When Permanent Defense first went live on February 13th, 2002, it was devoted to a single purpose: defeating Tim Eyman’s Initiative 776, which sought to prevent Sound Transit from constructing Central Link by taking away one of ST’s two principal sources of revenue. Unfortunately, PD’s first mission was unsuccessful: Initiative 776 passed narrowly despite the best efforts of a well-organized opposition coalition.

But unlike the NO on I-776 campaign and other campaigns against Eyman initiatives from years past, PD did not go away, dissolve, or close its virtual doors after that disappointing election. Rather, it was strengthened by the loss. In the spirit of its name, it became a permanent campaign against right wing initiatives.

And it has made a difference. Prior to Permanent Defense’s formation, Eyman had gotten an initiative past voters for several years running. After Permanent Defense’s first year, Tim Eyman’s streak of consecutive victories ended. Since I-776, voters have approved just three Eyman initiatives: I-900, I-960, and I-1053.

Unfortunately, Eyman needs to be successful only occasionally to remain relevant, as the last election showed.

There’s no question this last year (PD’s ninth) ranks as the toughest in its history. We fought five right wing initiatives, and regrettably, two of them, including Eyman’s I-1053, got through… and by sickeningly large margins.

Eyman has already announced he intends to run I-1053 again in 2012. Thankfully, it appears that his initiative factory has run out of money for a spell, and consequently, he doesn’t have an initiative in the works for this year (2011). But that doesn’t mean Eyman won’t be trying to cause mischief.

And it doesn’t mean Permanent Defense can go on hiatus. There may be other right wing initiatives to fight, and we need to begin laying the groundwork to stop Eyman’s I-1053 clone in 2012. It will take a Herculean effort to show voters that nullifying majority rule goes against everything our country and our state’s founders believed in. They gave us a system of representative government which has endured for centuries. I-1053, like I-960 and I-601 before it, are purposely intended to wreck that system.

The campaign against I-1053 failed because it came together too late. Resources were not committed until the very end, and by that point, the battle had already been lost. We at Permanent Defense are committed to making sure this never happens again. We’ll be spending our tenth year in infrastructure-building mode, so we have greater resources to commit early and often against Eyman and his schemes.

We’re taking a critical step forward today by forming a Rapid Response team, which will respond and react to right-wing misinformation in the media through comments and letters to the editor on an ongoing basis. If you’d like to be part of the team, you can sign up on our volunteer page.

Although we endured some significant setbacks during the past twelve months, there were some bright spots. A few days after our last anniversary, we gave PD’s virtual home its biggest overhaul to date with Version 8, codenamed “Camano”, transforming it from a collection of static web pages to a powerful, database-driven site. PermanentDefense.org has never looked better, and it’s much simpler to implement changes, thanks to the ease of administration offered by WordPress.

We’re also proud of StopGreed.org, the combined campaign site we built to provide information about the corporate fronts behind each of the five right wing initiatives on the 2010 ballot. Three of them (I-1082, I-1100, I-1105) were overwhelmingly defeated by voters; the other two (I-1053, I-1107) passed, as mentioned previously. Some of the features and tools we built for StopGreed.org will probably be incorporated into Permanent Defense itself, to help activists, voters, and reporters better track and understand right wing initiatives.

Finally, we’re thankful that Tim Eyman was unsuccessful in his efforts to prevent records of who signed his initiatives from being turned over to interested citizens. Our state has a tradition of open government, and open government doesn’t just mean accountable elected leaders. People who sponsor and sign initiatives are not entitled to anonymity. The process of citizen lawmaking must be transparent, and we’re glad the courts have recognized that.

Significant obstacles lie ahead on the path towards a better quality of life for our state and our country. There really hasn’t been a better time to get involved. If you are not already, consider becoming a volunteer.

Your voice and your ideas are Permanent Defense’s greatest asset.

• Throughout our eighth year, we were part of the realization of one of Permanent Defense’s two original goals: the successful completion of Sound Transit’s Central Link light rail line. Staff were invited on several test runs of the line prior to its July 18th grand opening, and Permanent Defense’s parent organization, the Northwest Progressive Institute, provided extensive coverage of that event. We were again present for the December 19th opening of the Airport Link extension, which brought the line into the City of SeaTac.
• We tirelessly worked as part of one of the biggest coalitions in Washington State history to defeat Tim Eyman’s Initiative 1033, the Mukilteo profiteer’s most destructive measure ever. After a frenzied October, which saw an unprecedented mobilization of clergy, municipal leaders, activists, community groups, and progressive organizations, we won a spectacular victory that spanned the Cascade Mountains. Our triumph marked Eyman’s second consecutive defeat at the ballot and his first in an odd-numbered year.
• As part of the effort to defeat Initiative 1033, we built a grassroots campaign hub and organized opposition to the initiative through social networking. By Election Day, the NO on Initiative 1033 Facebook page co-maintained by Permanent Defense had surpassed thirteen thousand fans. We also worked to ensure that journalists heard about the consequences of I-1033 by regularly responding to Tim Eyman’s propaganda.
• In the aftermath of the election, we began preparing to oppose Tim Eyman’s next measure, a do-over of Initiative 960 (2007) which the Legislature is poised to suspend. We provided an opposition presence at Eyman’s kickoff event in the Secretary of State’s office on January 11th.
• Finally, we began work on a major overhaul of Permanent Defense’s website (Version 8, codenamed Camano) which will officially launch this week as part of our anniversary celebrations. Our new website runs on an incredibly powerful free software stack, and is ten times more robust than every prior incarnation.

We also continued to lobby the Legislature to reform the initiative process. The House and Senate are each considering bills we support that would make a difference. One would make it harder for Tim Eyman to go ballot title shopping, another would require mercenary petitioners to be more accountable.  We are hopeful that at least one of these bills will make it out of the statehouse this year.

We know that despite our successes, the underlying problems that allow Tim Eyman to exist – especially our regressive tax structure, but also a lack of political courage – remain unaddressed. These problems will not be solved by simply defeating forthcoming right wing ballot measures like Initiative 1053. Every time we defeat a Tim Eyman initiative, we are merely treating a symptom. Solving the underlying problems will take nothing less than a Herculean endeavor, and a strategic shift on the part of our movement. Permanent Defense’s parent organization, the Northwest Progressive Institute, was formed in August of 2003 to help make this strategic shift possible.

Although Permanent Defense’s narrowly focused work remains important, the larger work that NPI is undertaking has become even more critical and more important, because the clock is ticking. For too long, we have dithered and procrastinated, and allowed ourselves to be more concerned about winning elections than addressing the conditions that are precipitating the decline of our communities, our state, and our country. That must change. Our future depends on our ability to grow our common wealth, not just safeguard what we have.

Thanks for being a supporter and staying committed to the tough goal of neutralizing harmful right wing initiatives, year after year. Together, we will continue to provide a much needed first line of defense against new threats to our future.

The last twelve months, our fifth year, presented many challenges, but was arguably our most successful ever. The following is a brief recap of our amazing accomplishments:

• Throughout the spring of 2006, we monitored right wing signature drives, allowing citizens to report on their experiences with petitioners – many of whom lied or fabricated information in order to get a signature.
• We worked with our allies at Washington Won’t Discriminate to fight Referendum 65, a right wing effort to legalize discrimination masterminded by Tim Eyman. We won a huge victory in June of 2006 – it never made the ballot, and the amended civil rights law remains in place.
• We organized and mobilized to fight Initiative 917, Tim Eyman’s attempt to repeal sorely needed transportation funding enacted in 2005 by the state Legislature. When I-917 failed a random sample check of signatures at the end July, we sent representatives to Olympia to observe the full signature check. I-917 ultimately failed to make the ballot a month later and we won another huge victory.
• We teamed with broad based coalitions to beat two other right wing initiatives that did make the ballot – Initiatives 920 (repealing education funding) and 933 (pay or waive: land use mayhem). We were victorious again in November of 2006 as both were overwhelmingly defeated.
• We renewed our efforts to urge the Legislature to enact initiative process reform in early 2007.

We also witnessed two courts issue rulings which we support – in June of 2006, Initiative 747 was ruled unconstitutional, and in December of 2006, the state Supreme Court ruled Sound Transit may continue to collect its motor vehicle excise tax so it can repay critical bonds.

We met all of our goals and responded to all the challenges laid before us in this last year – successfully. 2006 was nothing short of remarkable.

Despite our victories last year, Tim Eyman isn’t going away. We will continue our opposition to his senseless onslaughts on our government, our communities, and our quality of life. We will fight against his “Minority Rules” initiative to cripple representative democracy until it is defeated.

As we pledged last year, we will continue our work to map out a long term plan for fixing Washington’s tax structure, including the development of a property tax homestead exemption as well as alternatives to the state sales tax and the obnoxious “business & occupation tax”.

In the coming months, we’ll be rolling out numerous improvements and additions to our website, as we have in years past.

After our successes last year, we are confident we can overcome any challenges in our path and make Washington State a better place to live, work, and visit.

Thanks for your involvement during the past 365 days – here’s to another year of triumphs and successes!

The arrival of February 2006 marks the end of our fourth year of operation and the beginning of our fifth year.

Our fourth year was very eventful. We faced significant obstacles but we were successful in accomplishing many important goals. Here’s a review of what we achieved this past year:

• In late February 2005, Permanent Defense’s founder, along with David Goldstein of TaxSanity and Steve Zemke of Taxpayers for Washington’s Future, testified before the House Finance Committee in favor of House Bill 1744 (the homestead exemption proposal) to create a fairer property tax structure.
• Throughout the spring of 2005, Permanent Defense organized to fight Initiative 900, Tim Eyman’s overload of performance audits. Upon the filing of Initiative 912, the leadership of Permanent Defense decided to set up a sister organization, Washington Defense, to oppose the repeal of the 2005 Transportation Package while Permanent Defense fought I-900.
• In the summer, following the end of the signature drives, Permanent Defense’s website was retooled through the annual July Relaunch and readied to oppose Initiative 900. Washington Defense’s website was readied to oppose Initiative 912.
• Throughout the summer of 2005 Permanent Defense’s founder spoke before numerous organizations, including the Greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce and the Municipal League, to urge an endorsement against Initiative 900.
• In August Washington Defense PAC was launched to raise money to fight a grassroots campaign against Initiative 912.
• During the fall Permanent Defense supporters worked extremely hard to fight against Initiative 912, and, when time allowed, oppose Initiative 900 as well. A strong emphasis was placed on defeating I-912 due to the fact that it would have repealed some $5 billion in needed transportation funding, whereas I-900, though poorly drafted and unnecessary, would not have gutted state revenues.

Ultimately, Initiative 912 failed in a significant defeat for Tim Eyman and his fellow anti-tax zealots. Eyman had predicted its passage and even attempted to latch onto the effort to wipe out the gas tax increase. Though Initiative 900 passed, the real Eyman initiative was destroyed in a huge, landmark victory.

Despite the failure of I-912, Eyman has decided to press ahead with his plans to mount an assault on the other revenue sources for the 2005 Transportation Package. In 2006, Permanent Defense will work to protect over $2.6 billion in transportation funding from being wiped out by Eyman’s initiative.

Permanent Defense will also vigorously oppose Eyman’s outrageous attack on Washington State’s newly amended anti-discrimination law, which now prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

Not only will we fight these senseless onslaughts on our quality of life, but we’ll continue our work to map out a long term plan for fixing Washington’s tax structure, including alternatives to the state sales tax and the obnoxious “business & occupation tax”.

As in past years, we’ll be rolling out numerous improvements and additions to our website during the next twelve months.

Great challenges lie ahead, but we can overcome them and make Washington State a better place to live, work, and visit.

Thanks for your involvement during the past 365 days. Here’s to another successful year!

February 2005 marks the end of our third year of operation and the beginning of our fourth.

The last year has been Permanent Defense’s most successful year to date. Working together with our friends and allies, we have accomplished much of what we set out to do a year ago.

Last year, in this statement, I wrote about how imperative it was that we stop Tim Eyman and his initiative factory from causing further devastating harm to Washington State. Thanks to your hard work, and our cooperation with other groups opposed to Eyman, we successfully defeated both I-864 and I-892.

I’d like to reflect on some of the things we’ve accomplished this past year- from February 2004 to February 2005. I’m proud of what this project has been able to accomplish, and I’m confident that we will continue to be successful in our efforts to change Washington State for the better.

• We defeated Initiative 864 in July of 2004, destroying a threat that would have brought certain disaster to local governments and public services across the state. We fought this issue for a year (June 2003 to July 2004) and won, dispelling Eyman’s myths and rumors about the tax climate.
• We defeated Initiative 892 in November of 2004, with voters rejecting Eyman’s attempt to proliferate our state with slot machines by a landslide. We mailed flyers, distributed yard signs, appeared in the media, and attended community events to voice our opposition to I-892.
• We debuted a new e-newsletter for the press – Permanent Defense Focus!, which has helped to counter the lies that Tim Eyman continually feeds the media.
• We retooled our site through January Launch, July Relaunch, and December Update, with lots of new sections and features, especially the Release Center and the Permanent Defense Forum.
• We had three times the traffic to our website this year of what we had in 2002 and 2003 combined, with thousands of visits to our site.

In the years since Permanent Defense was founded, Tim Eyman has had one initiative which passed at the polls:  Initiative 776. All of the others have been failures. Eyman is currently is in an 0 for 4 slump and is trying to break out of it by qualifying an initiative to the people that would overload our state with audits.

Eyman’s proposal would have the state shelling out around $90 million every biennium so we can pay to audit every single state agency, program, and account and would require the auditor’s office to expand by four times its current size over the next decade.

Fortunately, the state House and the state Senate are considering much more practical legislation that has the state auditor’s support.

We will continue to vigorously oppose Eyman on all the issues. And we will step up our efforts to fight for real tax reform, including pushing for a state homestead exemption.

We’ll talk about a long term plan for fixing Washington’s tax structure, including alternatives to the state sales tax and the obnoxious “business & occupation tax”. We’ll also talk about tackling the state’s current funding problems.

We will continue to roll out improvements and additions to our website during the next year. So, I hope you’ll stand with us as we embark on the beginning of another year of political activism, and take a moment to pause and reflect on our achievements and accomplishments from the last one.

Thanks for your involvement. Here’s to another successful year!

As in years past, we need to stop Tim to protect our state. And we’re confident that we can do it this year. Tim’s proposal is so downright awful that people are becoming opposed to it as soon as they hear about it.

Initiative 864 is too devastating to ignore. If we don’t act, we will lose the quality of life we enjoy in our communities.

I’d like to reflect on some of the things we’ve accomplished this past year- from February 2003 to February 2004.

We saw the defeat of Tim’s initiative last year, Initiative 807, in July, after fighting it with our allies David Goldstein and Steve Zemke. We won, and Eyman’s measure never made it onto the ballot… his first initiative failure in four years.

We relaunched our site in July with a redesign, including new features, and content. We launched our new domain name, www.permanentdefense.org, to make our site more easily accessible. We continued to send messages to the media and to legislators about the defects in Tim’s plan.

Last spring, last summer, last fall, and last winter, we have been preparing to fight the 25% property tax initiative. It’s here, and we’re fighting. Opponents to I-860/I-864 filed a ballot title challenge and language challenge, causing Eyman to try and “back out” of his initiative and go for legal advice. Opponents also made the rounds with the media in December 2003. A surprised Tim was then confronted with questions from his ready opponents while he tried to reel off his latest proposal- the 25% property tax initiative.

Incredibly enough, Tim hasn’t even told his supporters about his filing of Initiative 860, or Initiative 864. That’s because he knows it’s being challenged and doesn’t want his people to even know it.

Just like when Tim shut them out in the dark for years about his pocketing of $165,000. Instead, Tim attempts to rouse fury and anger out of his supporters towards Washington government. One of the worst things about Tim’s across the board tax cuts is that it really penalizes the local governments doing a good job… the ones that can’t cut any “fat”. Tim thinks everyone should be accountable to his “standard”, but his proposals hurt the localities that are already efficient. This doesn’t make any sense!

With our alternative Homestead Exemption proposal, which was endorsed by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, we offer the means for real tax reform, not just the “slash and burn” advocated by Eyman and his fellow cronies. Eyman wants to burn down the “rainforest” so that the wealthy can use the land for cattle grazing.

That’s not our approach.

We want positive human interaction with the “rainforest”- an effective solution for Washington’s regressive tax system. Our proposal directly benefits middle and lower income families. It doesn’t give large windfalls to the rich as Tim’s proposal does.

Two years of opposing Eyman is a great track record. And we’re now excited to bring you January Launch, which commenced on January 30th. You can read all about it via the link from our home page. Please take the time to check out the new content.