Curious about con man Tim Eyman’s record as an initiative sponsor? You’ve come to the right place! Welcome to Tim Eyman’s Failure Chart, a resource maintained by Permanent Defense that accurately portrays Eyman’s record as an unelected legislator.

Below you’ll find a table that lists each of the statewide ballot measures that Tim Eyman has sponsored and launched signature drives for since entering Washington State politics in the 1990s. The criteria for determining success or failure is fairly straightforward.

To be marked as a success, the measure must have:

1. successfully qualified for the ballot with the minimum number of signatures,
2. received more Yes votes than No votes at the election at which it was considered*, and
3. withstood any post-election legal challenges.

Measures not satisfying all of these criteria are marked as failures.

As we’ll see, only two measures that Eyman has sponsored have met this test, out of around two dozen in total, which is why this resource is named Tim Eyman’s Failure Chart.

* Note: The criteria for success of a referendum would be “received more Rejected votes than Approved votes at the election at which it was considered”, but Tim Eyman has never successfully qualified a referendum to the ballot, despite having tried several times. 

The failed measures break down as follows:

• Six were rejected by voters
• Twelve were attempted (in other words, Eyman printed petitions and tried to collect signatures) but failed to qualify for the ballot
• Four were partially voided by the courts
• Five were voided in their entirety by the courts

There are only two Eyman initiatives that qualified, received more yes votes than no votes, and were not successfully challenged in court: I-200 and I-900.

Of the measures that have been invalidated in court, two were reinstated in modified form by the Legislature: I-695 and I-747. Despite having been partially reinstated, I-695 and I-747 are classified as failures because they did not withstand judicial scrutiny as initiatives.

Like other con artists, Tim Eyman is skilled at manipulating people, including journalists. As a consequence, Eyman’s actual record as an unelected legislator is rarely discussed.

The above Failure Chart only includes Eyman’s measures, but it’s also important to note that Tim Eyman has been a failure as a candidate.

In 2020, Eyman ran for governor of Washington State on a platform bashing Democratic incumbent Jay Inslee. He did not survive the Top Two election. Eyman received a mere 6.41% of the vote; his performance in the election was worse than what initial polling suggested it would be, meaning that Eyman actually lost support during the course of his campaign. Negative momentum is something no candidate wants, but it’s what Eyman got.

Eyman claims that he wins just by getting on the ballot, and in one way, that’s true… Eyman personally profits from the cons he runs against the voters, so he is making money whether he wins or loses. But to us, ripping people off isn’t winning, it’s lying and cheating. It’s not something to be admired or celebrated, but rather, condemned as often as possible.

It is inappropriate to call Eyman an “initiative king” or an “initiative guru,” as neither of those things describe him accurately. What Eyman is really good at (as the investigations into his public disclosure lawbreaking have proven) is duping people, not legislating.

Every con man has to have a hustle —  a dishonest plan for getting money. Ballot measures are the vehicles at the heart of Eyman’s dishonest plans for getting money; they are the equivalent of the jars and bottles peddled by the stereotypical snake oil salesman.

From Eyman’s perspective, there is a benefit to his initiatives not sticking: he can run the same con again a few years down the road, just as the stereotypical snake oil salesman can return to peddle more fake treatments to the gullible. To break this destructive cycle, we need initiative reform and fiscal reform. On the initiative reform front, we need ballot titles to be truthful and we need to prohibit measures from being funded with dark money. On the fiscal reform front, we need to fix our upside down tax code so that our essential public services are funded equitably, with everyone paying their fair share.