Eyman fails to crash union gubernatorial forum

Announcements

Allies in opposition to Tim Eyman succeeded in stopping Eyman from breaking into a private union event and creating a scene. David Goldstein, of HorsesAss.Org, helped ensure that Tim’s plan to go into the “lion’s den” was foiled.

Tim had planned to bring a throng of supporters to ask questions of several Democratic and Republican candidates for governor. However, even though Tim was dressed in a fancy suit, he couldn’t get in. Goldstein, who helped alert the union to Tim’s plans, said the following of the event:

Originally, anybody could have just walked in, but they roped things off, checked ID, and hired extra security. They also talked to the media ahead of time, so if Tim had made a scene, they would be aware that he was crashing a private event.

Thanks to the work of opponents, Tim was prevented from rudely crashing another event intended for members only and wasn’t given the opportunity to rant in front of the press corps.

Tim Eyman’s antics demonstrate that he will go to any lengths to aggressively promote his badly-crafted plans- even attempting to interrupt private events.

Eyman claims premature victory on I-776 court ruling

Election PostmortemIn the Courts

Tim Eyman, notorious for making sensational predictions, lying about finances, being deceptive to voters and declining to face the reality of his own tax cuts, has declared victory in the I-776 court ruling which has not yet been made public. Eyman’s “victory” statement is an unfounded gamble based on wild speculation and wishful thinking. On Monday, October 6th, Eyman sent an email which was titled:

Supreme Court to uphold Initiative 776 this Thursday, derailing Sound Transit’s light rail and its pursuit of $500 million in federal funds

The body of the email includes sentences like:

“But the Supreme Court wasn’t buying Sound Transit’s delusional second-subject fantasy…….”

“That’s why it’s so satisfying to watch them suffer with the Supreme Court’s affirmation of I-776. I-776 blows a huge 20% hole into the side of Sound Transit’s battleship.”

“Two days from now (Wednesday afternoon) on the State Supreme Court’s website (www.courts.wa.gov), they will announce that their decision on I-776 will be released on Thursday. Once they do affirm I-776 on Thursday, just sit back and watch the taxpayer-financed political hacks at Sound Transit go into full-blown damage control.”

Once again, Eyman is trying to act as our political meteorologist. The only problem is that he never studied judicial weather and he predicts an overturning downpour when there may be a upholding sun.

Eyman is making big, wild gambles that are based solely on what he heard the judges say to Sound Transit’s lawyers in one day in the courthouse, and what he desperately hopes. Furthermore, his quotes from the email are only ones aimed at Sound Transit. The article doesn’t mention any questions justices asked the Attorney General, who is defending the initiative as required to by law.

PD conducted an investigation following the reception of the email to see if a leak had enabled Eyman to learn the ruling in advance. This is what the State Supreme Court said in an email response to our inquiry:

The court does not announce its decisions in advance, even to the parties of the case. It does try to announce one day in advance which opinions will be published, but the result is never given in advance.

The Attorney General’s office said:

We certainly have no independent knowledge either when the opinion is coming out or what its contents are. In the past, most of the hot “tips” we’ve heard about cases coming down turn out to be unfounded rumors. We will be anxiously awaiting the official ruling when it comes out.

Premature victory declarations will not help Eyman to continue to destroy the State of Washington. Sensationalized messages, as in this case, are as pointless as the tax cuts Eyman promotes, for they come at the heavy cost of uprooting public services.

Permanent Defense says “Yes!” to two newspapers

Announcements

Permanent Defense has endorsed the Committee for a Two-Newspaper Town, which is fighting to keep both the Seattle Times and the Seattle P-I open. Permanent Defense agrees that two newspapers are essential for fair media coverage and good reporting. PD recognizes that many stories, especially dealing with the anti-tax movement spearheaded by Tim Eyman, were only carried by one paper.

The P-I, in fact, which is in danger of being closed, was the paper that brought Eyman’s pocketing of $300,000.00 to light in February of 2002. Lose a paper and you lose a voice. Permanent Defense’s Mission states that,

“We will work to oppose Tim Eyman in every appropriate means through the use of the Internet and technology.”

Both the P-I and the Times have carried stories that PD links to on its website. In addition, both papers have extensive and free archives, allowing PD to link to stories that relate to its issue.

If one newspaper went away, the other might start simply charging for archive use. The fact remains: two newspapers are an important facet of our life in Puget Sound.

Seattle Times fails to update Associated Press story on Eyman complaint

Eye on Money: DevelopmentsRethinking and Reframing

On Friday, August 15th, 2003, the Seattle Times published an Associated Press story about the PDC’s dismissal of Steve Zemke’s complaint. Permanent Defense News checked the length and content of the Times’ version against a similar story published on the Seattle P-I’s website the day before.

Oddly enough, the P-I’s story seemed to be double the length of the Times’ story, and had comments from both Eyman and Zemke. The Times version had only comments from the PDC and Eyman- and then the story was cut off.

Permanent Defense wrote a letter to the editor asking why the story was so different from the one on the P-I’s website. After some internal investigation, a Seattle Times editor replied and said that the paper’s metro editors had failed to update the story as they should have- leaving out Mr. Zemke’s comments by mistake.

“The reason our story didn’t include Zemke is that we used an earlier version of the AP piece and did not update it once a new version moved on the wires.”

-Seattle Times Management, Response to PD Inquiry

We chose not to link to the Times version the day it was published because the P-I version was longer and more accurate than its shorter counterpart.

2003 July Relaunch brings many site improvements

Announcements

Note: The following is a post from the Permanent Defense archives that describes improvements made to the website in the summer of 2003. These improvements have been since superseded by multiple new versions of Permanent Defense’s website.

Permanent Defense has been working hard to improve the experience of supporters and visitors. We’ve made the following improvements to our site which we think make it easier to read and use.

Access

Getting to Permanent Defense and viewing its content has never been easier! Permanent Defense now has its own domain name! You can access PD by typing in its new URL, www.permanentdefense.org. Our old URL will continue to work as before.

Site speed

Elements were eliminated that made homepage loading slow. The Permanent Defense homepage should now load in less than 20 seconds over a 56k modem, and even faster on DSL, cable, or a fiber optics line.

New, more accessible archives!

We’re reorganized older content to make it easier to find. A new landing page has been created to house the Permanent Defense archives — find it here. You can read all the old essays, press stories, and web pages from 2002 and earlier in 2003.

Goodbye, errors

Dozens of broken links have been fixed, and incomplete pages finished! There should no longer be any broken internal links of any kind. If you do find a broken link, either internal or external, please promptly report it.

New menus

Permanent Defense’s website now utilizes menus to aid in navigation. Menus make important text stand out clearly and they serve as guides to content.

Reduced font size

To reduce the need to scroll, we reduced font sizes on most pages, while trying to keep it at a readable level. This should make it easier to view more content at once.

Eyman launches 2004 attack on public services

Threat Analysis

Tim Eyman has unveiled his newest initiative effort for 2004 after the apparent failure of Initiative 807- axing property taxes by 25 percent. The profligate initiative filer’s latest attempts at controlling the state fiscally appear to be failing, with I-267 falling apart last December and I-807 now short of money and signatures.

Eyman promised a “voter veto” of any taxes passed in Olympia this year, a blatant attempt to intimidate Legislature. There is no such thing as a “voter veto” in this state or this country (a referendum is not a veto, it is a forced public vote on a bill). Tim is trying to goad people into believing that there is. To “get revenge”, he’s going to try to slice property taxes again- meaning that public education, parks, pools, police, fire, healthcare, and libraries would have to suffer once more.

Eyman will be attempting to get this initiative on the November 2004 ballot.

Statement on Initiative 848

Ballot WatchdoggingStatements & Advisories

Tim Eyman’s frustration with his poorly written initiatives and terrible public policy has led him to write a shortsighted, egocentric initiative that is clearly motivated only by one thing: his anger at a public agency that has worked very hard to turn itself around and is now moving ahead with the support of the President of the United States, coincidentally from Eyman’s own party.

Tim Eyman will never understand that initiatives are not a citizen’s tool to strip away government. The initiative process exists to help citizens make government work better. This latest scheme is a Valentine’s Day blitzkrieg on Sound Transit… and it needs to be stopped.

Refuse to support the latest lie from Tim, which would ask voters statewide to vote on a locally funded, locally enacted project.

Filing initiatives to halt public projects because you don’t like them (even if you’re not paying for them) is blatantly ridiculous and unconstitutional.

The impact of Initiative 695: One commuter’s story

Election PostmortemRethinking and Reframing

Christine Dorsey of Kitsap County writes:

I live in Kitsap County and Eyman’s antics have thoroughly disrupted my life. I commuted by ferry to Seattle, so I was very dependent on transit to get me from my home to the Kingston ferry.

When the car tabs initiative passed [I-695] ,I lost my bus route, so I had to drive 16 miles to the ferry terminal and pay an additional 50.00 a month for parking, then the ferry fares jumped dramatically.

I then lost my job in Seattle because I couldn’t get a bus to my office on time and the transit times were cut. All around Tim Eyman’s initiatives wrecked my job and my lifestyle. There still is no bus route in my area and I wonder what the elderly and school age kids do if they don’t have a car.

This is one of many examples of damage resulting from Tim Eyman’s initiatives. I-695 has hurt many people. Yet most conservatives are oblivious to this. They, of all people, should know, yet they continue to support Eyman’s ridiculous anti-tax rhetoric. Have they failed to notice that ferry fares have skyrocketed since the 1990s?

In part, that’s due to the recession, but the implementation of Tim Eyman’s I-695 is primarily to blame.

We have a simple message for our fellow Washingtonians: Don’t let Eyman get away with wrecking your life. Don’t let a fraternity watchmaker from Mukilteo dictate our government’s money flow.

Decline to sign Initiative 807.

Tim is back…and he has more lies to spread

Ballot WatchdoggingRethinking and ReframingThreat Analysis

The following is an original statement by Tim Eyman on July 2nd (in italics). Interjected between each blockquote is Permanent Defense’s response, in roman font.

If politicians had one ounce of compassion for the average taxpayer, I-776 would not be necessary.

Politicians care about taxpayers, Tim. The problem is, we don’t give them enough money to fix Washington’s problems. It’s not their fault we keep blowing holes in the budget every year.

Washington is the 2nd highest taxed state in the nation- I-776 keeps us from hitting #1.

Please, Tim. Stop spreading lies. In 2001 you said we were the 4th highest taxed state. Do you mean to tell us that, despite your initiatives, we moved up in your fraudulent rankings? Incredible!

I-776 offers $30 tabs on your car, truck, motorcycle, motorhome, and other vehicles. Working class folks, not just rich people, should be able to afford a newer vehicle. $30 is reasonable.

Obviously not. We are out of money for transportation infrastructure and you don’t care.

When political judges vetoed voter-approved I-695, politicians frantically embraced $30 tabs during that election year.

Well, no wonder. They were surprised by our misinformed vote and didn’t have the courage to fix the motor vehicle excise tax in a responsible way.

Gary Locke said “Despite the court’s ruling, we have no intention of returning to the old system of high license tab fees. $30 license tabs are here to stay.”

It actually costs more than $30 to pay your registration even if you repeal excise taxes.

Passing I-776 also sends politicians a message: don’t increase taxes and fees unless you ask voters’ permission first (read I-776’s language).

Remember, Tim, you’ve gotten into hot water before by having more than one subject in an initiative. Once again, you try to do too much.

Leadership involves listening.

But you never listen. You’re too busy talking.

Taxpayers want their voices heard.

But not in your words.

With voter approval, politicians must convince us that current revenues are being spent as effectively as possible before we OK more – that’s accountability.

Well, they try, but you blast them with the usual: you always say politicians are lying.

I-776 ensures a long-overdue revote on light rail.

We don’t need a revote. What we need is more mass transit. The people of Seattle voted in Greg Nickels as mayor in 2001. That means that the majority of people in Seattle want light rail, because Nickels is a strong advocate of it.

By ensuring “$30 Tabs for Everyone”, I-776 brings accountability to the worst government agency in state history: Sound Transit. I-776 repeals car taxes which provide 20% of their funding and forces this reckless rogue agency to get renewed.

Actually, Sound Transit may not be affected. Sorry, Tim. The agency can use its dollars to repay its debt, so I-776 will do nothing to Sound Transit’s Central Link project.

If politicians still want light rail, then put a new tax package before the voters.

Why? Your initiative won’t stop Sound Transit, and we in Puget Sound approved Sound Transit in 1996 anyway by saying yes to Sound Move.

Beginning construction with a majority opposed is arrogant and unacceptable.

The majority of people in this region want light rail.

In January, a poll commissioned by the King County Council showed 68% of King County voters wanted a revote on light rail (the numbers in Pierce and Snohomish must be stratospheric).

Numbers change, Tim. You can’t hurt Sound Transit.

Washington is the 2nd highest taxed state in the nation, so the problem isn’t lack of taxes.

Once again, Tim, you lie. We don’t know where you get your statistics from, but they’re not true.

Voters have been clear:

No, we haven’t. We send different messages at each election.

$30 tabs and voter approval for tax and fee increases. I-776 sends that message again.

Because it wasn’t irresponsible enough the first time?

Anything but an overwhelming “Yes” for I-776 will be seen by politicians as an endorsement of higher taxes. I-776 helps everyone so we ask for your support this November.

It doesn’t help us at all. It eliminates funding for road improvements and transit.

We’ve faced some extraordinary challenges this year.

Exactly, and none of them weren’t deserved.

But standing here today, there is no doubt that Permanent Offense, its’ leaders and its’ supporters, have never been more unified and more energized.

Uh huh. That’s what you’d like people to believe.

Our supporters kept their eye on the ball, stayed focused, and made I-776 a reality. More than 250,000 citizens voluntarily signed our I-776 petitions because they believed in the simple principle that politicians should keep their promises.

Actually, Tim, you used paid-signature gatherers to buy your way onto the ballot. Most people are too polite to refuse signing a document that someone is earning wages from.

But frankly, it would be incredibly inconsiderate of us to not give credit to those most responsible for our continued success: our opponents, our detractors, and their allies in the press.

Tim thinks we help him, but we don’t.

Permanent Offense – the four of us – would be nothing without you.

That’s why you took money from your supporters, isn’t it, Tim?

It is incredibly gratifying to me to watch our initiatives continue to elicit such contempt from the elitists in government, business, labor, and the ivory towers of the media but continue to garner overwhelming victories by regular voters each and every year.

A misinformed voter will vote on anything that puts money into his or her pocket. You and your lies, Tim.

To watch you all sputter and huff and puff with no real impact on the electorate is an illustration of the disconnect you have with the hopes, dreams, and fears of the average taxpayer.

Tim, you’re the one that stole the money. You are completely out-of-touch and we’ve seen no indication that your attitudes will change anytime soon.

Work yourself into a lather if you want to concerning our efforts to limit taxes in Washington state, it makes no difference to me, because to the average voter, you have all reached the point of near-irrelevance.

Earlier, you complained about people playing dirty, Tim. You yell at opponents for doing it, then you encourage it. Way to be consistent.

Throughout our campaign, we have sent our supporters a monthly letter keeping them updated on our progress. I’d like to read an excerpt from the letter we sent in May:

Our opponents and their allies in the press have pulled out all the stops to derail our efforts to protect taxpayers this year. Big Labor’s fraudulent scheme to attack our bank account, the government’s lawsuit against Tim, blaring smear headlines in the newspapers, scoffing editorials, and politicians’ vicious threats and scare tactics.

It has been the most ruthless, relentless, shameless, transparent effort to stop an initiative campaign in state history. They’ve emptied their chamber on us. They dropped their A-BOMB. We’ve seen their worst.

We didn’t do everything we could have done to stop I-776, but we never stooped to breaking the law. There’s not much one can do against paid-signature gatherers.

Let’s take all their venom and use it to energize us. Let’s absorb all their attacks and become stronger.

You’ll only get weaker when you’re forced to deal with the Attorney General’s lawsuit against you.

If we work together and succeed this year despite all THIS, there’s no limit to what we can accomplish in the future.

That must be why you’re begging you’re supporters for money to pay your legal defense bills with.

Our supporters took that message to heart. The qualification of I-776 for the ballot is a testament to the faith, loyalty and junkyard-dog determination of our supporters. It is truly an extraordinary accomplishment and one that is worthy of the history books.

Three words: Paid-signature gatherers. Junkyard dog determination, indeed.

Thanks to our supporters’ perseverance, Permanent Offense and Tim Eyman will be a punching bag for pompous politicians, pious political practitioners, and premadonna press people for years to come. We hope so. It’s gonna be a lot of fun. Because thanks to our supporters, there’s no limit to what we can accomplish in the future.

There’s a huge limit. When you’re forced to pay the state for breaking the law, we’ll laugh, and when you use paid-signature gatherers again, we’ll point it out. You lied, and it’s obvious if you’d take your supporters’ money without asking or saying anything, then cover it up, you’re not to be trusted with government management.

Tim’s words are, once again, up front and cleverly themed to include nothing about any money-taking, only the fact that “I’ve busted my butt off for years” and “my need to be compensated”.

Tim’s message is once again full of potholes. When he says, “we’ve beaten them handily year after year”- referring to business groups, labor unions, and the press – he has conveniently forgotten that only one initiative out of four was really successful. Two were tossed out by courts, one failed, and one is unfortunately on our books.

Tim says that voters, year after year, “agreed with our common-sense ideas of reasonable taxes and increased accountability.” In reality, the public was misinformed. Tim is essentially calling budget-slashing, transportation-gutting, police & fire-chopping, ferry fare-skyrocketing, park-closing reasonable.

After I-695 was thrown out in court, the Legislature went back and re-instituted it.  This is the first year we haven’t been able to backfill the giant hole I-695 blew in state and county budgets. By approving I-747, voters decided that police, firemen, and public employees’ salaries really didn’t matter very much.

Tim’s “team”, Permanent Offense, can’t even manage their own finances. They let Eyman sneak thousands under their noses, then they turn around and expect us to take their advice on how to manage government. Simply ridiculous.

As for the accusations about the Washington State Labor Council playing dirty… he’s just exaggerating to attract attention. We don’t condone what WSLC tried to do, but it’s nothing compared to Eyman’s trickery.

Eyman also says that he gets “an avalanche of phone calls, emails, faxes and letters from supporters offering their encouragement.” We haven’t seen any of that correspondence, Tim. How do we know you’re telling the truth?

Tim says that, after I-695, “I figured that I-695 was such a tremendous victory for taxpayers and that it sent such a clear and unambiguous message to politicians I figured my work was done.”

It’s obvious why politicians didn’t accept I-695’s message: it was an irresponsible initiative.

Eyman then goes on to proclaim that, after I-695 “It’s also when I made a decision: that I couldn’t work for free.” So you decided to sneak money and lie about it! Real clever, Tim! All the while trying to hold the “moral high ground” against your opponents.

Tim laments that there are people, such as politicians, bureaucrats, lobbyists, and others: working around the clock, all year long, to raise the taxes of Washingtonians. But no one does that. That’s what Tim would like people to believe. He asks people “to stand with me now”. Why should anyone do that?

Obviously he’s a liar, a cheat, and deceiver.

It’s time to send Tim and pals a real clear message: Stop. Enough. If voters have the sensibility to reject Initiative 776, then it will prove that finally people understand that Tim Eyman and Permanent Offense don’t have the public interest at heart.

Their goal is to help themselves.

Eyman hit with charges, case going to Attorney General

Eye on Money: Developments

Today, the Public Disclosure Commission, widely known as the campaign watchdog agency, referred the investigation and charges against Tim Eyman’s deception to Attorney General Christine Gregoire’s office. The investigation has found Eyman guilty of civil charges on five counts.

(To read these, go the Press Box or choose PDC from the Links page).

The case has been referred to the Attorney General, who can seek much higher fines than the $2,500 the PDC is allowed. Eyman remained defiant and said he had not broke the law. He and his lawyer vowed to challenge the issue in court, but left open the possibility of a settlement with the state.

Eyman’s two years of deception have been highlighted in recent days, as the media prints his emails and reports on the PDC findings.

To read more, head to the Press Box for media coverage.

The charges:

  1. Eyman used campaign funds to pay personal expenses and to benefit his fraternity watch business, Insignia Corp.
  2. Eyman and the campaign fund failed to keep adequate records to substantial expense reimbursements to Eyman.
  3. The campaign, Karr and Eyman failed to properly report in-kind contributions to the campaign from the for-profit business and failed to properly account for debts and obligations incurred by the campaign.
  4. Eyman and the campaign used campaign donations to contribute to the Republican Party and another initiative campaign organization.
  5. The PAC failed to report that Eyman was serving as the de facto campaign treasurer from January 2001, to February of this year.

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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 Tim Eyman's initiative factory. Learn more.

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