But what most people don’t know about Dino Rossi is his extremist positions – including his ties to initiative profiteer Tim Eyman, as well as his similarity to previous GOP candidates John Carlson (2000) and Ellen Craswell (1996).

Did you know that:

• Dino Rossi supported Initiative 200, Tim Eyman’s first initiative, which attacked affirmative action, back in 1998.
  • “He [Rossi] supported anti-affirmative action Initiative 200.” (Seattle Weekly, Dino Buys Big Time, 8/4/2004)
  • “He [Rossi] supported I-200, the successful anti-affirmative-action initiative championed by [John] Carlson.” (The Stranger, The Salesman, 8/19/2004)
• Dino Rossi supported Initiative 807, Tim Eyman’s 2003 attempt to require a supermajority vote of the Legislature for any tax increases.
  • “Rossi welcomed Eyman’s newest proposal. ‘I’m pleased he’s moving forward on this. If we (Republicans) get the majorities in the House and the Senate, we may save Tim the trouble,’ he said.” (AP, Eyman’s initiative would make it hard for legislators to raise taxes, 10/23/02)
• Dino Rossi supported Tim Eyman’s I-695, which slashed road and transit funding, and defended it in the spring of 2000.
  • ‘”There’s a lot of people politically in a little bit of a box,’ said Sen. Dino Rossi, the ranking Republican on the Senate Ways and Means Committee. ‘They [opponents] said the sky was going to fall if 695 passed, and unless a little bit of the sky does fall they’re going to sound like they were telling stories during the campaign.’” (Seattle Times, Legislators employ I-695 to promote long-held agendas, 1/9/2000)
• Dino Rossi supported slashing public services, sponsoring bills which proposed more tax cuts in the wake of I-695.
  • “Last year (2000), he [Rossi] was among several lawmakers offering tax-cut bills, catching the momentum generated by Initiative 695, [Tim Eyman's] $30 car-tab measure.” (Seattle Times, Property-tax-cut talk is big in 5th, 10/18/2000)
• Dino Rossi supported the “direction” of Tim Eyman’s I-745, which would have required 90% of transportation funding to be spent on roads.
  • “But Sen. Dino Rossi, R-Issaquah, the top Republican on the Senate Ways and Means Committee, said the state has barely tried to keep even with needed highway construction. [Of Eyman's proposal], he said, ‘It’s going in the direction many of us have been trying to push. That’s not to say mass transit doesn’t have a role, but it’s not the Utopia people say it is.’” (AP, Seattle P-I, I-695 sponsor sets sights on gridlock with initiative, 12/16/1999)
• Dino Rossi supported an unsuccessful Tim Eyman effort to kill Sound Transit’s light rail effort in 2003.
  • “Sen. Dino Rossi, R-Issaquah, said he hasn’t seen Eyman’s proposal but supports the concept of a revote because the light-rail project has changed in recent years. ‘Why not put it back on the ballot?’ said Rossi, chairman of the Senate Ways and Means Committee. (Seattle Times, Eyman kicks off effort to kill light-rail project, 2/15/2003)
• Tim Eyman endorsed Dino Rossi’s bid for governor from Day One, and has repeatedly referenced Rossi in his emails to supporters.
  • “Initiative king Tim Eyman cheered on Rossi from the crowd. ‘Taxes are out of control and tax increases should be a last resort,’ Eyman said later. ‘Rossi embodies that philosophy not by what he has said, but by what he’s done.’ After his speech, Rossi posed with his wife and four children as the crowd chanted ‘Dino! Dino!’” (King County Journal, Rossi says he needs $5 million, 11/11/2003)
  • “Our taxpayer-protection efforts over the past six years have changed Washington’s politics forever. This was an incredibly successful election for taxpayers: * Dino Rossi ran for Governor touting his courageous efforts to balance a $2.6 billion deficit without raising taxes. He’s on the verge of victory due to his efforts to protect taxpayers from the insatiable desire of politicians to raise taxes.” (Tim Eyman, Email to Supporters, 11/3/2004)

The Washington State Democrats also have a page where Dino Rossi’s conservative positions are outlined in comparison to Craswell’s and Carlson’s.

It’s clearly apparent, from their own words, that Tim Eyman and Dino Rossi are friends and allies, sharing the same ideals and philosophies on taxation.

Though Dino has supported many of Eyman’s initiatives, this year he tried to skirt the issue and refused to comment on supporting either I-864 and I-892 in order to soften his image as he ran for Governor.

And that bid for the governor’s seat was firmly and openly supported by a very eager Tim Eyman, who longed to see someone of his own creed occupying the Governor’s Mansion. Ever faithful, Tim has even recently urged his supporters to back Rossi’s call for a revote.

Permanent Defense exists to oppose people like Tim Eyman and Dino Rossi, who, in positions of power, have shown are capable of contributing to a more regressive tax structure and damaging the public services of Washington State.

Initiative 892′s failure is Eyman’s fourth defeat in a row and a great victory for this organization. Since our founding in February of 2002, Eyman is 1 for 5 – he’s won on I-776 (though it did not accomplish any of its goals) and he’s failed with I-267, I-807, I-864, and I-892. He has no successes this year. Best of all, Washington’s communities are saved from the proliferation of 18,255 new electronic slot machines in neighborhood bars, restaurants, and bowling alleys.

The 2004 election has been a nail-biter in the presidential race and in other contests which are still not over, but you can take comfort that Initiative 892 is dead, and that common sense has prevailed over Eyman’s lies and misinformation. Eyman, of course, says he’ll be back with a new version of I-892. (He said the same thing about I-864, we haven’t seen anything yet). Eyman is now all talk and no show. His celebrity status is fading away as more and more people realize the fraud he is.

THANK YOU for all of your dedication, your attention, and your willingess to help the cause during this campaign. So many of you volunteered to help that we simply couldn’t get materials to all of you: we apologize, but thank you for standing with us.

In the next few days we will make a couple announcements (in the next issue of Extra!) and let you know where we go from here. But for now, pause to celebrate I-892′s defeat and hope for a good outcome in the presidential race and other tight contests.

Congratulations on our success!

Dear Fellow Voter:

I wanted to take a moment and explain to you the case against Initiative 892, the slot machine initiative that dumps 18,255 new electronic slot machines in the middle of communities across the state.

It is my sincere hope that as you think about whatever tax relief this initiative may or may not deliver, that the sound of electronic gambling machinery at over 2,000 locations and possibly more throughout the state goes through your mind. Sure, some say that’s a cheap shot – maybe that’s true, maybe not.

Take a moment and imagine two very different visions for our state:

Vision 1: We make I-892 law and we allow 18,255 electronic slot machines to be dumped into our communities all because a majority of us bought the sound bite of an initiative that promises property tax relief with no consequences. The end result will be a giant expansion of gambling, and the number of gambling addicts will skyrocket along with the profits of foreign business conglomerates. This means an increase in crime, including drug use, home invasions and theft, because addicts often resort to desperate measures to satisfy their addiction to gamble over and over again. We will walk through our communities fearing the pickpocket looking for change to plop into those machines and then we will realize gambling isn’t a destination activity any longer: it is now a local activity in our communities.

Vision 2: We reject I-892 and send a clear message that we do not want any more gambling in this state. We also respect the need of our Native Americans to have a means of self sufficiency – and as we do so, we tell the out-of-state gambling industry to butt out of our politics. Finally, by rejecting Tim Eyman’s latest initiative, we reject his ideology of tax cuts on the backs of our way of life.

Now, which vision would you like? Do you want those bandits taking over your community and your taxes, making you liable if this gamble turns out to cost more than promised? I seriously doubt that.

Washington State deserves better than this degradation into gambling dependency.

Vote NO on Initiative 892. Protect your local community and your way of life.

Indeed, the report found that Washington State’s tax burden has been declining since 1981- just the opposite of what Tim Eyman continues to claim.

Eyman tried to dismiss the report, calling it “election-year politics”. But it’s Eyman, and not the state Department of Revenue, who has skewed statistics.

Eyman tries to take the total amount of revenue collected each year by the state and stack it up in ever-increasing bars on a graph, then point to it and say that property taxes are obscene and uncontrollable.

But you can’t measure property tax growth, or any kind of tax growth, by looking at the dollar amount collected each year. Any smart economist can tell you right away that Eyman’s method of looking at tax growth is extremely distorted.

Tax growth is best measured against personal income. This accounts for factors such as inflation and population growth- factors essential for a correct calculation.

The Department of Revenue’s new report measures tax growth against personal income, and finds that Washington is not the first, second, third, or fourth highest taxed state in the nation.

We rank 32nd in the nation in the new report (from 1998-2002) in comparative state and local taxes. And our tax burden has been on the decline since 1981.

That’s hardly “obscene” tax growth. When it comes to taxes, Washington is actually in the upper tier of states- states with a lower tax burden.

And having a lower tax burden isn’t always a great thing, because taxes pay for essential public services. Without enough revenue, the quality of those services can be degraded.

It’s clear that Tim Eyman’s rhetoric about skyrocketing and obscene property taxes is useless hype. No wonder, though, that Tim Eyman doesn’t want voters to believe this report. If they do, it will give them no reason to vote for his initiatives.

If his initiatives are voted down, Tim makes no money. It’s somehow in his best interest, then, to keep the lies coming and the fabrication machine on full spin.

Washington’s voters deserve to know the truth, not the spin, about property tax growth in this state. And clearly they’re not going to get that from Tim Eyman.

Information from C-3 reports filed with the PDC list show Great Canadian Gaming Corporation, a company which owns six casinos in British Columbia, as a top donor, with $25,000.00 paid directly from the company to Eyman’s Just Treat Us the Same political committee.

Great Canadian has recently been investing in Washington casinos and gaming businesses. In 2002, the company bought Big Al’s Casino in Everett for $5.8 million dollars.

According to the Puget Sound Business Journal, “the actual purchaser was Pair O’ Dice Investments LLC, which is 90% owned by Great Canadian’s subsidiary, Great American Gaming Corp.”

Great Canadian already owns a 50% stake in Tukwila’s Grand Central Casino.

The Puget Sound Business Journal also reported in September of 2002 that Great Canadian has “big casino plans in the Puget Sound area” and that it planned to have “four Puget Sound-area casinos operating” by September of 2003.

Great Canadian Gaming Corporation’s long arm reaches not just throughout British Columbia and Washington, but abroad.

The company previously invested in a cruise ship over in the Far East which later was taken over by a Taiwanese man who turned the boat into a haven for prostitutes.

Great Canadian’s partner in the venture, Allegiance Capital of Texas, last year filed a lawsuit in federal court alleging Great Canadian had violated the U.S. Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO).

The lawsuit charges Great Canadian and its executive officers committed fraud, breach of fiduciary duty, conversion and conspiracy.

Not only did Great Canadian Gaming, a company with a questionable reputation, contribute $25,000 directly to Eyman’s Just Treat Us the Same, it also contributed another $25,000 in two payments through one of its subsidiaries, Evergreen Entertainment Corporation, bringing the total to $50,000.

Eyman’s campaign committee currently has about $150,000 or more in funds, meaning a third of the initiative is being financed from out of the country.

Permanent Defense Chair Andrew Villeneuve called the revelation “a disgrace. Once again, here’s Tim Eyman, promoting his “grass roots” support, and he’s taking a $50,000 donation from an out of state, foreign corporation which has set its eyes on building casinos up and down the I-5 corridor, and pocketing the profits.”

“It’s an outrage. It’s one double standard after another.”

“Eyman has a consistent history of skirting around the law and skating on thin ice when it comes down to his rhetoric of “grass roots”, let alone reporting campaign finance.”

“Eyman is so desperate to get on the ballot that he’ll take anybody’s donation, including money from a foreign gambling corporation which has a questionable reputation.”

Not only is Great Canadian Gaming funding a majority of the initiative’s budget, but it is also planning to add more casinos in the area.

The end result is that profits from Great Canadian’s casinos will be going towards paying off a state property tax cut, through a tax on electronic slot machines.

But since when are profits guaranteed in a business? If gambling revenue falls, so will the tax revenue.

Chair Andrew Villeneuve likened it to betting in a casino, saying, “We don’t know where this initiative is going. It’s just like placing a bet: we don’t know that gambling revenues will sustain a property tax cut.”

He also called attention to the fact that money from Great Canadian’s casinos would be funding the money displaced from the state property tax, which now funds public education.

“It’s simply ridiculous that gambling revenues are going to be paying for the education of Washington’s one million students. It’s shameful that profits from electronic slot machines will be paying for teachers’ salaries.”

The out of state, foreign funding should come as no surprise, though. Eyman has never been about what he preaches.

Taking money from a corporation which invested in a cruise ship full of prostitutes is typical behavior from a man who lied and stonewalled his fellow citizens about pocketing $50,000 himself and planning to take another $150,000.

For Eyman, just like Great Canadian Gaming, the fun is in the profit.

The answer is no. Information from the Department of Revenue does show an increase in the amount of revenue collected from property taxes each year. But you can’t look at the amount of money the state collects and use that as an appropriate figure.

Any accurate representation of the property tax burden should take into account the following factors:

• Inflation
• Population growth (and, since 1980, Washington’s population has increased 32.2%)
• Expansion of the tax base (i.e., more properties to tax)
• Loss or gain of federal funding
• Shifting of revenue from one tax source to another

Tim’s complaint that the property tax growth is “obscene” is unjustifiable. Revenue collection figures will always continue to grow because of inflation. And because the population continues to grow, and because more properties are developed, Washington will require more public services. More public services requires an increase in revenue.

There is no way to prevent this increase unless the level of public services currently provided by the state and local governments were to drastically regress. This would lead to a loss of jobs as firemen, librarians, police officers, and other government employees would be laid off in large numbers.

The following chart, furnished by the Department of Revenue, provides a better look at tax growth. Compare it side by side to the chart Tim Eyman uses in his argument that the property tax burden is “obscene”.
Several conclusions can be made from the chart to the left. The first is that the tax burden has dramatically decreased. Part of this is because government has had to make do with less, even as population has grown and demands on the state’s infrastructure have increased.

The second is that using 1980 as a starting date is misleading. If you start one year earlier, in 1979, it’s obvious that the tax burden has clearly and dramatically decreased. In fact, property taxes as a percentage of assessed value have clearly declined.

According to the Washington State Tax Structure Committee and every other accountable source, the economic figure that most closely tracks growth in demand for public services is growth in personal income. Personal income is also the only number which permits a true measure of tax burden.

This second chart, also provided by the Department of Revenue, shows that thirty one other states have higher tax burdens than Washington:

So Tim’s claim that tax growth is “obscene” is simply not true. And compared to other states, Washington’s tax burden is fairly low. Because Tim’s method of measurement doesn’t produce meaningful information, his results are completely misleading and out of context.

Those who take Tim’s statistics for granted don’t understand that he’s playing with the numbers and the figures, using irrelevant data and presenting misleading graphs to paint a distorted picture of Washington State’s tax burden. He’s proved one thing- even when it comes down to math, you can’t trust Tim Eyman.

The test of all that hard work comes this week. The signature deadline for I-864 and I-892 is fast approaching. Tim Eyman needs more than 197,000 signatures- he needs 250,000 because of errors, duplicities, and other common problems with signatures.

Thus, paid signature gatherers will be out in full force- hoping to make a buck off of your name, and helping to qualify I-864 and I-892 for the ballot.

IT IS CRUCIAL that you be alert and focused when you are out and about over the next few days, especially the first couple days of this week. DO NOT allow yourself to be subverted or dragged into signing I-864 and I-892.

I-892 and I-864 would be DEVASTATING to Washington’s communities. There is simply no other way to put it- together, the two initiatives represent a cutback in needed public services like fire departments and libraries, and an expansion of gambling into neighborhood bars and bowling alleys.

For months, we’ve worked hard to fight this initiative. We must redouble, even retriple, our efforts, now, to ensure that I-864 and I-892 do not qualify for the November ballot. We do this by helping to inform voters. The more voters know about these initiatives, the less willing they are to sign them.

That’s because voters who are informed know of the consequences- the consequences of signing or voting for these initiatives.

So be especially alert this week, and help us out by spreading the word. Remember, the Voter Education Center includes a great deal of useful information, including flyers and an awareness handout that you can download.

The Release Center has been updated with a number of new links and downloads, as has the Action Center. These three centers will continue to serve as online hubs for, hopefully, the last week in our campaign against Initiative 864 and Initiative 892.

There are many ways for you to get involved. You can volunteer with us to help aid voters, report signature gathering activity when you see it by calling 1-800-856-2465, and spread the word in your community by downloading our flyers and distributing them among family, friends, and neighbors.

Even the smallest effort helps to make a difference. Working together, we can achieve victory this year and ensure that our communities will be safe from drastic cutbacks in public services and a huge expansion of gambling.

We’ll continue to keep you updated on our efforts throughout this week.

Many voters were dissuaded from signing the petitions after what they learned about the initiative’s devastating effects on Washington communities.

Tim Eyman is relying on out of state paid signature gatherers to collect names for his initiatives. Thanks to the volunteers at Folklife, many of these paid signature gatherers decided to stop deceiving voters. They gave up and left.

Our success at Folklife is noteworthy, but we’re not out of the woods yet. We still need your help to get voters informed about the dangers of Eyman’s initiatives and the problems with paid signature gathering.

The new Voter Education Center includes a great deal of useful information, including a couple new flyers and a voter awareness handout that you can download.

The Release Center has been updated with a number of new links and downloads, as has the Action Center. These three centers will serve as online hubs for the last great stage in our campaign against Initiative 864 and Initiatives 892.

There are many ways for you to get involved. You can volunteer with us to help aid voters, report signature gathering activity when you see it by calling 1-800-856-2465, and spread the word in your community by downloading our flyers and distributing them among family, friends, and neighbors.

Even the smallest effort helps to make a difference. Working together, we can achieve victory this year and ensure that our communities will be safe from drastic cutbacks in public services and a huge expansion of gambling.

We’ll continue to keep you updated on our efforts throughout the weeks ahead.

Since 1999, Tim Eyman’s initiative factory has churned out a number of proposals which have done nothing to create real tax reform and have instead caused major cuts and reductions in public services.

Tim Eyman is always quick to point out that we are highly taxed and that taxes have “skyrocketed” since 1980 or whatever other date he dreams up. Has Tim ever gone back to look to check at the increase in services the state has experienced, or the increasing number of citizens the state must serve?

Better education, higher quality fire protection, new libraries, clean pools, and green parks are just some of the things our tax dollars pay for. But many voters don’t equate dramatically lower taxes with drastic cuts in public services.

That’s often because voters don’t know the truth about what they’re signing and what they’re voting for. Many voters don’t realize that their signature is just like their primary vote.

And with out-of-state mercenaries patrolling Washington’s strip malls and public gatherings, hunting for primary “votes” so they can be paid, we see a system in which proponents are able to deceive voters into signing on for their plan without any critical voice to balance the petitioners’ quick sales pitch.

These proposals aren’t just minor changes in Washington’s tax structure. What’s possibly the largest rollback in local property taxes in state history is being sold to voters without any mention of the consequences- namely, horrific cuts in public services.

Or the fact that the largest expansion of gambling in the state’s history, which legalizes 19,000 new slot machines and means that your local neighborhood bar or bowling alley can become a mini casino, is being touted primarily as a state property tax cut.

Indeed, Tim Eyman’s I-864 and I-892 do so much damage that it’s impossible for any concerned citizen not to take action. Permanent Defense, a group of longtime concerned citizens which counts over two dozen Washingtonians from all walks of life, age, and political belief among its membership, believes that voters must have access to all the information in order to make an informed decision.

To fulfill its vision of aiding taxpayers and alerting voters, Permanent Defense is joining other Eyman opponents in an effort to get the information to voters who need it, and to spread the word about the shortcomings of the initiative process and the dangers of I-864 and I-892.

We cannot simply exist as a voice on the Internet. We must do our part to get the message to voters this year.

Our mission will not be simple and it will not be easy. If we do not create a strong spirit of action and become more involved, we will lose to Eyman again.

We have been working hard to get the message out to an increased number of people, as have a number of Permanent Defense members. We are proud of our efforts, and we thank those who have stepped forward.

But we have a ways to go. July 2nd is a little over a month away, and this is the last stage of the campaign. Your help is needed now. Our new working relationship with other Eyman opponents gives you access to a wider array of resources, and allows us to work with people who have the same goal that we do.

The new Voter Education Center includes a great deal of useful information, including a couple new flyers and a voter awareness handout that you can download.

The Release Center has been updated with a number of new links and downloads, as has the Action Center. These three centers will serve as online hubs for the last great stage in our campaign against Initiative 864 and Initiatives 892 . These three centers will serve as online hubs for the last stage in our campaign against Initiative 864 and Initiatives 892.

There are many ways for you to get involved. You can volunteer with us to help aid voters, report signature gathering activity when you see it by calling 1-800-856-2465, and spread the word in your community by downloading our flyers and distributing them among family, friends, and neighbors.

Even the smallest effort helps to make a difference. Working together, we can achieve victory this year and ensure that our communities will be safe from drastic cutbacks in public services and a huge expansion of gambling.

We’ll continue to keep you updated on our efforts throughout the weeks ahead.

Eyman is helping himself to a $3,100-a-week salary from campaign contributions to his new initiative, which would open up the state to gambling and pretend to cut state property taxes by $400 million.

For the next 15 weeks, until the July 2nd petition deadline, Eyman will collect about $46,500 total in funds. This new revelation is not shocking or monumental. Rather, it is just another confirmation that Eyman’s initiative factory has always been about business and not about policy.

It all started back when Eyman pocketed $200,000 of his supporters’ donations and lied about taking the money. He was forced to admit what he had been doing after persistent work by critic Christian Sinderman to alert the media.

Eyman then said he wanted to begin taking a salary for his work. So in December of 2002, touting his new “wildly popular” Initiative 807 (as Tim himself described it in an email to supporters) he promised to take a salary only if they were successful in getting I-807 on the ballot.

Initiative 807 didn’t get on the ballot, mainly because of a lack of contributions, lack of interest, and a number of mistakes committed by Eyman.

But that didn’t matter to Tim. Even though the watchmaker from Mukilteo had not registered as a paid lobbyist, he decided to collect money for his “effective work for taxpayers” and pocket it.

From July 2003 until December 2004, Eyman accepted donations for himself and the Fagans to pay “Voters Want More Choices” for NOT getting on the ballot.

Tim never did any effective lobbying. He took credit for the efforts of Senator Dino Rossi, Senator Pam Roach, and Governor Gary Locke, who each directly or indirectly worked towards the same thing Tim wanted: a no-new taxes budget.

Except Tim couldn’t prevent the nickel gas tax from being enacted, and so he promised “revenge”. Initiative 864 is supposedly his revenge, although that initiative effort looks extremely shaky… hence the conveniently timed gambling initiative.

And now, 2004. Tim is working together with the gambling industry and helping himself to their funding- with or without their blessing. Tim plans to collect almost half of $100,000 in just fifteen weeks- more than some people make in a year.

Clearly, Tim Eyman does not mind helping himself. And that’s what Tim’s initiative factory has always been about.