December 6th, 2022
Read NPI’s statement concerning the Court of Appeals’ holding in Attorney General Bob Ferguson’s main campaign finance enforcement lawsuit against Tim Eyman.
Keep readingAugust 5th, 2022
The pending resolution of the bankruptcy will not liberate Tim Eyman from the penalties he incurred as a result of his stonewalling in the extreme legal strategy, or the judgment assessed against him by Thurston County Superior Court Judge James Dixon in the Attorney General’s main campaign finance enforcement case.
Keep readingDecember 22nd, 2021
“Eyman regularly asserts that he is the victim of an unjust persecution. But the reality is, he’s in a hole that he dug for himself… a hole that he continues to enlarge and deepen. Now, a trustee will determine what assets are available to satisfy Eyman’s debts, most of which are owed to the people of Washington State.”
Keep readingFebruary 10th, 2021
“Tim Eyman has been fined before. He has been found guilty of violations of Chapter 42.17A RCW before. But he has never been held accountable like this,” said NPI’s founder Andrew Villeneuve.
Keep readingFebruary 10th, 2021
During his more than twenty years of political involvement, initiative promoter and failed gubernatorial candidate Tim Eyman has consistently tried to conceal the extent of his fundraising and electioneering from the public, in flagrant violation of RCW Chapter 42.17A, the public disclosure law that voters originally approved by initiative back in the 1970s.
Keep readingApril 9th, 2020
Today, Attorney General Bob Ferguson announced that disgraced initiative promoter turned gubernatorial candidate Tim Eyman has been ordered by Chief Judge Marc Barrecca of the United States Bankruptcy Court to begin paying the penalties he has been racking up in the state’s long-running campaign finance enforcement lawsuit against him.
Eyman must pay $278,137.93 immediately and then must make substantial monthly payments until he has satisfied his obligations. The order covers what he already owes to the people of the State of Washington, plus any future judgments. Eyman shall be eligible for a one percent interest rate as long as he pays on time. If he doesn’t, then the interest rate increases to twelve percent for the remaining amount.
Northwest Progressive Institute founder and Executive Director Andrew Villeneuve thanked Ferguson and state attorneys for securing the order.
“Tim Eyman has been evading responsibility and accountability for his lawbreaking for an extremely long time,” said Villeneuve.
“The citizen complaint that precipitated this lawsuit was originally filed in the summer of 2012… almost eight years ago. And let’s remember that it was a citizen complaint that started all of this. That complaint was originally filed with the Public Disclosure Commission, which then turned the matter over to the Attorney General’s office.”
“At every stage of the investigation and subsequent court action, Tim Eyman has been uncooperative. His repeated refusals to turn over documents and records needed to bring the truth to light has caused this case to drag on for a very long time. And while he may have reaped a short term payoff from his stonewalling in the extreme legal defense strategy, it is not going to work over the long-term, as today’s decision shows.”
“Our team at NPI is very pleased that the Attorney General’s office has concluded that Tim Eyman’s violations of our public disclosure laws were intentional and will be seeking triple penalties,” said Villeneuve. “Tim Eyman must be made to pay a steep price for operating above the law for so long. Today, we saw real progress towards the important goal of holding Eyman accountable. That’s great news to get in bad times.”
In addition to heading the Northwest Progressive Institute, Villeneuve is a boardmember of Washingtonians For Ethical Government (WFEG) a group that works to ensure Washington’s campaign finance laws are upheld and enforced. Fellow WFEG director Sherry Bockwinkel filed the aforementioned complaint with the PDC that was ultimately referred to the Attorney General for prosecution.
February 21st, 2020
Today, Thurston County Superior Court Judge James Dixon granted Attorney General Bob Ferguson’s motion for partial summary judgment in the main State of Washington v. Tim Eyman campaign finance enforcement case (No. 17-2-01546-34). Dixon affirmed his previous ruling from last September that $766,447 in funds that Eyman calls “gifts” over the past several years were actually campaign contributions that should have been disclosed to the public because they supported Eyman’s initiative activism.
The judge found that Eyman himself has been operating as a continuing campaign committee — just like his campaign entities Voters Want More Choices and Permanent Offense — and that he should have been filing monthly reports going back fifty-five months, which are now “a combined 173,862 days late as of the date of this order.”
NPI/Permanent Defense founder Andrew Villeneuve, who has been working to hold Eyman accountable for his destructive initiatives and public disclosure violations for over eighteen years, praised the ruling and highlighted its importance.
“Throughout his career as a professional scammer and purveyor of destructive initiatives, Tim Eyman has operated as though the law simply doesn’t apply to him,” said Villeneuve.
“It is illegal to conceal donations that support a ballot measure, yet Tim Eyman has been doing this for years. His violations were willful and flagrant.”
“Because he purposefully mixes his personal and political funds together, and has since his early days, it is all one pot of money, and therefore, the identities of all of Eyman’s donors needed to be disclosed, not just some of them.”
“Tim Eyman has been telling people for years that if they give to him personally, as opposed to writing a check to one of his PACs, their identities will not become known. We know because we have copies of Eyman’s donor pitches.”
“It was wrong of Eyman to promise anonymity to donors when he knew personal funds would in fact be used to support ballot measures he was working on.
“Now, thanks to Judge Dixon, the truth will come out. It’s time for Washingtonians to learn who Tim Eyman’s secret donors are. It’s time for sunlight, which has appropriately been called the best of disinfectants. It’s time for accountability.”
September 13th, 2019
Today, Thurston County Superior Court Judge James Dixon granted Attorney General Bob Ferguson’s motion to impose additional sanctions on disgraced initiative promoter Tim Eyman, who has consistently tried to evade accountability for his violations of Washington’s public disclosure law through a legal defense strategy we’ve dubbed “stonewalling in the extreme”.
Dixon ruled that contributions Eyman has previously received as personal ‘gifts’ qualify as campaign contributions and affirmed that Eyman remains in contempt because he has failed to comply with the Court’s discovery orders.
Dixon also awarded the state attorney’s fees.
Northwest Progressive Institute founder Andrew Villeneuve called the ruling a significant development in the case that brings Eyman closer to his day of reckoning.
“The barricades that Tim Eyman has thrown up to shield himself from accountability are crumbling,” said Villeneuve.
“For years, Tim has tried to pretend that the fundraising he does for himself is separate from the fundraising he does for his initiative committees. But that is a fiction. The truth is that money given to benefit Tim Eyman benefits his initiative factory, and money given to whichever scam Eyman happens to be hawking at the moment benefits Eyman.”
“Just look at how I-976, Eyman’s latest initiative, got onto the ballot. The lion’s share of the money that paid for signature gathering came from Eyman himself; Eyman claimed he cashed out his and his wife’s retirement fund in order to make the signature drive a reality. The PDC reports for I-976 make it look like Eyman is his own biggest donor. Except he’s really not, because he doesn’t have a way of supporting himself without the continuing generosity of wealthy supporters like Kemper Freeman, Jr., who stated in a deposition that he wanted to make sure Eyman had enough ‘grocery money.'”
“There is simply no separation between Eyman’s personal and political funds anymore because he has mixed them so thoroughly.”
“It is entirely appropriate that Judge Dixon has found that the ‘gifts’ Eyman has been soliciting are really campaign contributions and are subject to public disclosure. If Eyman won’t comply and file the requisite reports, he’ll find himself in even more trouble.”
September 19th, 2018
This morning, The Olympian published an outstanding editorial condemning Tim Eyman’s continued attempts to escape responsibility for his lawbreaking, and warning Washingtonians against contributing to his legal defense fund, which Eyman has been using to pay tens of thousands of dollars in recently accrued contempt penalties, attorney’s fees, and court costs.
Eyman was held in contempt of court over seven months ago for failing to turn over records sought by Attorney General Bob Ferguson’s office in the main State of Washington v. Eyman case. A total of four campaign finance enforcement cases were filed by Ferguson’s office in 2016 and 2017 against Eyman and his associates. Three were filed two years ago in September of 2016; a fourth was filed in March of 2017.
The main State of Washington v. Eyman case concerns the initiative promoter’s illegal acts in support of his “initiative on initiative” (I-517) which voters overwhelmingly rejected five years ago. Eyman qualified I-517 in 2012 through a stealth signature drive with money he transferred from one of his other campaign committees through an out of state entity back to himself and his associates.
Donors to that other campaign did not know that Eyman was using their money to qualify an entirely different initiative.
“State law keeps tightening like a vice on Washington’s most prolific initiative promoter, Tim Eyman,” The Olympian noted. “This vice should tighten. Another quarter-turn or more is needed to force out the truth.”
The editorial goes on to point out that there’s little difference between giving money to one of Eyman’s political committees and giving money to his legal defense fund.
“In Eyman’s solicitations, he’s arguing that his future as an anti-tax initiative promoter is at stake. Which sounds a lot like a campaign solicitation,” the editorial board noted. “Indeed, Eyman has bills to pay. One one hand, he is pushing initiatives. But he could face fines of more than $2 million if AG [Attorney General Bob] Ferguson is successful with his lawsuit alleging wrongdoing.”
“It’s hard to believe that anyone who donates to Eyman’s Go Fund Me account for legal costs are different from those who donate to his political efforts,” the board added. “Absent court orders for Eyman to publicly release the identity of his defense-fund donors, we’ll never know which special-interest carve-outs or protections in future Eyman initiatives are not pay backs for the help they give in 2018 or 2019 to keep Eyman solvent and in the initiative business.”
While state law requires that the identities of donors to campaigns be disclosed, Eyman is assuring prospective donors to his legal defense fund that they will remain anonymous.
“I’m asking everyone to match or exceed the amount you’ve given in past years (it’ll be anonymous and unreported since it’s going towards my legal bills),” Eyman says at the end of one of his fundraising letters.
“We wholeheartedly agree with The Olympian that state law should be changed to regulate legal defense funds established by individuals or entities facing allegations that they violated our campaign finance laws,” said Northwest Progressive Institute founder and Executive Director Andrew Villeneuve, who has been organizing opposition to Eyman’s initiative factory for over sixteen years.
“The status quo is untenable. Perhaps our state needs an independent inspector general with the authority to examine bank statements and other records to ensure that funds raised for legal defense are actually being spent on legal defense.”
Eyman is currently fundraising both for his legal defense fund and for his next con, Initiative 976. On one website, he asks his followers to give to the former; on another website, he asks his followers to give to the latter. And he’s using his mailing list to pitch each. It matters not that the money is ostensibly for different purposes and being raised through separate funnels, for ultimately it ends up in a bank account that Eyman controls.
Because Eyman pays himself out of his campaign coffers (and even gets kickbacks from his main vendor, Citizen Solutions), he’s always fundraising for himself, no matter what entity he’s asking people to make a check out to.
This isn’t the first time Eyman has fundraised in tandem like this.
Fifteen years ago, Eyman solicited donations for a legal defense fund at at the same time he was raising money for an initiative, I-807. Then, as now, Eyman was in heaps of trouble for violating our campaign finance laws.
After Eyman’s solicitations became public knowledge, founding NPI boardmember Steve Zemke, who remains involved today with NPI as a senior advisor, called on the Public Disclosure Commission to investigate Eyman’s personal fundraising.
“This seems to be a pretty transparent effort to allow campaign funds to be sent directly to him without being disclosed to the public,” Zemke wrote in a complaint filed with the Public Disclosure Commission.
“Because they wouldn’t be reported, the public would not know how much or who gave money to support Tim Eyman to allow him to donate his services to campaigns. Are there secret big donors supporting his campaigns like I-807 who do not want the public to know who they are or how much they are willing to give to allow Eyman to do ‘free’ consulting?”
The PDC ultimately declined to take action and dismissed Zemke’s complaint.
State lawmakers need to address this loophole in our public disclosure law when they return in January. As The Olympian said: “Let’s not look away and pretend there isn’t a behind-the-scenes maneuver under way here. Let’s hold political actors including lobbying interests and others accountable for the money they spend in politics. That includes politics-related legal skirmishes that could shield actual campaign contributions.”
September 10th, 2018
With no end in sight to Tim Eyman’s stonewalling in the main State v. Eyman case, Thurston County Superior Court Judge James Dixon on Friday doubled the daily contempt sanctions against him and his associates from $250/day to $500/day and granted the state direct access to Eyman’s banking records.
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Permanent Defense works to protect Washington by building a first line of defense against threats to the common wealth and Constitution of the Evergreen State — like Tim Eyman's initiative factory. Learn more.
