathering company to circulate petitions for them and it requires the company to keep accurate, up to date records about their workers on file for the protection of the workers as well as the public.

Tim Eyman desperately opposes ESSB 5397 because he is against any legislation that would expose his initiative factory and the signature gathering industry to more sunlight.

Eyman contends that ESSB 5397 runs afoul of previous federal court rulings, notably WIN v. Rippie (decided by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in 2000) and Meyer v. Grant (decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1988).

“Let us learn from these previous court rulings and not pass SB 5397,” Eyman wrote in an email sent to the media earlier today.

What Eyman doesn’t want reporters or interested citizens to know is that he is dishonestly conflating what’s actually being proposed with different bills that have been introduced in past legislative sessions. The bill now before the House is a piece of legislation that has been thoughtfully crafted to pass constitutional muster.

Proponents of ESSB 5397 — NPI included — have already studied and learned from court rulings like WIN v. Rippie and Meyer v. Grant, as well as Prete v. Bradbury and Initiative & Referendum Institute v. Jaeger — two cases Eyman conveniently hasn’t cited because they doesn’t support his arguments.

Everyone involved in either crafting or vetting the language of ESSB 5397 wants the legislation to be able to stand up to judicial scrutiny should it be passed and signed into law by Governor Inslee. That includes the bill’s cosponsors, the Public Disclosure Commission, Secretary of State Kim Wyman’s office, the Washington Food Industry Association, and the Northwest Progressive Institute.

ESSB 5397 does not resemble either of the statutes that were struck down by the courts in the two cases Eyman is talking about. Here’s a primer on all of the aforementioned cases.

WIN v. Rippie

In Washington Initiatives Now (WIN) v. Rippie, decided in 2000, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals struck down RCW 42.17.090(1)(g).

This statute required the disclosure of the names and addresses of individuals paid to collect signatures on initiative petitions, as well as the amounts paid to them. The Court held the statute was unconstitutional on First Amendment grounds.

Unlike that RCW, ESSB 5397 does not require the names of individual workers circulating petitions to be disclosed. What it does do is require that campaigns report within ten days the hiring of a signature gathering company to undertake a petition drive. It is the company’s responsibility to keep accurate, up to date records about its workers on file. Those records are not subject to public disclosure or even provided to state agencies unless the firm is approached by the appropriate legal authorities in case of a crime.

Meyer v. Grant

In Meyer v. Grant, decided in 1988, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously struck down a Colorado law that prohibited the practice of paid signature gathering altogether. ESSB 5397 would not prohibit anyone from being compensated to circulate petitions for a ballot measure, so it doesn’t run afoul of the Court’s decision in Meyer v. Grant.

Prete v. Bradbury and Initiative & Referendum Institute v. Jaeger

In Prete v. Bradbury, decided in 2006, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a provision added to the Oregon State Constitution that bars the practice of paying by the signature. “Because the defendant has established an important regulatory interest in support of the Measure, the plaintiffs have failed to prove that the prohibition violates the First Amendment,” the judges wrote in their decision.

The Bradbury decision was handed down by the Ninth Circuit five years after the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a similar ban on paying by the signature in North Dakota, in Initiative & Referendum Institute v. Jaeger (2001).

The Bradbury and Jaeger decisions — which are worth reading — further undercut Eyman’s unsupported contention that ESSB 5397 is unconstitutional.

Like paid lobbying, paid signature gathering is an occupation that entails influencing lawmakers to make decisions. (Under the Washington State Constitution, citizens are lawmakers thanks to the powers of initiative and referendum.) Signing a petition is akin to cosponsoring a bill in the legislative process. Citizens deserve to know, at the very least, what companies are being hired to lobby them for their signature.

Campaigns are already required to report expenditures made to a signature gathering company. But the time between when a campaign hires a signature gathering company and when it discloses that expenditure can be forty days or more. If a campaign hires a firm to run a signature drive on, say, June 1st, the report showing that expenditure may not show up until July 10th or later. In that example, the entire multi-week signature drive would take place during a period when the campaign isn’t required to tell the public who it has hired to lobby them. ESSB 5397 will require much more timely disclosure.

Under existing, well established public disclosure law, we require paid lobbyists to register with the Public Disclosure Commission so the public can see who is being compensated to influence their elected representatives.

Requiring campaigns to timely disclose what firms they’re hiring to lobby voters will significantly strengthen our campaign finance and reporting system.

Requiring companies that are in the business of circulating petitions for profit to keep track of their workers will make the industry more honest and increase the likelihood that law enforcement can successfully investigate instances of signature fraud or petitioner misconduct, both of which are growing problems.

Eyman and his amen chorus have argued on many occasions that it’s just not fair to treat paid signature gatherers any differently from volunteers.

But the reality is that paid petitioners are already treated differently than volunteers by the likes of Eyman because they’re receiving compensation for their labor.

If Eyman really believes some petitioners should never be treated any differently than others, he should refrain from asking anyone to gather signatures for him on a volunteer basis in the future. Using his logic, it’s just not fair to exploit people’s labor like that.

February 13th, 2018

NPI hails Senate passage of bill to combat signature fraud and petitioner misconduct

Legislation & Testimony

Tonight, the Washington State Senate voted overwhelmingly to pass bipartisan legislation that will combat signature fraud and petitioner misconduct by bolstering our public disclosure laws. Senate Bill 5397, prime sponsored by Republican State Senator Judy Warnick (R-13th District) would require campaigns to notify the public when they hire a signature gathering company and require the company to keep up to date records on file about its workers for their protection as well as the public’s protection.

Northwest Progressive Institute founder and Executive Director Andrew Villeneuve thanked the Senate for its decisive vote in favor of ESSB 5397.

“Tonight, more than two-thirds of our senators joined forces to defend the integrity of our initiative process,” said Villeneuve. “Washingtonians want and deserve fair elections, and this bill will help us tackle problems like signature fraud and petitioner misconduct that have shaken people’s faith in our cherished instruments of direct democracy.”

In recent years, the Secretary of State has uncovered fraudulent signatures on a plethora of initiative and referendum petitions, including petitions for Initiatives 1433, 1464, 1491, 1501, 517, 522, and Referendum 74. In each case, the Secretary of State announced the discovery via news release and referred the case to the State Patrol for investigation.

Those investigations have all too frequently been impeded by a lack of information to go on, as The Herald’s Eric Stevick reported back in 2013:

Getting to the truth has been elusive.

Bob Calkins, a spokesman for the Washington State Patrol, said some investigations have run into dead-ends.

“Not only were the signatures fraudulent, but the identifying information about the signature gatherer was fraudulent and we were never able to run that down to an individual person,” he said. “So those other cases we were unable to take forward for prosecution.”

If Senate Bill 5397 had been law when the aforementioned incidences of fraud occurred, the State Patrol’s search for the culprits would have been greatly aided by the availability of accurate worker records from the petitioning firms that employed them.

Among the records the bill specifies that the companies must keep on file for their signature gatherers are full name, assumed names, a passport-style digital photograph, a telephone number, address, email address, and copy of government-issued ID.

Contrary to what Tim Eyman has claimed, the bill does not require individual signature gatherers to register with the state prior to circulating petitions.

However, companies in the business of paying signature gatherers to circulate petitions are required under the bill to conduct background checks on individuals before hiring them. Companies must also ensure their workers complete a training program that teaches them about the First Amendment rights of citizens they approach for signatures as well as private property rights. Furthermore, individuals who have been convicted of forgery may not be compensated for circulating petitions.

These provisions of the bill (found in Section 3) are aimed at combating petitioner misconduct — a problem that’s also on the rise.

“When Washingtonians walk into a grocery store to pick up ingredients for dinner, they shouldn’t have to fend off rude signature gatherers who get in their way and curse them out simply because they opted not to sign a petition,” said Villeneuve. “The freedom to petition for a redress of grievances is a sacred right. But it must be exercised responsibly. Voters have a right to decline to sign a petition — and everyone deserves to be treated with respect regardless of their position on a ballot issue.”

ESSB 5397 now heads to the House of Representatives for further consideration.

February 9th, 2018

Lawmakers are discussing levying a capital gains tax because most Washingtonians want progressive tax reform

Legislation & TestimonyRethinking and ReframingStatements & Advisories

Next Friday, the House Finance Committee will be holding a hearing on Representative Kris Lytton’s HB 2967, which would levy a capital gains excise tax on the wealthiest Washingtonians and use the revenue to partially offset recent property tax increases.

The prospect of a capital gains tax (which Oregon and Idaho already have) terrifies disgraced initiative promoter Tim Eyman, who selfishly wants Washington’s tax code to remain as upside down as possible so there will always be an appetite for future anti-tax initiatives sponsored by him and his buddies Jack and Mike Fagan.

Accordingly, Eyman has taken a break from bashing lawmakers over the prospect of initiative process reform (which also terrifies him) to launch a broadside against the bill, in which he compared taxes to heroin, and legislators to heroin users.

“The first injection of heroin is a rush, but after that the user needs more and more and more to get that same feeling,” Eyman wrote. “It’s like that with politicians and taxes — they love the feeling of euphoria that comes from imposing a new tax, but they need to increase it again and again and again to maintain their high.”

This is utter nonsense, of course — anyone who has reported on the Legislature or followed the Legislature for any length of time knows that revenue bills are huge lifts that can require years of work, even when there are Republican lawmakers who are willing to vote aye — but the more important point here is that lawmakers are contemplating a levying a capital gains tax on the wealthy because the people of Washington want one.

NPI’s statewide research surveys have consistently found robust majorities in support of the idea of a capital gains tax on the wealthy. In 2015, when we first asked about the idea, 55% of respondents answered favorably. Last year, when we surveyed 887 likely November voters, the percentage in support of a capital gains tax was 57%.

Here’s the question we asked:

Do you strongly support, somewhat support, somewhat oppose or strongly oppose taxing the capital gains of wealthy individuals to help pay for public schools, colleges and universities?

Answers were as follows:

  • Support: 57%
    • Strongly support: 44%
    • Somewhat support: 13%
  • Oppose: 41%
    • Somewhat oppose: 12%
    • Strongly oppose: 29%
  • Not sure: 1%

Conducted by the respected firm Public Policy Polling, the aforementioned survey of 887 likely 2018 Washington State voters was in the field from June 27th-28th, 2017; all respondents participated via landline. The poll has a margin of error of +/- 3.3% at the 95% confidence level.

“Washington has many strengths as a state, but our tax code is not one of them,” noted NPI founder and Executive Director Andrew Villeneuve. “Our regressive tax code requires those with the least to pay the most as a percentage of their income. That’s upside down. Levying a capital gains excise tax would enable us to take a step towards correcting this imbalance. A just tax system should be based on ability to pay, and ours isn’t. This is a problem Washingtonians want to see their elected representatives address.”

The fiscal note for HB 2967 is available from the Office of Financial Management (OFM). The fiscal note assumes that approximately 48,000 taxpayers would pay capital gains taxes (for taxes due in 2020) if the bill were adopted in its current form. $824.5 million would be raised in Fiscal Year 2020, and $447 million in Fiscal Year 2021.

The state also created a ten-year fiscal projection for HB 2967 as required by Tim Eyman’s I-960, which Eyman linked to in his email. NPI would like to remind you that ten-year fiscal projections only exist for the purpose of allowing Tim Eyman to throw around really big, misleading numbers when he sends out his anti-tax email missives.

Anything sounds much more impressive when you take it out over ten years. Multiply your current annual wages by ten, for example, and you’ll end up with a much bigger number.

That number ostensibly represents how much you’ll be paid  — but for the next decade as opposed to the current year. It’s highly misleading, because your compensation is very likely to change over the next decade. You may even change jobs or employers, and end up with a different salary or pay structure. It is a well understood precept of forecasting that the farther out a forecast goes, the more likely it is to be in error.

The ten-year fiscal projections Eyman’s I-960 stupidly requires for revenue bills are no more useful than ten-year compensation projections, and should be ignored.

NPI plans to offer testimony in support of HB 2967 at next Friday’s hearing of the House Finance Committee. Executive Director Andrew Villeneuve will be available before or after the hearing for interviews.

January 29th, 2018

Join us for a very special event to celebrate Permanent Defense’s sixteenth anniversary!

Announcements

On February 15th, 2018, NPI’s Permanent Defense will be turning sixteen. 

We’ve been opposing right wing initiatives and fighting Tim Eyman since the early days of the Bush error. And we’ve been victorious in most of the fights we’ve taken on.

Permanent Defense celebrates sixteen yearsWe invite you to join us the following day — Friday, February 16th — to celebrate our 2017 victories (including the defeats of Eyman’s I-1550, Eyman’s I-947, and I-1552) and learn about our plans to ensure we maintain the strongest possible defense against future threats to our Constitution and common wealth, including Eyman’s self-serving scheme to keep our tax code broken and regressive by prohibiting capital gains excise taxes and income taxes. 

This is a “pay what you can” event — no admission will be charged, but we’ll be gladly accepting donations to Permanent Defense PAC.

Here are the details:

Permanent Defense Sixteenth Anniversary Celebration

  • What: A special event to sustain PD’s work and celebrate its sixteenth anniversary
  • When: Friday, February 16th, 2018
    • Open house begins at 5 PM; pizza served at 6:15 PM
  • Where: Optimism Brewing (1158 Broadway, Seattle WA 98122)
  • Who: Join the Northwest Progressive Institute team + special guests to be announced
  • Why: Because our Constitution and common wealth can’t defend themselves

We hope to see you on February 16th!

January 4th, 2018

NPI applauds AG Ferguson’s motion seeking that Tim Eyman be held in contempt of court

In the Courts

Earlier today, the campaign finance unit of the Attorney General’s office filed a motion in Thurston County Superior Court seeking to have Tim Eyman and his fellow defendants held in contempt for failing (once again) to comply with prior court orders compelling their complete responses to the state’s discovery requests.

The filing is the latest development in the State’s principal campaign finance enforcement lawsuit against Eyman, who is facing a total of four actions against him by the Attorney General stemming from serious violations of Washington’s public disclosure law.

The state is seeking sanctions of $2,000 per day against each defendant for every day that Eyman and Company remain in contempt, and dismissal of Eyman’s affirmative defenses and counterclaims if they do not purge their contempt.

Northwest Progressive Institute founder and Executive Director Andrew Villeneuve praised the AG’s move, noting that Eyman has deliberately chosen to stonewall the State at every turn in the hopes of putting off his day of reckoning for as long as possible.

“We’ve seen this stalling behavior from Tim Eyman before, when this case was in its earlier stages,” Villeneuve said. “Eyman’s legal strategy can be summed up in two words: obfuscate and delay. Eyman has been absent for the ballot for two years now; it appears he is trying to buy himself more time to get his initiative factory restarted so he can become relevant again. But justice should not be delayed. This case needs to move forward.”

It’s worth remembering that this matter began as a citizen complaint filed with the Public Disclosure Commission. After a multiyear investigation, impeded by Eyman’s refusal to cooperate, the PDC unanimously in September of 2015 voted to refer the matter to Attorney General Bob Ferguson’s office for further investigation.

Upon taking over the case, state attorneys found Eyman and his associates to be no more cooperative then they had been when the case was at the PDC.

Ultimately, state attorneys had to go to court to get their civil orders enforced. When Tim Eyman still refused to provide complete records, the State asked the courts to hold Eyman in contempt. It was only after the filing of that contempt motion in July of 2016 that Eyman (grudgingly) became more cooperative.

Eyman paid a very real price for his stonewalling in the ensuing weeks, when he was ordered to pay tens of thousands of dollars worth of attorney’s fees and court costs. But it appears Eyman and his attorney simply considered the imposition of those penalties to be an unavoidable cost of their legal strategy, for they have gone on stonewalling.

“Enough of this nonsense!” said Villeneuve. “Washingtonians want the truth. We need a full accounting of what happened — and Tim Eyman needs to answer for his lawbreaking.”

December 31st, 2017

NPI’s Permanent Defense: Proudly safeguarding the future of transit since 2002

Announcements

In just a few short weeks, Permanent Defense will celebrate its sixteenth anniversary. In honor of that milestone, and in honor of the spectacular and fortuitous implosion of Tim Eyman’s I-947 — the disgraced initiative promoter’s most recent failed attempt to “stick it to Sound Transit” — we’ve created a series of digital banners depicting Link light rail trains at Sound Transit’s newest station (Angle Lake in SeaTac) with the tagline Safeguarding The Future of Transit Since 2002.

These banners signify our unyielding commitment to protect projects that will give Washingtonians much-needed freedom of mobility.

Here’s the first one:

All aboard for a reliable commute!

The photo in this banner was taken on the day that the Angle Lake Station opened to the public. The vantage point is from the plaza below the elevated station.

Here’s the second:

Our Link to what's next

The photo art in this banner shows the Angle Lake Station from the other side. The image used to create the artwork was taken prior to the station’s opening day.

And the third:

The freedom to travel light is a beautiful thing

This stunning image was taken at sunrise about a year after the Angle Lake Station opened. The vantage point is the parking garage that adjoins the station.

For now, it appears that Tim Eyman has given up on “sticking it to Sound Transit”. But that doesn’t mean the projects we voted for are safe. NPI’s Permanent Defense will continue to be vigilant and ready to spring into action to ensure threats to our light rail lines, bus service, and commuter rail are quickly countered.

Happy New Year 2018!

December 29th, 2017

Tim Eyman admits defeat with scheme to “stick it to Sound Transit”; I-947 becomes his latest failure

Rethinking and ReframingStatements & Advisories

For the third time in twenty-four months, Tim Eyman has failed to qualify an initiative to sabotage funding for Sound Transit and Amtrak Cascades.

The disgraced initiative promoter admitted in an email this morning that Initiative 947 is kaput, writing, “I’m really disappointed to announce that we didn’t make it.”

I-947, like I-1421 and I-869 before it, sought to cripple Sound Transit’s voter-approved third phase of expansion (ST3) by repealing the agency’s authority to levy vehicle fees. But the harm wouldn’t have ended there. I-947 also attempted to eviscerate vehicle fees at the state and local level, imperiling funding for Amtrak Cascades and wiping out the funding that Seattleites authorized to finance a much-needed expansion of Metro bus service.

Thankfully, I-947 is now dead. It is Eyman’s fifth consecutive failed initiative.

Eyman waited until seven hours before the deadline to submit signatures to break the bad news to his followers. As recently as Tuesday, he was was exhorting them to mail any petitions they had to Spokane “right away”, telling them, “With every volunteer signature drive we’ve ever done, it all boils down to what comes in at the end. Stay tuned.”

Eyman actually hasn’t attempted — let alone successfully pulled off — a successful volunteer signature drive in eons. With the exception of I-695 in 1999, Eyman’s recipe for qualifying initiatives has involved finding a wealthy benefactor or two to underwrite the cost of buying a spot on the ballot using paid signature gatherers.

As the Public Disclosure Commission discovered when it investigated a citizen complaint regarding Eyman’s dealings during 2013-2015, Eyman figured out how to make those paid signature drives very lucrative. Eyman arranged a kickback scheme with his associate Eddie Agazarm to ensure that he would profit twice from every signature drive he orchestrated: once by taking a salary for himself and again by getting a cut of the funds supposedly earmarked for compensating paid signature gatherers.

Attorney General Bob Ferguson is now seeking to hold Eyman accountable for his lawbreaking ways with a series of four lawsuits. Eyman has tried to postpone his day of reckoning in the courts by stonewalling in the extreme, but has been unsuccessful in getting anything on the ballot during that borrowed time.

Eyman was unable to qualify I-947 despite having the backing of the Republican Party (which circulated his petitions at its fair booths) and right wing talk radio hosts like John Carlson and Dori Monson (who promoted the measure through their shows).

“Last year, we had a vigorous debate over whether we should expand light rail, commuter rail, and bus service in our region,” noted Northwest Progressive Institute founder and Executive Director Andrew Villeneuve. “The voters chose to enthusiastically approve Sound Transit’s third phase of expansion. Sound Transit is working hard to deliver for them. ST3 projects will liberate countless commuters from stewing in auto gridlock.”

“But Tim Eyman and Republicans like Steve O’Ban simply refuse to respect the will of the voters. They don’t want these projects to be built. That’s why they have spent pretty much all of 2017 running a second NO campaign against Sound Transit 3.”

“But, aside from the sympathetic media coverage they were able to generate, they have nothing to show for their efforts. Sound Transit 3 remains intact and the planning is proceeding at full steam. That’s great news for our region.”

As part of their campaign to overturn ST3, Republicans tried to make vehicle fees a defining issue in the special election in the 45th District, instructing their candidate (Republican Jinyoung Lee Englund), to campaign on overturning ST3. Englund ended up getting clobbered by Democratic candidate Manka Dhingra… not once, but twice. Thanks to Dhingra’s victory, the Washington State Senate is back under Democratic management.

Republicans then excitedly latched onto Eyman’s I-947, which Eyman kept claiming (in email after email and video after video) would be wildly popular. I-947 has now imploded and Eyman is pivoting to hawking something different for 2018.

“For nearly sixteen years, NPI has fought to defend our state and region’s investment in transit and we’ll continue to do so,” said Villeneuve. “We’re thrilled that I-947 has failed. This is a great day for Washington State and for commuters across Puget Sound, who are anxiously awaiting the day that light rail expands to serve more neighborhoods.”

December 12th, 2017

So much for “sticking it to Sound Transit”: Tim Eyman appears ready to abandon I-947, says he’ll push for ban on taxing wealth

Rethinking and ReframingStatements & AdvisoriesThreat Analysis

Tim Eyman signaled today that he’s ready to abandon his current initiative to defund Sound Transit and pivot to hawking a new scheme that would prohibit Washington from taxing wealth, thereby keeping the state’s tax code permanently upside down.

At an appearance in Olympia, Eyman told the Northwest Progressive Institute and KOMO 4 News (the only organizations that sent people to witness his “huge announcement”) that he wants to ban the state and all local governments from levying any kind of income tax or capital gains tax, which Eyman claims are one and the same.

In fact, they are not. Governor Jay Inslee’s proposed capital gains tax — which 57% of Washingtonians surveyed for NPI support — is an excise tax, not a tax on income. If excise taxes fall under the definition of income taxes, then all taxes levied by the State of Washington could be considered income taxes, since people pay them out of their income.

Eyman says he’ll try to qualify the ban as an initiative to the people for 2018. He did not say anything about the status of the anti-Sound Transit initiative he has been hawking for the last five months until KOMO’s Keith Eldridge, prompted by NPI, asked Eyman to take off his jacket and go back on camera to answer questions about the signature drive.

Asked if I-947 would garner enough signatures by the end of the month to qualify, Eyman would only say that the drive had gone well so far and that the measure’s fate was in the hands of his followers, who have three weeks to return petitions. That response suggests Eyman is not anywhere near the threshold required to qualify an initiative.

Last week, the De-Escalate Washington campaign — which is also trying to get an initiative qualified to the 2018 Legislature — announced that it has collected 281,000 signatures so far, which is more the minimum required, but not enough to offset invalid or duplicate signatures. To ensure I-940 qualifies, De-Escalate Washington is aiming to gather a total of 350,000 signatures. The coalition, which NPI has endorsed, is marshaling its supporters for a very visible final push ahead of the December 29th deadline.

Given that the next three weeks are the home stretch of the signature gathering season for initiatives to the Legislature, there’s no reason for Eyman to jump ahead and announce his plans for the new year early. That is, unless he has an expectation of I-947 not qualifying and wants to shift gears before he’s forced to acknowledge I-947’s demise.

If I-947 implodes by month’s end, it will be Eyman’s fifth consecutive failure to qualify a measure he had “announced” he was doing.  Here is the history:

“As most Washingtonians are aware, Tim Eyman has made a career out of selling destructive initiatives. For years, his initiative factory represented a tangible threat to Washington’s future. But nowadays, Eyman is a seller of fakes. The con artist is now a counterfeiter,” said Northwest Progressive Institute founder Andrew Villeneuve, who has been organizing opposition to Eyman for nearly sixteen years.

“We can see a pattern at work here: Every five or six months, Eyman announces a new initiative that he claims will be wildly popular and deeply impactful. Then, five or six months later, he simply starts over and begins hawking something else.”

“Eyman seems to have shamelessly embraced the mantra of ‘fake it till you make it’. So he keeps announcing initiatives he knows he doesn’t have the ability to get on the ballot in the hopes that one of them will appeal to a potential wealthy benefactor.”

“But he keeps striking out. It remains to be seen if Eyman’s proposed wealth tax ban will be any different. If the benefactors are on board, then we are ready to organize a strong and effective opposition coalition to defeat this ban. And if not, then we will be more than happy to add another entry to Tim Eyman’s Failure Chart next July.”

November 8th, 2017

Voters across Washington saying yes to revenue for essential public services in 2017 local elections

Election Postmortem

This morning, serial public disclosure law violator and disgraced initiative promoter Tim Eyman sent out an email claiming that the outcomes of this year’s crop of I-960 mandated advisory votes push polls show that Washington voters are in an anti-tax mood.

“Voters last night had the right to vote on this year’s crop of tax increases. And they rejected all of them,” Eyman wrote.

Actually, they didn’t reject any of them — because none of Eyman’s push polls are legally binding. The outcomes of the push polls are completely meaningless and lawmakers are free to ignore them as they have in the past. The questions voters saw on their ballots were designed by Eyman to prompt voters to vote a certain way, which makes the results totally worthless for the purposes of measuring public opinion.

What is legally binding, though, are the results in the 45th Legislative District, where Democratic Senator-elect Manka Dhingra has about a ten point lead over her Republican rival Jinyoung Lee Englund.

Dhingra is winning having been attacked by Republicans as a tax and spend librul for months. Dhingra’s victory will put an end to Republican management of the state Senate and open the door for consideration of sorely needed progressive ideas.

Republicans — including Eyman — tried to set the stage for a Jinyoung Englund win by launching a “Manka Means Taxes” campaign that encompassed mailers, robocalls, and even yard signs. Tim Eyman soft-launched the campaign in a series of late spring emails in which he harshly denounced the Democratic candidate.

“Manka Dhingra, is just another income-tax-loving, car-tab-gouging, Sound Transit Seattle Democrat,” sneered Eyman in one of the emails, sent on May 31st, previewing what would become a common refrain in forthcoming Republican-financed ads.

But the ads backfired spectacularly. Dhingra went on to win easily in the August Top Two election. Leading up to the general election, Republicans proceeded to spend millions of dollars more attacking her, but Dhingra once again has a comfortable lead over Englund.

Also legally binding are the results of dozens of local propositions in communities across Washington State. Returns for these ballot measures show voters want to invest in Washington’s future.

In community after community, voters are saying yes to proposals to increase revenue, sustain revenue, or authorize bonds to pay for essential public services.

For example:

  • In King County, a proposal to renew and expand the Veterans, Seniors, and Human Services Levy is overwhelmingly passing, with a yes vote of 66.06%, despite a call by KVI talk show hosts John Carlson and Kirby Wilbur for its rejection.
  • In Kitsap County, a proposal to raise funds for maintenance and operations of the Kitsap Regional Library system (which includes nine locations) has the support of 62.64% of voters participating so far. In a press release issued back in July, library trustees explained they submitted the property tax levy request to voters because Tim Eyman’s I-747 has been slowly starving the library system of money.
  • In Clallam County, voters are approving (59.69% yes vote) a proposal to raise the sales tax to fund juvenile justice services. “Juvenile Justice’s responsibilities have expanded in recent years beyond simply managing truancy and incarceration for juveniles,” noted proponents in their voter’s pamphlet statement. “Its staff treats mental health, drug and alcohol problems; arranges for employment training and education; manages a teen court, Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA), Child in Need of Services and community-service diversion projects.”
  • In Mukilteo, where Tim Eyman lives, voters are currently saying yes (52.68%) to a proposal to increase the sales tax to invest in street, sidewalk, trails and bicycle improvement projects identified in the City of Mukilteo Transportation Improvement Program. “We can’t afford to delay because investing now in our streets, sidewalks, and bike lanes will prevent big bills later,” proponents argued. Eyman was the sole author of the opposition statement in the voter’s pamphlet, but his arguments are being rejected by a majority of his neighbors who have weighed in so far.
  • In nearby Mountlake Terrace, voters are backing a proposal to authorize bonds pledged to property tax revenue to construct a new city hall and expand the police station by a two-to-one margin (67.07% in favor).

In addition, a large plethora of levies and levy lid lifts to fund public safety are doing well, with only few exceptions.

The threshold for passage for some of these propositions is a 60% yes vote and a minimum turnout of 40% of the jurisdiction’s electorate.

Below is a list of public safety levy propositions currently receiving at least a majority vote of support in key counties throughout Washington State. To pass, a levy must meet any supermajority or minimum turnout requirements applicable to it upon certification of the election, which will take place on November 28th for this cycle. Note that most levies on this list are currently receiving a YES vote well in excess of 60%.

In King County:

  • YES vote for Vashon Island Fire And Rescue Proposition No. 1 Authorizing Restoration of Previous Property Tax Levy Rate: 64.87%
  • YES vote for King County Fire Protection District 20 Proposition No. 1 Levy of General Tax for Maintenance and Operations: 68.88%
  • YES vote for King County Fire Protection District 43 Proposition No. 1 Authorizing Restoration of Previous Property Tax Levy Rate of $1.50 per $1,000 of Assessed Valuation: 57.16%

In Pierce County:

  • YES vote for DuPont Proposition No. 1 Renewal of Six-Year Emergency Medical Services (EMS) Levy: 83.53%
  • YES vote for South Prairie Proposition No. 1 Property Tax Levy Proposition for Emergency Medical Services (Reauthorizing the Previously Existing Levy): 76.60%
  • YES vote for Pierce Fire Protection District No. 5 Proposition No. 1 Six-Year Levy Lid Lift: 61.64%
  • YES vote for Fire Protection District No. 18 Proposition No. 1 Excess Property Tax Levy for Maintenance and Operation Expenses: 65.42%
  • YES vote for Fire Protection District No. 21 Proposition No. 1 Six-Year Levy Lid Lift: 55.13%

In Snohomish County:

  • YES vote for Snohomish Fire District 10 Proposition No. 1 – Emergency Medical Services Property Tax Levy: 70.26%
  • YES vote for Fire District 17 Proposition No. 1 – Lid Lift Restoring EMS Property Tax Levy: 66.49%
  • YES vote for Fire District 25 Proposition No. 1 – Re-Authorizing of Regular Property Tax Levy: 70.80%
  • YES vote for Lake Stevens Fire Proposition No. 1 – Lid Lift Restoring EMS Property Tax Levy: 63.81%
  • YES vote for Bothell Urban Emergency Medical Services District Proposition No. 1 – Emergency Medical Services Tax Equalization Levy: 66.99%

In Spokane County:

  • YES vote for Town of Spangle Proposition No. 1 Fire Protection Service Excess Levy: 85.37%
  • YES vote for Town of Spangle Proposition No. 2 Police Protection Service Excess Levy: 82.50%

In Clark County:

  • YES vote for Washougal Proposition No. 7 Emergency Medical Services Regular Property Tax Levy: 66.90%
  • YES vote for Clark Fire Protection District No. 3 Proposition No. 2 Proposition Authorizing the Restoration of Existing Property Tax Levies: 61.54%

In Yakima County:

  • YES vote for Yakima Fire District #6 Proposition No. 1 Property Tax Levy for Fire Protection and Emergency Medical Services: 72.02%

“Not every revenue request submitted to voters in this election is passing,” noted Northwest Progressive Institute founder and Executive Director Andrew Villeneuve. “But most of the levies we tallied are presently enjoying strong support.”

“The initial results of this election underscore that Washingtonians of all political stripes agree with the idea that we are stronger when we pool our resources… an idea that has served us well since statehood. By working together as taxpayers, we can afford infrastructure and services that enhance our communities’ quality of life.”

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