Newsroom Archives by Year: 2012

February 1st, 2012

Permanent Defense Tenth Anniversary celebration for volunteers and supporters a success

Announcements

On February 13th, 2012, Permanent Defense celebrated its tenth anniversary (February 2002 – Februry 2012), commemorating a significant milestone: one decade of maintaining Washington’s first list of defense against harmful right wing initiatives, especially Tim Eyman’s.

Our work is far from finished, but we had many successes to celebrate, including our recent victory over Eyman’s I-1125 last November. NPI’s staff, board, and contributors met for a special dinner celebration to mark the occasion, joined by many supporters. A brief recap of the event was published on NPI’s Cascadia Adovcate.

January 24th, 2012

Tim Eyman refiles HB 1415 as initiative to the people, labels it “Fund Education First” (with what money, Tim?)

Rethinking and Reframing

Yesterday, presumably while he was at the state’s Capitol Campus to testify on a bill he didn’t like, Tim Eyman filed three more initiatives, bringing the total number he’s filed so far this year to eight. The first two are titled “Son of 1053” and “Son of 1125” (and they are comprised of provisions recycled from Eyman’s last two initiatives.)

But the third initiative is altogether different. Eyman filed it under the title “Fund Education First” (no, we’re not joking). However, Eyman didn’t write it. It appears to be a carbon copy of House Bill 1415, filed a year ago by House Republicans. HB 1415 is a short, four-provision bill that would require the Legislature to appropriate funding for Washington’s K-12 schools before appropriating revenue to fund other services.

The full text can be found at the Legislature’s website.

It appears that Eyman has simply lifted the text of the bill in its entirety and is using it as a first draft of an initiative to the people (an initiative he probably has no intention of running). The text will now be reworked by the Code Reviser’s office – at taxpayer expense! – into a format appropriate for an initiative, perhaps with editorial commentary written by Eyman inserted as a preface.

The last provision of HB 1415, by the way, ties the legislation to the fate of a proposed constitutional amendment. This provision will probably be deleted by the Code Reviser’s office since it makes no sense to keep it in.

This act takes effect January 1, 2012, if the proposed amendment to Article IX of the state Constitution HJR . . . . (H-0681.1/11) is validly submitted to and is approved and ratified by the voters at the next general election. If the proposed amendment is not approved and ratified, this act is void in its entirety.

We think it’s beyond ironic that Tim Eyman has filed an initiative to “fund education first”. His own initiatives have made funding vital public services like our public schools nearly impossible. Many schools and school districts have only managed to stave off financial disaster because they’ve been able to raise money through voter-approved levies and bonds or through Parent Teacher Association (PTA) fundraising.

Years of Eyman initiatives have taken a serious toll on our state’s commonwealth. Many of Eyman’s most destructive schemes have been explicitly designed to prevent the Legislature from acting to solve the problem. And Washington’s youth are paying the price. They aren’t getting the education they deserve – the education that the Constitution of Washington State requires us as a society to provide.

It is the paramount duty of the state to make ample provision for the education of all children residing within its borders, without distinction or preference on account of race, color, caste, or sex.

It is up to us to make our Constitution a living document. If we don’t uphold our Constitution, its provisions become nothing more than words on a page. Our Founding Fathers gave us an enduring plan of government which calls for majority rule with minority rights. Unfortunately, majority rule has now been sabotaged by multiple Tim Eyman initiatives, which have also indirectly harmed all of the public services our commonwealth pays for.

The disingenuous “Fund education first” mantra that Eyman and others are propagating must be rejected. We cannot fund our schools by taking away funding from our universities, corrections system, social safety net, state parks, or other services. That’s robbing Peter to pay Paul. There are no shortcuts we can take, or corners we can cut, that will get us out of this mess. There is no free lunch. A moral budget ultimately comes down to math, for public services cost money. And we are not raising enough money to pay for the services we want and need.

We are clearly not asking enough of ourselves. We need to stop dithering, backfilling, and sliding. That means raising taxes and beginning to work on addressing our broken tax structure so that we can sustain our commonwealth long-term.

Yes, times are tough. But recessions are precisely when we depend on our public services the most. Austerity measures will not help our economy recover. They create a vicious cycle that leads to more gloom and unemployment. We can only break that cycle by strengthening our commonwealth.

January 10th, 2012

Tim Eyman backtracks on plan to run “Son of 1053” in 2012, now says it’s just one of several possibilities

Statements & AdvisoriesThreat Analysis

This Friday, we will be one month away from Permanent Defense’s ten year anniversary. During the last decade, we have devoted ourselves not only opposing Tim Eyman and his initiative factory, but watchdogging Eyman as well. And in that time, we’ve repeatedly caught Eyman telling his own followers and the press one thing after he had told them something very different just a few months earlier.

For instance, in 2006, we caught Eyman in a lie about the signature drive for Initiative 917, which never made the ballot. (Eyman blamed I-917’s failure on the Secretary of State, suggesting petitions had been “pilfered”, even though he was well aware that I-917 fell short because he didn’t pay for enough signatures to be collected).

It appears that once again, Eyman is being not being upfront with his supporters.

Shortly after New Year’s Day last year, Eyman laid out his plans for the next two years, blasting Governor Chris Gregoire for telling reporters she wasn’t going to allow the passage of I-1053 to dictate how she governed for the remainder of her term. Here’s a passage from his email, dated January 6th, 2011:

Four times the voters have approved the policies in I-1053. We’re going to give the voters their 5th opportunity in 2012. [Note: These figures are incorrect. There have been only three ballot measures having to do with instituting a two-thirds vote for tax increases: I-601, I-960, and I-1053. Eyman is dishonestly inflating the number].

So for the next two years, the voters will be watching Olympia to see if they got the message. If the Legislature and Governor abide by the will of the people in the next two legislative sessions, our 2012 initiative may not be as popular as I-1053. But if Olympia disregards, dismisses, or disrespects the policies, purposes, and clear intent of I-1053, the voters will surely renew I-1053’s policies a 5th time (and we’ll likely tighten the belt a notch tighter).

The following Monday (January 10th, 2011), Eyman held a press conference to affirm his plans to run a 1053 clone in 2012. Here is an exact quote from the middle of that press conference (which was attended by a number of reporters), just before Eyman staged his photo-op at the Secretary of State’s front desk.

We’re announcing today that we are filing an initiative to renew the two-thirds requirement for raising taxes [and] the requirement that the Legislature has to take a recorded vote in order to increase fees… We have learned from last year’s campaign that we weren’t able to raise enough money and organize things in one year in order to be able to get that initiative done. I took out a second mortgage on my house – that’s still outstanding – and so, we’re going to take the next two years in order to organize this effort to renew the two-thirds.

In the months that followed, Eyman sent out over a dozen emails asking his supporters for money to “renew the two-thirds” and to pay down the mortgage he took out to finance I-1053. When he unveiled Initiative 1125 on May 2nd, 2011 (which he later qualified for the ballot with Kemper Freeman’s money), he again explicitly recommitted to his pledge. From his email sent that day:

We had originally planned to simply reinstate the policies in I-1053 with a Son of 1053 initiative next year. WE’RE STILL GOING TO DO THAT.

But we’ve decided to do an initiative this year that addresses Olympia’s sidestepping of I-1053 but also brings a few urgent transportation policy decisions to the attention of the public.

However, in an email sent out to supporters yesterday, Eyman made no acknowledgment of his 2011 pledge, characterizing his plans for 2012 as “to be determined”. Here’s the relevant excerpt from the email:

 As for our initiative efforts in 2012, we want to see how the legislative session unfolds before deciding which initiative(s) will be pushed. On Friday, we filed 5 different initiatives (Son of 1053, Bring Back our $30 Car Tabs, Let the Voters Decide on Automatic Ticketing Cameras, Protect the Initiative Act, and Stop Government Fraud Act).  Each one tackles a serious public policy problem. There will likely be others. Which one(s) we’ll do in 2012 will be announced later. On several issues, Olympia isn’t listening to the people and so if they aren’t going to solve these problems, we’d like to give the voters the chance to.

So, just to recap: Tim Eyman appears to have downgraded his “Son of 1053” initiative from its status as the plan for 2012 – count on it! to Option A for 2012. Or B. Or whatever. What matters is this: Eyman has been asking his followers to give him money for an initiative he said was going to spend two years promoting. But now that initiative is just one of many initiatives that Eyman might push. What’s up with that?

A year ago, Tim Eyman stood in the foyer of Secretary of State Sam Reed’s office in the Legislative Building with Jack and Mike Fagan at his side and pledged to spend the next two years preparing to “renew the two-thirds”. We were there. We witnessed it. And we subsequently witnessed Eyman’s attempt to raise money for the effort. “We are raising funds for the next 2/3’s initiative,” Eyman said in a February 2nd, 2011 email to followers in which he declared he was “hitting the big panic button”.

If Eyman had actually leveled with his supporters and been totally honest, he would have said something along the lines of, “We’re raising money for my benefit. I’ll decide what to do with the money after  you give it to me. We might use some of it to do a Son of 1053, but we might not, because I could change my mind depending on whether a ‘super supporter’ steps up to help make this possible. Either way… please send your most generous contribution to me right now!”

But honesty is not what Tim Eyman is known for. He’s a master salesman with a gift for deception. His conscience is apparently three sizes (or maybe three hundred sizes) too small, because it only kicks in when he’s telling whoppers, and only after he’s been called out – as he was during the Initiative 747 campaign, when Christian Sinderman accused Eyman of pocketing his own supporters’ money for his personal use.

(Eyman lied to his supporters for months about taking the money before finally confessing the truth in February 2002.)

As we have amply documented above, Eyman told the press, the public, and his supporters last year that he was doing a “Son of 1053” initiative this year. He attempted to raise money for the effort. But evidently, the fundraising wasn’t going well, because Eyman quit talking about “raising funds for the next 2/3’s initiative” during the I-1125 campaign. And he’s not moving ahead with “Son of 1053” now.

It appears that privately, he is in now in auctioneer mode, attempting to sell his wares –  er, initiatives – to a sugar daddy, hence the “to be determined” posture. Eyman knows that without a sugar daddy, he can’t qualify “Son of 1053” – or any other initiative he might like to run – for the ballot. And he doesn’t want to mount a signature drive only to have it end in failure. So he is keeping his powder dry until he can close a sales pitch with a wealthy benefactor.

It’s probable than he’ll find someone… he got the gambling industry to finance I-892, Michael Dunmire to finance I-900/I-917/I-985/I-1033, big banks and oil companies to finance I-1053, and Kemper Freeman to finance I-1125.

Eyman could level with his followers about all this. But that would mean the press and the public would find out, too. He’d have to admit that his initiative factory isn’t grassroots. So he’s keeping his own people in the dark. Pretty sad.

January 9th, 2012

Whatever happened to “Let the voters decide?”

Statements & AdvisoriesThreat Analysis

Earlier today, in lieu of holding a press conference at Secretary of State Sam Reed’s office in the Legislative Building to discuss his plans for 2012, Tim Eyman drafted and began sending out an email to his followers (and the press) announcing that he intends to be active in opposing any and all efforts to raise revenue in the Legislature during the sixty-day session that begins today and will last until at least mid-March.

Emphasis is ours:

One of our top priorities in 2012 is beating back tax increases (hence our PAC’s name change to:  Voters Want More Choices “No New Taxes 2012”). That means fighting against the umpteen bills being pushed in Olympia to raise taxes (Democrats’ new income tax bill, Democrats’ new property tax increase, Democrats’ new capital gains tax bill).

But we feel it is particularly important for us to take the lead in opposing the two tax increases being put on the ballot (Gregoire’s 10% sales tax on the April ballot and her task force’s $21 billion tax increase on the November ballot). We don’t want them increased in Olympia and we don’t want them put on the ballot (and if they are put on the ballot, we want voters to vote no).

That last sentence sure is a doozy, isn’t it? But at least Tim Eyman is being honest for a change. For years, he’s falsely said or implied that he doesn’t want to make raising revenue impossible – merely difficult. He’s also said or implied that he has no objection to elected leaders asking voters to raise revenue. For instance, in 2002, just days before Permanent Defense was founded, he told the Seattle Weekly:

We’ve always contended that any tax increase that any taxing district wants to support is fine, as long as it goes to the voters.

But today, we’ve seen Tim Eyman’s true colors. Mr. “Let the Voters Decide” has just said, plainly and unequivocally, that he is against letting voters decide whether to save services that are on the chopping block. He doesn’t want to put the matter in the people’s hands. His direct democracy evangelism is a sham, and this is simply the latest proof. A true citizens should be in in charge missionary would welcome the Legislature’s interest in referring a question on any topic of importance to the people. But the initiative and referendum, to Eyman, are simply a means to an end… the end being the destruction of Washington’s common wealth.

Inflicting sabotage is always what Eyman’s initiative factory has been about. All of his initiatives have been deliberately written to cause harm.

As Eyman’s own words demonstrate, there are no circumstances under which his dogma – which he shares with his idol Grover Norquist – condone taxes being raised.

It doesn’t matter that our social safety net is in danger of being eviscerated. It doesn’t matter that Washington is failing to adequately provide for the education of its youth, as our state Supreme Court just ruled. It doesn’t matter that the state and its many local governments continue to lay off public workers, making our unemployment problem even worse. As far as Tim Eyman is concerned, an all-cuts budget would be welcome news. In fact, his goal is to ensure that this happens… he wants Washington’s government wrecked so it cannot serve its people.

The remaining reporters who still cover state affairs as part of the Capitol press corps owe it to their readers to challenge and expose Eyman when he masquerades as a proponent of direct democracy with fake slogans such as “let the people decide”. Empowerment and self-determination are the opposite of Eyman’s real agenda, and the media ought to know that by now.

January 6th, 2012

First day to file initiatives to the people in 2012 is recycling day for Tim Eyman

Threat Analysis

Today was the first day to file initiatives to the people for the 2012 ballot, and Tim Eyman took advantage, filing five different drafts electronically with Secretary of State Sam Reed’s office. The Elections Division has not yet made the drafts available for download, so we haven’t read through them yet, but we do know what they’re about.

Of the five initiative drafts Eyman filed today, four are clearly retreads of measures he’s filed before. Here’s a short history of each recycled scheme.

  • Eyman’s first draft, titled “Protect the Initiative Act” appears to be a rehashed version of several measures that he’s filed over the years, but never attempted to qualify for the ballot. Previous measures with near-identical titles sought to expand the amount of time allowed to gather signatures on a measure and make it easier for petitioners to file frivolous claims of harassment with the police. There are probably similar ideas in this incarnation.
  • Eyman’s second draft, titled “Son of 1053”, is obviously intended to be the sequel to Eyman’s unconstitutional, undemocratic I-1053 (2010), which itself was the sequel to I-960 (2007), which was based off of I-807 (2003). But even I-807 was a recycled initiative. It was a do-over of Linda Smith’s I-601, which narrowly passed in 1993 but was later suspended by the Legislature. I-601 was the right wing’s first successful effort to subvert Article II, Section 22 of the Constitution and require two-thirds votes for revenue increases.
  • Eyman’s third draft doesn’t have a title, but it’s about vehicle fees. More specifically, it’s about capping vehicle fees as thirty dollars. Where and when have we seen this movie before? Oh yeah… here! In 1999 (I-695), 2002 (I-776) and 2006 (I-917). The first of those three (I-695) was a clone of a measure Eyman had filed the year before, and the idea for that came from the gubernatorial campaign of Republican Jim Gilmore of Virginia.
  • Eyman’s fourth draft also doesn’t have a title; but it does have a subject: “automatic ticketing cameras”. This appears to be a measure that would restrict or ban red light cameras and other kinds of cameras set up to catch people who break traffic laws. It’s no secret that Eyman dislikes red light cameras (and their cousins). He tried to impose limits on cities’ deployment of red light cameras with a provision in I-985 (2008), but voters overwhelmingly rejected the measure. Since then, he’s fought cameras in Mukilteo and attached his name to anti-camera efforts in Bellingham, Longview, Monroe, Lynnwood, and Redmond.

We haven’t reviewed the “Stop Government Fraud Act” yet, but supposedly it would create a new government agency headed by an inspector general to investigate fraud. No doubt Eyman’s proposal requires some percentage of some existing revenue source to be dedicated to this new agency, much like how I-900 (2005) required part of the sales tax to go the state auditor’s office. Wonder how Tim’s going to spin this proposal? He’s always saying that government can’t be trusted. Wouldn’t creating a new government agency simply result in more government that can’t be trusted?

At a press conference in January last year, Eyman, flanked by his cohorts, said he would be running an I-1053 clone in 2012. At the time, he did not announce an effort for 2011 (though he later secured money from Kemper Freeman, Jr. to run I-1125). Unless Eyman decides to run one of these other schemes – or something altogether different – any forthcoming announcement will really just be a re-announcement of what he’s already committed to doing.

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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 Brian Heywood's initiative factory. Learn more.

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