Category Archives: Rethinking and Reframing

May 5th, 2015

Anatomy of a Tim Eyman email: Sound bites based on lies, fudged numbers, and missing context

Rethinking and Reframing

Yesterday morning, Tim Eyman sent out another one of his misinformation-laden missives, ending, as always, with an exhortation to send money to his campaign coffers. On occasion, we fisk and debunk Eyman’s emails to demonstrate that Eyman is not a reputable or trustworthy source of information.

We’re going to do that again today.

This post will examine what is in Eyman’s email (sound bites based on lies, fudged numbers) and what is not (missing context).

Let’s get started.

Sound bites based on lies

EYMAN ARGUMENT: “The 2/3 policy is a shield that protects everyone. United we stand, divided we fall.”

REALITY: Requiring a two-thirds vote to raise revenue is undemocratic, goes against the values that our state and country were founded on, and results in the few having power over the many, as this pictogram explains:

Democracy requires that decisions be reached by majority vote
Democracy requires that decisions be reached by majority vote

Washington has repeatedly been ranked as having the nation’s most regressive tax system. It’s regressive because those with the least pay the most in taxes as a percentage of their income, while those with the most pay the least. That’s backwards.

The effect of requiring a two-thirds vote to raise or recover revenue for the state treasury is to lock this regressive system into place, removing the legislative process as an avenue for tax reform. That’s the only thing Eyman’s initiatives actually protect. We all ultimately lose – not win – when majority rule is taken away.

Past initiatives to sabotage majority rule, particularly I-1053 and I-1185, were financed by big oil companies, Wall Street banks, and trade groups that have a vested interest in keeping Washington’s broken, outdated, and regressive tax system the way it is.

EYMAN ARGUMENT: “The 2/3 vote requirement for higher taxes protects all of us — individuals and businesses — from Olympia’s insatiable tax appetite.”

REALITY: Olympia is a city, not another name for the Washington State Legislature.

The people of Washington do not need to be protected from their own representatives. Washington is a democracy; the people are in charge and have the power to hire and fire all one hundred forty-seven members of the Legislature, as well as the governor, the executive department, and the justices of the Supreme Court, at regularly-held elections and special elections in case of a vacancy.

Contrary to what Eyman claims, the Legislature rarely votes to raise taxes, even when the Constitution’s Article II, Section 22 (which requires a majority vote for passage of bills) has been followed. Most bills introduced in the House or Senate to raise or recover revenue for the state treasury never become law.

The Legislature’s failure to fix our broken, outdated tax system is negatively impacting our economy and our way of life. Washington currently ranks thirty-fifth in the nation when our state and local taxes are compared to those of other states. That means a majority of states in the Union are investing more than we are in their public services.

All Washington households and businesses rely on our state’s public services – schools, ports, libraries, parks, police, fire, paramedics, hospitals, universities, roads, transit – every day of every year. Our public services are the foundation of our economy, and it is important that we strengthen them, not underfund them.

Taxation is the means by which we pool our resources to get things done. There is wide agreement in principle that taxes should be fairly levied, accurately collected, properly deposited, and responsibly spent, which is why the most important duty of our elected representatives is to write and pass a budget. Budgeting decisions should be made democratically, reflecting the will of the people of Washington. Requiring a two-thirds vote for some budgeting decisions but not others is undemocratic and violates the values our state was founded on.

EYMAN ARGUMENT: “It is critical we get the 2/3-For-Taxes Constitutional Amendment Initiative on the ballot… Voters deserve the chance to put the 2/3 protection in our state Constitution.”

REALITY: There is no such thing as a constitutional amendment initiative – it’s a fiction created by Eyman. In Washington State, all constitutional amendments must originate in the Legislature. The Constitution cannot be amended by initiative.

I-1366 would not change the Washington State Constitution if enacted. What it actually does is cut the state sales tax from 6.5% to 5.5%, resulting in the loss of a billion dollars a year from the state treasury, if the Legislature does not adopt a constitutional amendment to overturn the League of Education Voters decision.

Fudged numbers

Eyman’s email touting his successes consists of numbers that are blatantly inaccurate and inconsistently rounded.

EYMAN CLAIM: ” In 2012, during that high turnout presidential year, our 2/3 initiative passed with 2/3 approval: 1.9 million voters.”

REALITY: Had I-1185 been required to pass by its own two-thirds standard, it would have failed. Two-thirds is equivalent to 66.67%; I-1185 did not receive that level of support. See the actual numbers on the Secretary of State’s website.

EYMAN CLAIM: “In 1999 (and ever since), 56% of voters approved lower car tabs but everyone’s car tabs were reduced, even the 44% who voted no.”

REALITY: Here Eyman is referring to I-695. It received a 56.16% yes vote/43.84% no vote in a local election year in which voter turnout was 57%. King County, the state’s largest, voted the initiative down, as did San Juan and Whatcom counties. Following the election, I-695 was struck down as unconstitutional by the Washington State Supreme Court, and later reinstated by the Legislature.

EYMAN CLAIM: “In 2001 (and ever since), 58% of voters approved a 1% limit on property tax levy increases but everyone’s property taxes were limited, even the 42% who voted no.”

REALITY: Here Eyman is referring to I-747. It actually received a 57.55% yes vote/42.44% no vote in a local election year in which voter turnout was 44.51%. King County, the state’s largest, voted the initiative down, as did Whitman County in eastern Washington. Several years after the election, I-747 was struck down as unconstitutional by the Washington State Supreme Court, and reinstated shortly afterwards by the Legislature.

EYMAN CLAIM: “In 2007, 2010, and 2012, huge majorities of voters approved the 2/3 protection but everyone was protected afterwards, even those who voted no.”

REALITY: Eyman’s I-960, the 2007 initiative, did not get a “huge majority”. It passed in a local election year with 51.24% of the vote; 48.76% voted no. And it’s worth noting that voter turnout in the 2007 general election was just 50.04%. Barely half of the state’s registered voters participated in the election.

It is fair to say that large majorities voted for I-1053 in 2010 and I-1185 in 2012. However, those initiatives were not met with the kind of early, organized opposition they should have faced. Only $98,016.26 was spent against I-1185 in 2012, and of the $1,638,970.66 spent against I-1053 in 2010, the vast majority of contributions and expenditures (90%+) came at the end of the campaign, in October, when voting had begun and when it was getting late to influence the outcome.

Missing context

Eyman’s email fails to mention any of his failures and thus does not accurately present his record. Voters have rejected a number of Eyman schemes to gut funding for public services, mess with transportation policy, and allow electronic slot machines outside of tribal reservations. Eyman’s defeats at the ballot include the following:

  • I-745 in 2000
  • I-892 in 2004
  • I-985 in 2008
  • I-1033 in 2009
  • I-1125 in 2011
  • I-517 in 2013

Additionally, most of the Eyman initiatives that have been passed by voters have been struck down by the Supreme Court in whole or in part as unconstitutional, including I-695 and I-747 (previously mentioned).

For more details, see Tim Eyman’s Failure Chart.

January 30th, 2015

Tim Eyman’s “analysis” of initiative-related bills and amendments isn’t to be trusted

Legislation & TestimonyRethinking and ReframingStatements & Advisories

Throughout the past week and a half, Tim Eyman has been sending a flurry of emails to his followers and the media decrying proposals in the Legislature to change the initiative process, particularly Senate Joint Resolution 8201 and House Joint Resolution 4204, which would amend the Constitution to prevent Washingtonians from filing initiatives that do not fiscally balance.

We have reviewed the contents of these messages and found them riddled with statements that are lacking context or inaccurate. Eyman’s commentary is, in a word, sloppy. We urge reporters and producers to do their own research and not rely on any of Eyman’s emails for information about SJR 8201, HJR 4204, or any of the other bills Eyman is attacking.

Here are a few examples of what we mean when we say sloppy:

EYMAN CLAIM: “Thanks to your emails, Olympia’s anti-initiative bills are imploding… Amid all-out mutiny, Sen. Joe Fain abandons constitutional amendment attacking initiative process” (Eyman email, Friday, January 30th, 2015)

MISSING CONTEXT: Eyman would no doubt like to be credited with stopping SJR 8201 and HJR 4204 in their tracks, but what he doesn’t acknowledge is that these resolutions aren’t just opposed by him and his followers. Secretary of Kim Wyman’s office strongly opposes SJR 8201 and HJR 4204, as does the Northwest Progressive Institute (see our analysis from last Friday, which looks at three fatal flaws in SJR 8201 in-depth). The truth is, SJR 8201 and HJR 4204 are unworkable, and that’s why neither is likely to even get a public hearing.

OLYMPIA IS A CITY, NOT THE STATE LEGISLATURE: Tim Eyman is very fond of using Olympia as a metonym for the state Legislature and state government – as are others active in Washington State politics. However, as Olympia blogger Emmett O’Connell notes, Olympia is a city of nearly fifty thousand people that happens to be the home of the Capitol Campus. While it is entirely appropriate for a story about state government to use a byline bearing the city’s name, we encourage reporters and commentators not to use Olympia as a metonym for state government. In many situations, the word statehouse works rather well as a substitute.

EYMAN CLAIM: “There’s a new bill this year House Bill 1228 — co-sponsored by R’s and D’s — that requires the state budget office (OFM) to do a fiscal analysis of any initiative that qualifies for the ballot and requires their fiscal report to be printed in the voters pamphlet.  Sounds reasonable, right?  Who can be against that? The problem? It’s already the law.” (Eyman email, Thursday, January 29th, 2015)

THIS IS IN ERROR: Tim Eyman may have been fooled into thinking that HB 1228 restates current law by reading its official description (Requiring fiscal impact statements for ballot measures). But if he had bothered to read through the text of the bill carefully (PDF), he would have discovered that what the bill actually does is require proponents and opponents of initiatives to respond to OFM’s initiative fiscal impact statement for their arguments in the voter’s pamphlet. Section 2 of HB 1228 adds the following phrase to RCW 29A.32.060 and 2003 c 111 s 806:

Committees shall write and submit arguments advocating the approval or rejection of each statewide ballot issue ((and)), rebuttals of those arguments, and statements responding to each fiscal impact statement prepared by the office of financial management.

EYMAN CLAIM: “Their bill [SJR 8201] will mean the end of the initiative process because it will give the government the power to shut down any initiative they see as a threat. Any initiative can easily be found to be ‘out of compliance’ with this bill’s requirement.” (Eyman email, Thursday, January 22nd, 2015)

SJR 8201 IS A RESOLUTION, NOT A BILL: Contrary to what Tim says above, SJR 8201 is not a bill. Tim ought to know this after over fifteen years of involvement in Washington politics, but constitutional amendments and statutes (ordinary laws) are different things, and the distinction matters. Laws begin as bills; the Constitution says bills require a majority vote to pass (Article II, Section 22). Constitutional amendments begin as resolutions; they require a two-thirds vote to pass (Article XXIII, Section 1).

SJR 8201 WOULDN’T MEAN THE END OF ALL INITIATIVES: Be wary of the hyperbole contained in Eyman’s emails. While SJR 8201 would indeed significantly narrow the people’s initiative power by barring initiatives that do not “fiscally balance” from receiving ballot titles, it would not end the process altogether. This is hardly the first time Eyman has exaggerated the impact of a resolution or bill he didn’t like, and it won’t be the last, either.

EYMAN CLAIM: “Citizens are forced to accept thousands of the Legislature’s laws; it’s not too much to ask that elected representatives stop throwing childish temper tantrums over the handful passed by the people.” (Eyman email, Thursday, January 29th, 2015)

ALL OF WASHINGTON’S LAWS ARE THE PEOPLE’S LAWS: Tim Eyman frequently attempts to portray the Legislature as a villain. His contempt for republicanism is regrettable. Like the United States as a whole, Washington was founded as a representative democracy, and remains one today. The Washington State Legislature is a representative body; its members are chosen every two and four years in free elections that are open to every citizen of voting age who is not serving a felony sentence. Laws passed by the Legislature are as much the people’s laws as those enacted by initiative. Unlike the initiative and referendum, which were added to the Constitution in the 1900s, the Legislature is an institution that dates back to statehood. The initiative and referendum were not intended to supplant the Legislature, but rather to complement it. It is logical that the vast majority of our state’s laws have come out of the Legislature; lawmaking is what the Legislature exists to do.

November 20th, 2014

If Tim Eyman’s so concerned about flat wages, why’s he trying to repeal $15/hour in Seattle & SeaTac?

Rethinking and ReframingStatements & AdvisoriesThreat Analysis

As we have seen over the last fifteen years, Tim Eyman’s view is that there is never a good time for the people of Washington to pool their resources to get things done.

It doesn’t matter whether the economy is strong or weak; what’s crystal clear is that Eyman simply doesn’t believe in mutual responsibility or cooperation for the greater good, which are values that have defined Washington throughout its history.

When the economy has been weak, Eyman has cited it as a reason not to raise revenue, forgetting or conveniently ignoring that we rely on our public services as a people the most when times are hard — whether that’s during a recession or in the aftermath of a disaster like the Oso mudslide earlier this year.

(As writer Anne Herbert once quipped, reflecting on the value of one of the most important public services provided at the local level: “Libraries will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no libraries.”)

Curiously, however, in several recent emails to his followers and to reporters, Tim Eyman has cited stagnant wages to buttress his argument that state lawmakers should not take any action that raises revenue in the 2015 legislative session. From his email on Monday:

Besides, wages are flat.  Working families are struggling.  Even if Inslee and the Democrats wanted to ignore the people’s plight, there’s simply no way the people can afford higher taxes now.

And again today:

Our job is to constantly remind these non-Seattle legislators the voters’ clear message:  “Don’t raise taxes, prioritize spending, use existing revenues more cost effectively.  With wages flat, we’re tapped out.“

It is ironic that Eyman keeps talking about wages being flat, because he’s spent much of the summer and autumn trying to drum up funding for an initiative that would prevent cities like Seattle and SeaTac from setting their own minimum wages at a level above what the state requires. Passage of the initiative Eyman has been hawking to the business community would result in more a thousand workers’ wages being cut in SeaTac or the Port of Seattle and cancel pay raises that are due to thousands more workers in Seattle.

In an August 15th memo to potential funders, Eyman called the $15/hour minimum wage enacted in SeaTac and Seattle a “problem”, writing:

Here’s our situation in Washington State:

PROBLEM:  The $15 minimum wage has been passed in SeaTac, Seattle, and Port of Seattle and continues to spread (Tacoma, Olympia, Bellingham, and other cities).  The good guys have been fighting back city-by-city.  They’ve failed every time.  A legislative bill in Olympia on state preemption was introduced last session and it went nowhere.

Eyman’s proposed “solution”? Use a statewide initiative to slash wages in the aforementioned jurisdictions back down to what the state requires. In the memo, Eyman proposed a budget of $1.1 million for the fall signature drive, which he wanted to begin on September 1st and finish by October 31st, and another $1.1 million to promote the initiative in 2015.

So far, Eyman has only been able to find three backers for his scheme: Suzie Burke, Faye Garneau, and Don Root. Burke and Garneau each gave $50,000 back in August; Root recently gave $1,000. Although $101,000 would certainly make for a nice payday to Eyman, it’s not enough to run a signature drive… and consequently, Eyman’s efforts to get an initiative going to overturn the minimum wage ordinances in Seattle and SeaTac remains stalled.

Since Eyman can’t seem to find ample seed money from a wealthy benefactor to launch a new initiative, he’s been asking supporters to help him “gear up” for the 2015 legislative session.

It sounds to us like he’s asking his supporters to pay him for doing lobbying work. Shouldn’t he register with the Public Disclosure Commission, then, like other paid lobbyists do? Or perhaps, as in the past, Eyman thinks the rules simply don’t apply to him.

July 4th, 2014

Scoring the media: Who covered the news of I-1325’s demise, and who didn’t?

Rethinking and Reframing

Happy Fourth of July!

Yesterday, following Tim Eyman’s belated acknowledgement that the signature drive for I-1325 had failed and he would not be submitting any signatures to the Secretary of State for validation, several media outlets picked up on the story, including the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, The Herald of Everett, and the Spokesman-Review of Spokane. But many more media outlets did not, even though Eyman’s failure to qualify I-1325 for the ballot was a major development that deserved coverage.

A day has passed since the news broke, and we’ve decided to score the media coverage, so interested citizens can see for themselves which outlets dropped the ball and which ones carried the news. We’ll start by listing the outlets that ran with the story.

Media outlets that covered the failure of I-1325

Media outlets that didn’t cover I-1325, but did cover Eyman’s minimum wage publicity stunt in mid-June

  • The Puget Sound Business Journal published an article by Ashley Stewart which inaccurately said that Tim Eyman was “gathering signatures” for the initiative he filed (he is not, and at the time the article was written, Eyman’s initiative didn’t even have a ballot title). We emailed the PSBJ requesting a correction, but the article has not been updated. The PSBJ has yet to mention the failure of I-1325 to its readers.
  • The Stranger, piggybacking on an item published in PubliCola, mentioned Tim Eyman’s minimum wage publicity stunt in June (without disclosing that it was a stunt) but does not appear to have published much about I-1325. If I-1325 ever made it into The Stranger’s coverage, it apparently was only in passing.

Media outlets that didn’t bother to cover the failure of I-1325, but did cover the launch of I-1325 as well as Eyman’s minimum wage publicity stunt in mid-June

Media outlets that covered the launch of I-1325 but not its failure

And finally…

Media outlets that have paid little attention to Eyman in 2014 include The Associated Press, KOMO, KIRO TV, and KING. Extensive searches failed to turn up any mention of I-1325 or recent online coverage of Tim Eyman from these outlets. At least Seattle’s big three TV stations have been largely consistent in dealing with Eyman lately. Can’t say the same for the the outlets in the middle categories above.

March 25th, 2014

Tim Eyman is falsely advertising Initiative 1325

Rethinking and ReframingStatements & AdvisoriesThreat Analysis

Ever since the Washington State Supreme Court decided the League of Education Voters case in early 2013, Tim Eyman has been agitating to reinstate the unconstitutional two-thirds vote requirement for raising revenue contained within I-601 and its clones. After arguing for years that the two-thirds vote requirement was constitutional (it wasn’t; it violated Article II, Section 22) Eyman has now changed course, and is clamoring for a constitutional amendment.

In Washington, unlike other states, constitutional amendments must originate in the Legislature, and they must get a two-thirds vote to pass. Therein lies Eyman’s problem: Most state lawmakers are simply not interested in sabotaging our state’s cherished tradition of majority rule like he and his friends are. So Eyman is resorting to Ted Cruz-style coercion. His Initiative 1325 would wipe out about a billion dollars in funding for education each year by cutting the state sales tax, unless state lawmakers pass a constitutional amendment to reinstate the undemocratic two-thirds requirement from I-601 and its clones.

But, as usual, Eyman is being dishonest in his marketing. He doesn’t acknowledge that his initiative is really about slashing the sales tax unless the Legislature does what he wants, which would make it impossible for the state to fulfill its paramount duty of providing for the ample education of every child in Washington under Article IX.

In the sad and tragic event the Legislature did capitulate to Eyman, it would mean that decisions about raising revenue would be permanently placed in the hands of the few, not the many, thus dooming any possibility of real tax reform to help Washington’s families and strengthen our state’s common wealth.

Eyman has been referring to I-1325 both as a constitutional amendment and a constitutional amendment initiative. It is neither.

An initiative cannot alter the Washington State Constitution, and there is no such thing as a “constitutional amendment initiative”.

“Constitutional amendments and initiatives are very different,” said NPI founder and executive director Andrew Villeneuve. “Initiatives are citizen-led attempts to modify the Revised Code of Washington; constitutional amendments are proposed changes to our state’s plan of government. Constitutional amendments must originate in the Legislature and receive a two-thirds vote before being placed on the ballot for ratification by the people. The Legislature also has the power to call a constitutional convention, but again, this takes a two-thirds vote.”

In early drafts of what later became I-1325, Eyman actually included a clause that stipulated the initiative should be cited as a constitutional amendment:

TITLE OF THE ACT
NEW SECTION. Sec. 8. This act is known and may be cited as the “2/3 Constitutional Amendment.”

(Here’s an example from I-641, a previous incarnation of I-1325 filed in December 2013).

He later changed it to this:

TITLE OF THE ACT
NEW SECTION. Sec. 6. This act is known and may be cited as the “Taxpayer Protection Act.”

Although Eyman changed the title provision for I-1325, he is still falsely marketing I-1325 as a constitutional amendment. Petitions for I-1325 look like petitions for Eyman’s I-601 clones. At the top, they declare in big bold lettering “TOUGHER TO RAISE TAXES”. The subheading says “Let the voters decide on a 2/3rds constitutional amendment”. In an adjacent box, Eyman editorializes:

Voters OK’d this policy in 2012, politicians took it away, this initiative brings it right back again.

This is false, or highly misleading, on all counts:

  • Voters did not approve an initiative like I-1325 in 2012 – they approved I-1185, an unconstitutional I-601 clone that had different provisions in it;
  • The Supreme Court, consisting of nine nonpartisan justices, invalidated I-601 and its clones, not legislators, as the word “politicians” seems to imply;
  • I-1325 would not bring back the unconstitutional two-thirds requirement in I-1185. Instead, it would slash the sales tax unless the Legislature passes a constitutional amendment and puts it on the ballot before April 15th, 2015.

In an email today, titled, “Traveling the state promoting our 2/3 Constitutional Amendment Initiative”, Eyman writes:

It’s been a whirlwind effort. It’s been exciting, exhilarating, and yes, exhausting. But the enthusiasm and support from everyone for the 2/3 Constitutional Amendment Initiative has really been inspiring. Everyone loves the fact that it’s a constitutional amendment, meaning it will provide permanent protection. Pass it one time and it’ll be for all-time. I-1325 will keep Olympia on a short leash FOREVER!

This is false. Once again, I-1325 is not a constitutional amendment. It is an initiative that would slash the sales tax by half of one percent, resulting in the loss of about a billion dollars per year for our public schools, unless the Legislature decides to pass a constitutional amendment to Eyman’s liking. Eyman cannot force state lawmakers to do what he wants, but he is trying anyway with I-1325.

Eyman delights in wrecking government and putting people who have chosen to serve Washington as elected leaders in impossible positions.

I-1325 is likely itself unconstitutional, because, as mentioned, it would interfere with the state’s ability to carry out its paramount duty to provide for the ample provision of the education of Washington’s youth. The Washington State Supreme Court has already ruled in McCleary that the state is failing to abide by Article IX of the Constitution by underfunding our schools.

A better, more accurate title for I-1325 would be the “Denying Our Children the Education They Deserve” initiative.

No one who writes about or reports on I-1325 should use the deceptive description that Eyman is using, because it masks the truth about the initiative. Either of the outcomes Eyman is attempting to bring about with I-1325 would have disastrous implications. Simply put, I-1325 is a noxious, incredibly destructive initiative. It deserves to be defeated, and Tim Eyman’s false marketing of it deserves to be exposed.

March 4th, 2014

Setting the record straight on HB 2552

Legislation & TestimonyRethinking and Reframing

Throughout the past week and a half, Tim Eyman has been sending out near-daily emails trashing House Bill 2552, the initiative process transparency and accountability bill that passed out of the Washington State House of Representatives on February 17th with a large bipartisan majority.

Eyman has been asking his supporters to write to all of the Republicans who voted for the bill and demand that they recant and reverse their position. Unfortunately, as usual, he has not been upfront with his supporters, or with the media and elected officials he claims to have carbon copied on his messages.

His denunciations of HB 2552 have been packed to the brim with misinformation and recycled talking points he’s used in previous years against completely different bills, leaving us to wonder whether he has actually read the text of HB 2552. We’d like to take this opportunity to set the record straight and explain why HB 2552 is a good bill that actually strengthens the integrity of the initiative, referendum, and recall process.

As its bill report makes clear, House Bill 2552 is backed by a broad coalition of organizations, including the Washington Food Industry Association and NPI, which helped organize the successful coalition that overwhelmingly defeated Tim Eyman’s I-517 last year. HB 2552 is also supported by Secretary of State Kim Wyman, Washington’s top elections official and the only Republican elected to statewide office.

The purpose of HB 2552 is to make the initiative process more transparent and the companies that have turned it into an underground industry more accountable.

The bill was inspired by similar legislation passed in Oregon that the Oregon Secretary of State’s office says has helped to increase public confidence in the initiative process and deter signature fraud, but it is not identical.

Eyman has made a number of claims over the past few days about HB 2552 that are simply not true. We’re going to run through a bunch of these and debunk them, because it’s important that everyone who is interested in this legislation understands what it really does and why it was introduced.

Myth: HB 2552 is “The Democrats’ most vile, onerous, unconstitutional anti-initiative bill in state history” (Eyman)

Reality: Tim Eyman has attacked pretty much every initiative reform bill introduced with the aim of bolstering transparency and accountability with colorful adjectives like vile and onerous. HB 2552 is actually a bipartisan bill modeled on legislation implemented in Oregon that has so far withstood legal scrutiny. It is prime sponsored by Democratic State Representative Chris Reykdal and cosponsored by two Republicans… Vincent Buys and Brandon Vick. It is supported by Republican Kim Wyman, the only Republican elected to statewide office by the voters in HB 2552. It passed the House with a vote of seventy-one to twenty-six on February 17th, 2014.

Myth: HB 2552 “will destroy volunteer signature gathering” (Eyman)

Reality: Wrong. HB 2552 won’t restrict or interfere with volunteer signature gathering, let alone destroy it. It requires individuals who are being paid to approach voters for their signature to register with the Secretary of State, much like paid lobbyists are required to register with the Public Disclosure Commission. Volunteers do not need to register. Eyman claims:

Under HB 2552, even fewer volunteers will collect signatures because each sheet must be individually filled out on the back and a huge amount of personal information must be handwritten on each sheet.  What’ll happen then?  Initiative campaigns will become even more reliant on paid petitioning.

This is nonsense. The “huge amount of personal information” from petitioners that’s required is just a name, street address, city, state, zip, signature, and the date of the signature. Existing state law requires about the same amount of information of any voter signing the petition… name, signature, address, city, and county of residence. Signing the signature declaration on the back of a petition is no more complicated or time-consuming than signing a petition itself.

And under the bill, the initiative’s sponsor is fined $500 for each sheet not filled out.  What will initiative sponsors do?  To avoid the fine, they will throw away and never submit all the petition sheets that are not filled out, meaning thousands of valid voter signatures will never be turned in and counted.  This will destroy volunteer signature collection, resulting in increased reliance on paid petitioners (the opposite of what we all want)

This is false. HB 2552 does not impose any fines on initiative sponsors for submitting petitions without a signed declaration. The bill does impose fines on initiative sponsors and signature gathering firms if they employ petitioners who do not register, and if petitioners circulate petitions for free in addition to being paid. We checked with the staff of the Government Operations & Elections Committee, and they confirmed Eyman is incorrect. Here’s the relevant language in the bill:

NEW SECTION. Sec 8. A fine of five hundred dollars shall be issued to the prime sponsor or sponsors of the initiative, referendum, or recall petition or the signature gathering business for each of its paid signature gatherers who are not registered under this section, and for each signature gatherer who violates subsection (6) of this section.

Subsection 6 says:

An individual registered under this section may not obtain  signatures on a petition or prospective petition for which the individual is being paid and, at the same time, obtain signatures on a petition or prospective petition for which the individual is not being paid.

Just to reiterate: If a signature gatherer – whether volunteer or paid – forgets to fill out and sign the declaration before turning in his or her sheet, there’s no penalty. The signatures are not disqualified, and there is no fine.

Tim Eyman is wrong when he says otherwise.

Myth: “HB 2552 makes it simple for opponents of initiatives to shut down any signature drive.  They’ll know exactly who to target and harass.” (Eyman)

Reality: Nonsense. The right to petition the government for a redress of grievances is a constitutionally guaranteed right, as is the right to speak out on any issue and freely express oneself. HB 2552 will not prevent signature drives from taking place, or help opponents of any particular initiative to “shut down” a signature drive. Proponents and opponents of initiatives will remain free to organize for and against initiatives under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.

Last year, during the debate over Tim Eyman’s I-517 (which the people of Washington resoundingly rejected), former Secretary of State Sam Reed noted that during his tenure, most of the complaints received by his office regarding signature gathering pertained to aggressive petitioners, who voters reported were being too pushy and intimidating.

HB 2552 seeks to address these complaints by requiring that paid signature gatherers undergo training before they hit the streets with their petition sheets.

Contrary to what Tim Eyman has said, HB 2552 was not written to make it easier for opponents of initiatives to track down petitioners and make trouble for them. The bill was actually amended in committee to exempt the identification that petitioners must submit from being made available to the public, at the urging of HB 2552’s proponents. Section 1(9):

NEW SECTION. Sec 9. The applicant’s driver license, state identification card, or other photo identification required under subsection (1)(d) of this section is exempt from public inspection or copying.

Myth: “HB 2552 will radically decrease the number of citizens willing to participate in the initiative process by imposing massive burdens. And to accomplish what? Burdening everyone to find the handful who are already being caught under the current system!”

Reality: HB 2552 is a bill designed to strengthen the integrity of the initiative process. It requires individuals who are being paid to lobby voters in their capacity as citizen lawmakers to register with the Secretary of State, just as lobbyists who are being paid to lobby our elected representatives must register with the Public Disclosure Commission. There is nothing sinister or vile about HB 2552. Paid petitioners are required to register in Oregon, and it hasn’t stopped or diminished participation in the initiative process there.

Eyman fails to admit that many of the people who set up shop outside of entrances and exits to supermarkets, stadiums, and fairs are not necessarily citizens or even residents of Washington. Signature gathering firms often bring in workers from out-of-state who are unfamiliar with Washington’s politics or people to collect signatures. HB 2552 requires these firms and the petitioners who work for them to register and undergo training and background checks. Volunteer signature gatherers who simply wish to exercise their First Amendment rights are completely exempt from the registration requirements.

In his tirades against HB 2552, Eyman has repeatedly tried to minimize the problem of signature fraud, even referring to fraudulent signatures as “bad sigs”.

This is misleading; when the Secretary of State processes petitions from a signature drive, they always find “bad” signatures. Some signatures are duplicates; others are invalid because the individual who signed is not a registered voter, or the signature doesn’t match what the Secretary of State has on file. A signature can be bad and not be fraudulent.

The Secretary of State does not check every signature on every petition at the end of a signature drive. To save time and money, the SoS conducts what are known as random sample checks, where a small but statistically valid sample of signatures are subjected to examination and verification. During the random sample checks for I-517 and I-522 last year, a large number of fraudulent signatures were discovered, and the Secretary of State forwarded the case on to the State Patrol for investigation.

Last year was the fourth straight year that fraudulent signatures were discovered in random sample checks. As The Herald of Everett later reported in a follow-up story, signature fraud has been a recurring problem:

Eight of 19 initiatives or referenda submitted for verification between July 2008 and January 2013 contained irregularities that were turned over to the State Patrol.

Over that span, 19 people have been investigated for petition forgery or fraud. Among those, two were convicted of felonies.

These are just the cases we know about. Since not all petitions are being checked, it is quite possible that there are instances of signature fraud going uncaught and unnoticed.

Finally, it’s important to be aware that a lot of thought went into HB 2552, and it contains different language than bills introduced in previous sessions.

Anyone reporting or commenting on HB 2552 should read the bill themselves and do their own analysis. Unfortunately, the News Tribune of Tacoma and the Spokesman-Review of Spokane failed to do that last Friday when they published editorials against HB 2552.

Both newspapers, which evidently relied on talking points supplied by Eyman, erroneously complained about valid signatures being discarded due to petitioner misconduct.

The News Tribune wrote:

After voters have signed petitions, the gatherers would have to sign them and fill out the back – by hand, on each copy. Without this laborious process, the sheets would be invalidated. In other words, citizens who thought they’d signed a petition would have their signatures thrown out without their knowledge.

Incorrect. HB 2552 does make the declaration on the back mandatory, but valid voter signatures are not thrown out if it isn’t signed by the petitioner.

The Spokesman-Review, meanwhile, wrote:

And why should valid signatures be discarded because the gatherer did not fill out and sign an identification form on the back of the petitions?

Again, they wouldn’t be.

Just so this is absolutely clear, we’ll say it one more time: HB 2552 does not disqualify the signatures of voters who have signed a petition if the gatherer forgets to fill out the declaration.  Read the bill, and do your own analysis!

The text is available right here (PDF).

January 9th, 2014

I-1325 would contravene the Supreme Court’s McCleary decision

Rethinking and ReframingStatements & AdvisoriesThreat Analysis

Today, while Tim Eyman was busy trying to generate more publicity for his latest initiative by confronting House Speaker Frank Chopp in the statehouse, the Washington State Supreme Court ordered the State of Washington to submit, no later than April 30th, 2014, a “complete plan for fully implementing its program of basic education for each school year between now and the 2017-2018 school year.”

The order, signed by eight of the Court’s nine justices, also states (PDF):

This plan must address each of the areas of K-12 education identified in ESHB 2261, as well as the implementation plan called for by SHB 2776, and must include a phase-in schedule for fully funding each of the components of basic education. We recognize that the April 30, 2014 shortens the time for the State’s report, but it is clear that the pace of progress must quicken.

“Tim Eyman’s latest initiative violates Article IX of the Washington State Constitution by eliminating $1 billion a year in funding for education and our other vital public services if the Legislature doesn’t do what Tim wants,” said NPI founder and executive director Andrew Villeneuve.

“The Supreme Court was crystal clear in the original McCleary ruling two years ago, and again today: We are not fulfilling our paramount duty of providing every child in Washington with a quality public education. That’s because we are underfunding our schools. Tim Eyman’s I-1325 would make a bad problem much, much worse. It’s coercion: either the Legislature sabotages our cherished tradition of majority rule by voting to adopt a constitutional amendment that gives one third of one house the power to block new revenue, or the sales tax is reduced, wiping out billions every biennium. Either outcome would almost certainly lead to further violations of the state Supreme Court’s order.”

The sales tax and the property tax are the principal sources of revenue for Washington’s K-12 schools. Saying that full funding is needed “now”, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Randy Dorn’s office is proposing legislation that would trigger a one percent increase in the sales tax if the Legislature does not figure out how to comply with the McCleary decision by January 1st, 2018. (Eyman’s initiative, as mentioned, would decrease the sales tax by one percent unless Eyman gets what he wants).

“Tim Eyman and a number of Republican lawmakers would like us all to believe we can fully fund our public schools without reforming our broken, regressive tax system,” said Villeneuve.

“If it were that easy, we would have done it already. Where’s that money going to come from? What services do these guys propose defunding so we can rob Peter to pay Paul? Should we gut foster care? Eliminate state support for the disabled and mentally ill? Set all prisoners free and close the Department of Corrections? Or do Eyman and Republican legislators think we can get the funds by planting money trees?”

“We are not going to solve this problem by having this debate in a fantasy world. Arithmetic matters. The reality is, public services cost money, and it is our collective responsibility as a people to ensure our youth get a good public education. Our highest law requires it. More importantly, it’s at the heart of what we believe as Washingtonians. These are our values. We made a promise to our kids and to ourselves when our forebears ratified our Constitution. Tim Eyman would have us ignore that obligation. His toxic politics and destructive initiatives should be rejected.”

October 30th, 2013

Tim Eyman’s “advisory votes” are really costly, deceptive, and unconstitutional push polls

Rethinking and ReframingStatements & AdvisoriesThreat Analysis

NPI’s Permanent Defense today released a new critical analysis of the “advisory votes” required by Tim Eyman’s Initiative 960.

Titled “Tim Eyman’s “advisory votes” are really costly, deceptive, and unconstitutional push polls“, it explains that the five “advisory votes” on this year’s ballot are an expensive sham intended to maliciously influence voters, not provide our state’s elected leaders with any useful feedback about the state budget.

“We have begun calling these advisory votes push polls, because that is what they really are,” said Northwest Progressive Institute founder Andrew Villeneuve, who has been organizing opposition to Tim Eyman’s initiatives for nearly twelve years.

“Like all push polls, Eyman’s advisory votes consist of loaded questions that suggest their own responses. Regardless of what the outcome of these five votes are, Eyman has already won, because he has succeeded in cluttering up the front side of every Washingtonian’s ballot with his false ‘government is oppressing you and overtaxing you’ message. Where is the counterpoint? Where is the context?”

“It’s not there. It’s not even in the voter’s pamphlet; I-960 forbids it. The taxpayers of this state are unknowingly paying for Tim Eyman’s propaganda to be marketed to them. It’s ridiculous.”

“In computing, there’s a saying I like: Garbage in, garbage out. What this means is, if you put bad data into a computer program, it will spit bad results out. The computer will unquestioningly process what you give it, even if the data is invalid or makes no sense. That’s analogous to what’s going on here. Some voters may skip the advisory vote questions because they find them confusing or rigged, but most will try to answer them because they want to vote a complete ballot, as every good citizen should. But since the advisory vote questions are no good, the results will also be no good. We are advising all state lawmakers – Democrats and Republicans alike – to draw no conclusions whatsoever from the results of these push polls, except that our tax dollars are being wasted yet again by a Tim Eyman initiative.”

The analysis – which looks at what voters see and what they don’t see when they come across the “advisory votes” – concludes that Eyman’s push polls are costly, deceptive, and unconstitutional. It notes that recent news stories about the advisory votes have failed to discuss the true extent of the cost of the push polls. The approximately $130,000 that was spent to put the push polls into the voter’s pamphlet (which Eyman has ironically called “chump change”) is just the beginning. In any election, there are costs associated with printing, mailing, and tallying ballots. Those costs will be higher in 2013 as a result of the inclusion of Eyman’s five push polls.

Recent news stories have also neglected to discuss the constitutionality of Eyman’s push polls; the analysis explains why NPI believes them to be unconstitutional.

Read the full analysis: Tim Eyman’s “advisory votes” are really costly, deceptive, and unconstitutional push polls

July 16th, 2013

Advisory vote costs are not “chump change”

Rethinking and ReframingStatements & Advisories

Earlier today, The Herald of Everett reported that the Secretary of State has scheduled five meaningless “advisory votes” following the Legislature’s passage of five bills that resulted in revenue being raised or recovered for the state treasury.

The advisory votes are required a provision of Tim Eyman’s Initiative 960, which narrowly passed in 2007 and was partially struck down earlier this year by the Washington State Supreme Court.

The Herald’s Jerry Cornfield sought comment for Eyman about the five advisory votes, and reported that Eyman was unconcerned about the cost of what amounts to very expensive, pointless opinion research paid for with taxpayer dollars.

In fact, Eyman even referred to the cost of incorporating the advisory votes into the voter’s pamphlet (estimated at $240,000) as “chump change”.

“Tim Eyman’s comments today again show that his real objective is weakening and destroying government, not making it function more efficiently,” said NPI founder and executive director Andrew Villeneuve. “Our Constitution provides for three kinds of statewide ballot measures: initiatives, referenda, and constitutional amendments. The Constitution does not authorize advisory votes. Consequently, I-960’s advisory vote scheme is unconstitutional in addition to being wasteful. It was purposely engineered to clutter up our ballots and give Eyman more fodder for emails to reporters.”

“Elections budgets at the state and local level are stretched tight enough as it is – Eyman’s unconstitutional advisory vote scheme just makes a bad situation worse.”

The thicker voter’s pamphlet is actually not the only additional expense related to the advisory votes.

Yesterday, in a separate article, The Herald’s Jerry Cornfield reported that the price tag for the special election to fill Jay Inslee’s House seat ended up being more than three quarters of a million dollars ($791,339.40). Though it was an even-numbered year (when counties are responsible for elections costs) the state agreed to help the counties out with the special election.

King County will be sent the lion’s share of the money, $529,057.02, while Snohomish County gets $106,576.13 and Kitsap County stands to receive $55,706.21.

The data just released by the state for the special election in Washington’s 1st Congressional District makes it clear that the cost of adding races or ballot measures to our ballots is not, in fact, “chump change”.

Because 2013 is an odd-numbered year, the cost of holding the five advisory votes will likely come out of the state treasury. The final bill may not be paid by the state until late 2013 or early 2014, but it won’t be an insignificant amount of money.

“What many people don’t understand is that elections are actually a public service,” Villeneuve said. “It costs serious money to hold elections. Every time there’s a public vote on something, we pay for it. Democracy is a great thing, but it isn’t free.”

“That’s why, when a vote is held, it should mean something. If Tim Eyman wants to do public opinion research, he can pay for that himself with his own PAC’s funds. The rest of us should not be forced to pay for it.”

In the coming weeks, NPI’s Permanent Defense will be releasing a report, Elections are a public service, too: Here’s what they cost which will delve more deeply into the subject of election expenses. Look for this report as election season gets underway later in the summer.

May 9th, 2013

Tim Eyman again borrows against his house as a fundraising gimmick for his latest initiative

Rethinking and ReframingStatements & AdvisoriesThreat Analysis

Tim Eyman acknowledged today that he is moving forward with his latest unconstitutional initiative by loaning his campaign committee a quarter of a million dollars, presumably so that he can begin a signature drive for the measure.

Eyman is once again borrowing against his house, as he has in years past – or at least that’s what he’s told reporters like the Everett Herald’s Jerry Cornfield. The quarter of a million dollar check was reported by Eyman’s treasurer yesterday as a cash donation (see the C3) but Eyman says it’s really a loan, and the PDC reports that treasurer Barbara J. Smith filed will need to be corrected to reflect this.

A reasonable person might think that after being involved in campaigns for some fifteen years (going back to the late nineties) Tim Eyman would have figured out how to run a squeaky clean operation, be in compliance with our public disclosure laws, and report contributions, expenditures, and loans correctly the first time.

Sadly, it’s apparent that Eyman doesn’t care about following the law, just as he doesn’t care about the constitutionality of his initiatives. Eyman doesn’t care how inaccurate or misleading his reports are.

There’s another irregularity on that C3 that caught our attention.

Contributors who donate large amounts of money to a campaign are, under the law, supposed to state their occupation. The C3 filed by Barbara J. Smith yesterday lists Eyman’s occupation as “Retired”.

Seriously? That’s what they put? Retired from what? Selling watches?

Tim Eyman is not retired. He is employed on a full time basis as as a public services demolition expert, in the tradition of Grover Norquist. (“Professional activist” would be more charitable, but we’re not sure how Eyman can be called a professional given how sloppily run his campaign committees are).

Eyman does not do initiatives as a hobby. He does initiatives full time, with the aim of profiting from his campaigns. As he told the AP’s David Ammons in 2002 after he admitted taking supporter donations for his own personal use: “I want to continue to advocate issues and I want to make a lot of money doing it.”

If he is able to successfully run a paid signature drive on this latest measure, he will have two initiatives on the ballot this year for the first time since 2000. And one of those initiatives, I-517, is explicitly intended to help him run more and cheaper initiatives in the future.

Eyman’s initiative factory is a lucrative profit machine. Last year, he and his buddies reported that they spent $1.2 million on the I-1185 signature drive. But we know from talking to petitioners on that campaign that they were only paid a dollar a signature. And less than 350,000 signatures were submitted. So if the petitioners got less than a third of the money that was spent on the signature drive, where’d the rest go? It seems reasonable to assume it ended up in the pockets of Eyman and his associates.

It appears to us that I-1185 funds were also used for the I-517 signature drive. This and other irregularities regarding the I-517 campaign’s PDC reporting were documented in a complaint filed by Tacoma activist Sherry Bockwinkel in August of last year, which alleged that Eyman and his associates violated our public disclosure laws.

The PDC announced several weeks ago that it had formally opened an inquiry and would investigate the complaint.

Tim Eyman’s eleven all-time top wealthy benefactors over the years are as follows:

  1. Michael Dunmire
  2. Kemper Freeman, Jr.
  3. Beer Institute
  4. Great Canadian Gaming
  5. Michaels Development
  6. British Petroleum
  7. Tesoro
  8. ConocoPhillips
  9. Equilon/Shell
  10. Wes Lematta
  11. American Beverage Association

We’ve been anticipating that Eyman would move forward with this latest initiative. Accordingly, we will be organizing to fight it.

Washington State simply cannot afford any more destructive Eyman initiatives intended to eviscerate our public services and sabotage our Constitution.

You are here:

Newsroom > Rethinking and Reframing

Mobilizing for 2024 to counter new threats

Stop Greed: Vote no in 2024
Visit StopGreed.org to learn about three harmful right wing initiatives we're opposing that are headed for the November general election ballot

What we do

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.

Protecting Washington Since 2002

Newsroom Archives