Tag Archives: I-947

Tim Eyman’s I-1648 looks like another fake from a con artist with no shame

Statements & AdvisoriesThreat Analysis

Over the past four years, while doing his best to stonewall Attorney General Bob Ferguson’s investigation into his egregious violations of Washington’s public disclosure laws, Tim Eyman has attempted to qualify nearly half a dozen initiatives to the ballot.

Each time, with the sole exception of I-976 (which is on the November 2019 ballot), Eyman’s petition drives have ended in failure, because he didn’t have the money to purchase the signatures necessary to force a public vote on his bad ideas.

There was I-1421, I-869, and I-947, the three failed precursors to Initiative 976.

In between I-869 and I-947, there was I-1550, a failed scheme to gut property taxes.

And before those four, at the end of 2015, there was a initiative concept announced by Eyman and his associates Mike and Jack Fagan with an ice cream social in Governor Jay Inslee’s office. Eyman printed up prop petitions for that measure to use at his press conference, but then failed to actually launch a signature drive following the new year.

That initiative concept from almost four years ago is the basis for I-1648.

As with I-1648, each of the aforementioned fakes was unveiled and trumpeted by Eyman with all the fanfare he could muster through email blasts, social media postings, and right wing talk radio appearances. And each went nowhere, because Eyman simply does not have the network of support necessary to qualify anything to the ballot with just volunteer labor.

I-976 is Eyman’s first real initiative in years. It’s already on the ballot — Eyman claims he cashed out his retirement in order to finance the signature drive, although documents filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court suggest Eyman didn’t entirely empty his retirement fund to qualify the measure — but rather than focus on trying to sell it to voters, Eyman has decided to make another run at getting a second scheme on the November ballot.

Eyman’s initial plan to double up on the November 2019 ballot was to qualify Referendum 80, an attempt to void the new salary schedule for legislators and statewide elected officials adopted by the Washington Citizens Commission on Salaries for Elected Officials.

But he botched that effort and it imploded a few weeks ago.

Now Eyman is trying to resurrect the scheme he came up with a few years ago to follow his hostage-taking Initiative 1366, which would force any revenue reform agreed to by the Legislature to expire after one year unless approved at the ballot.

Initiative 1648 also seeks to repeal all of the modest revenue reforms just enacted by the House and Senate as part of the recently-concluded regular session of the Washington State Legislature. Since it’s trying to do two different things, it probably violates the Washington State Constitution’s single subject rule.

Because Eyman is aiming for the 2019 ballot, he is operating on a tight timeframe. He has less than two months to collect 330,000 signatures.

We can’t find any evidence that Eyman has found a wealthy benefactor to underwrite the signature drive for I-1648. And Eyman would need a wealthy benefactor to make this initiative go. Therefore, at this time, we assess that I-1648 is another one of Eyman’s fakes — a scam designed to part rank and file Republicans from their money.

If I-1648 becomes a credible threat, we’ll immediately begin organizing opposition to it.

NPI’s Permanent Defense: Proudly safeguarding the future of transit since 2002

Announcements

In just a few short weeks, Permanent Defense will celebrate its sixteenth anniversary. In honor of that milestone, and in honor of the spectacular and fortuitous implosion of Tim Eyman’s I-947 — the disgraced initiative promoter’s most recent failed attempt to “stick it to Sound Transit” — we’ve created a series of digital banners depicting Link light rail trains at Sound Transit’s newest station (Angle Lake in SeaTac) with the tagline Safeguarding The Future of Transit Since 2002.

These banners signify our unyielding commitment to protect projects that will give Washingtonians much-needed freedom of mobility.

Here’s the first one:

All aboard for a reliable commute!

The photo in this banner was taken on the day that the Angle Lake Station opened to the public. The vantage point is from the plaza below the elevated station.

Here’s the second:

Our Link to what's next

The photo art in this banner shows the Angle Lake Station from the other side. The image used to create the artwork was taken prior to the station’s opening day.

And the third:

The freedom to travel light is a beautiful thing

This stunning image was taken at sunrise about a year after the Angle Lake Station opened. The vantage point is the parking garage that adjoins the station.

For now, it appears that Tim Eyman has given up on “sticking it to Sound Transit”. But that doesn’t mean the projects we voted for are safe. NPI’s Permanent Defense will continue to be vigilant and ready to spring into action to ensure threats to our light rail lines, bus service, and commuter rail are quickly countered.

Happy New Year 2018!

Tim Eyman admits defeat with scheme to “stick it to Sound Transit”; I-947 becomes his latest failure

Rethinking and ReframingStatements & Advisories

For the third time in twenty-four months, Tim Eyman has failed to qualify an initiative to sabotage funding for Sound Transit and Amtrak Cascades.

The disgraced initiative promoter admitted in an email this morning that Initiative 947 is kaput, writing, “I’m really disappointed to announce that we didn’t make it.”

I-947, like I-1421 and I-869 before it, sought to cripple Sound Transit’s voter-approved third phase of expansion (ST3) by repealing the agency’s authority to levy vehicle fees. But the harm wouldn’t have ended there. I-947 also attempted to eviscerate vehicle fees at the state and local level, imperiling funding for Amtrak Cascades and wiping out the funding that Seattleites authorized to finance a much-needed expansion of Metro bus service.

Thankfully, I-947 is now dead. It is Eyman’s fifth consecutive failed initiative.

Eyman waited until seven hours before the deadline to submit signatures to break the bad news to his followers. As recently as Tuesday, he was was exhorting them to mail any petitions they had to Spokane “right away”, telling them, “With every volunteer signature drive we’ve ever done, it all boils down to what comes in at the end. Stay tuned.”

Eyman actually hasn’t attempted — let alone successfully pulled off — a successful volunteer signature drive in eons. With the exception of I-695 in 1999, Eyman’s recipe for qualifying initiatives has involved finding a wealthy benefactor or two to underwrite the cost of buying a spot on the ballot using paid signature gatherers.

As the Public Disclosure Commission discovered when it investigated a citizen complaint regarding Eyman’s dealings during 2013-2015, Eyman figured out how to make those paid signature drives very lucrative. Eyman arranged a kickback scheme with his associate Eddie Agazarm to ensure that he would profit twice from every signature drive he orchestrated: once by taking a salary for himself and again by getting a cut of the funds supposedly earmarked for compensating paid signature gatherers.

Attorney General Bob Ferguson is now seeking to hold Eyman accountable for his lawbreaking ways with a series of four lawsuits. Eyman has tried to postpone his day of reckoning in the courts by stonewalling in the extreme, but has been unsuccessful in getting anything on the ballot during that borrowed time.

Eyman was unable to qualify I-947 despite having the backing of the Republican Party (which circulated his petitions at its fair booths) and right wing talk radio hosts like John Carlson and Dori Monson (who promoted the measure through their shows).

“Last year, we had a vigorous debate over whether we should expand light rail, commuter rail, and bus service in our region,” noted Northwest Progressive Institute founder and Executive Director Andrew Villeneuve. “The voters chose to enthusiastically approve Sound Transit’s third phase of expansion. Sound Transit is working hard to deliver for them. ST3 projects will liberate countless commuters from stewing in auto gridlock.”

“But Tim Eyman and Republicans like Steve O’Ban simply refuse to respect the will of the voters. They don’t want these projects to be built. That’s why they have spent pretty much all of 2017 running a second NO campaign against Sound Transit 3.”

“But, aside from the sympathetic media coverage they were able to generate, they have nothing to show for their efforts. Sound Transit 3 remains intact and the planning is proceeding at full steam. That’s great news for our region.”

As part of their campaign to overturn ST3, Republicans tried to make vehicle fees a defining issue in the special election in the 45th District, instructing their candidate (Republican Jinyoung Lee Englund), to campaign on overturning ST3. Englund ended up getting clobbered by Democratic candidate Manka Dhingra… not once, but twice. Thanks to Dhingra’s victory, the Washington State Senate is back under Democratic management.

Republicans then excitedly latched onto Eyman’s I-947, which Eyman kept claiming (in email after email and video after video) would be wildly popular. I-947 has now imploded and Eyman is pivoting to hawking something different for 2018.

“For nearly sixteen years, NPI has fought to defend our state and region’s investment in transit and we’ll continue to do so,” said Villeneuve. “We’re thrilled that I-947 has failed. This is a great day for Washington State and for commuters across Puget Sound, who are anxiously awaiting the day that light rail expands to serve more neighborhoods.”

So much for “sticking it to Sound Transit”: Tim Eyman appears ready to abandon I-947, says he’ll push for ban on taxing wealth

Rethinking and ReframingStatements & AdvisoriesThreat Analysis

Tim Eyman signaled today that he’s ready to abandon his current initiative to defund Sound Transit and pivot to hawking a new scheme that would prohibit Washington from taxing wealth, thereby keeping the state’s tax code permanently upside down.

Keep reading

Tim Eyman continues to blatantly flout Washington’s public disclosure laws with I-947

From the Campaign TrailStatements & AdvisoriesThreat Analysis

During the past twelve months, the State of Washington filed not one, not two, not three, but four lawsuits against Tim Eyman and his associates alleging serious violations of our public disclosure laws, acting on complaints filed by organizations like Washingtonians For Ethical Government and Keep Washington Rolling.

Yet, Eyman and his crew continue to brazenly violate RCW Chapter 42.17A with impunity, acting as though the law simply doesn’t apply to them.

Last month, Eyman launched a new effort to “stick it to Sound Transit” (Initiative 947) which he has been regularly promoting on talk radio with the help of KVI’s John Carlson and KIRO’s Dori Monson. I-947 is essentially a redux of two initiatives that Eyman tried to get on the ballot last year (I-1421 and I-869) but which everyone seems to have forgotten about — probably because neither got off the ground.

Eyman is hoping I-947 will be different.

Although he still doesn’t appear to have commitments from any wealthy benefactors to hire paid petitioners, Eyman is gamely trying to run a signature drive anyway, relying on volunteer assistance. In addition to receiving free publicity from Carlson and Monson (who, like Eyman, loathe Sound Transit), Eyman is also getting help from the Washington State Republican Party and its locals. Republican Party organizations have been seen hawking petitions for I-947 at public events like The Evergreeen State Fair in Monroe.

The I-947 campaign began many weeks ago, but Eyman and his associates have yet to properly register their campaign with the Public Disclosure Commission as the law requires. Journalists: you can see this for yourself by doing the following:

  • Go to www.pdc.wa.gov, navigate to View Reports, and run an Advanced Search for the ballot number “947”. Nothing will turn up.
  • Browse to the latest filings for Voters Want More Choices, the committee Eyman is collecting I-947 donations through according to his website. You won’t see an updated C1-PC among them.
  • The last C1-PC filed by Voters Want More Choices dates back to February, when Eyman was trying to qualify an initiative to cut property taxes. This is it. (It wasn’t correctly filled out, so Voters Want More Choices is listed under Continuing Committees as opposed to Initiatives — 2017.)
No Documents Found for Ballot Measure "947"
No Documents Found for Ballot Measure “947”

In its instructions to campaigns, the PDC is clear: File a C1-PC “within two weeks of when the committee is organized or within two weeks of when the committee first expects to receive contributions or make expenditures, whichever is earlier.”

Many weeks have elapsed since Eyman first expected to receive contributions or make expenditures for I-947, but he hasn’t registered the campaign with the PDC. At the end of last month, Washingtonians For Ethical Government notified the Attorney General and King County Prosecuting Attorney that it will bring a lawsuit against Tim Eyman and his associates for failing to file if they choose not to. A month has gone by since that notice was sent, but Eyman’s crew hasn’t filed their C1-PC.

There’s more. NPI and WFEG have reason to believe Eyman has failed to report all of his campaign-related expenditures.

On August 9th, Eyman’s treasurer Barbara Smith filed monthly reports for Voters Want More Choices, including a C4 and C3s. The C4 states that Eyman spent $328.19 on petition printing from Adpro Litho, on July 24th, 2017. That’s the only expense for petition printing listed for July. Here are the others reported expenses and vendor names:

Report DATABAR 7/25/2017 $4,232.62 EDGEWOOD WA 98371 POSTAGE AND MAILING
Report ADPRO LITHO INC 7/24/2017 $328.19 MUKILTEO WA 98275 PRINTING OF PETITION SHEETS
Report FAGAN JANET 7/24/2017 $270.00 SPOKANE WA 99207 DATA ENTRY
Report VERIZON 7/21/2017 $292.36 ACWORTH GA 30101 TELEPHONE CHARGES
Report DATABAR 7/21/2017 $50.05 EDGEWOOD WA 98371 POSTAGE AND MAILING
Report E INNOVATIONS NETWORKING 7/21/2017 $29.92 SPOKANE WA 99220 MAINTENANCE AND REPAIR ON COMPUTER
Report PAY PAL 7/19/2017 $84.54 SAN JOSE CA 95131 PAY PAL CHARGES
Report DASE BARBARA 7/13/2017 $75.00 SEATAC WA 98168 TYPESETTING
Report RUNTIME 7/10/2017 $100.00 MEAD WA 99021 WEBMASTER
Report EMPS 7/3/2017 $45.45 HAGERSTOWN MD 21740 CREDIT CARD CHARGES

Evidence suggests Tim Eyman has spent a lot more than $328.19 on petition printing for Initiative 947. Last month, Eyman sent out a flurry of emails in which he urged his supporters to contact him to participate in the I-947 signature drive.

In one such email, dated July 26th, 2017, Eyman wrote:

Send me an email and let me know how many petitions you want, your address, and your phone number. I will find an Office Depot, Staples, or Kinko’s near you, order the petitions for you, and all you need to do is pick them [up]. It is a petition distribution revolution that nearly 100 supporters have done already. 

Emphasis is ours. Aside from the payment to Adpro Litho, there are no other itemized expenses for petition printing for the month of July 2017, and Voters Want More Choices listed no expenses of fifty dollars or less either.

If Eyman is printing up petitions for followers through office supply stores, and if more than a hundred people have taken him up on this offer, where are those expenditures, and why aren’t they being reported? Eyman’s offer implies that he will pay for the petitions (“all you need to do is pick them up”) and says more than a hundred people have done it.

Even in the event Eyman’s not paying, the expenses still need to be reported as in-kind expenditures. The law requires it; free or reduced cost printing is explicitly listed by the PDC as a type of expenditure that needs to be disclosed. But Voters Want More Choices hasn’t reported a single in-kind expenditure for 2017.

“The whole point of requiring campaigns to register and to report their contributions and expenditures in a timely fashion is so the people can see who is trying to influence their vote… or get their signature,” said Northwest Progressive Institute founder and Executive Director Andrew Villeneuve, who has been organizing opposition to Tim Eyman’s initiative factory for over fifteen years.

“Tim Eyman is deliberately obscuring the activities of his I-947 campaign from the public. He has been active in politics for over twenty years; he can’t claim he’s ignorant of the law. He is choosing not to comply with the reporting requirements, while at the same time pathetically whining about being the victim of a ‘witch hunt’ by Attorney General Bob Ferguson. The truth is, Eyman’s legal woes are self-inflicted. He brought the litigation he’s presently facing on himself. And he can expect more liability in the future if he continues his ugly, stinky, and disgusting behavior.”

Three important things to know about Tim Eyman’s Initiative 947

Ballot WatchdoggingRethinking and ReframingThreat Analysis

1. Initiative 947 is really about gutting Sound Transit, not lowering vehicle fees

Just as with Initiative 776 in 2002, the main intent of I-947 is not actually to lower vehicle fees, it’s to sabotage the work of Sound Transit.

As far as Eyman is concerned, the lower vehicle fees are a welcome side effect. Eyman’s real aim is to nullify the 2016 Sound Transit 3 vote. And he’s now starting to openly admit that with his new slogan: “Let’s stick it to Sound Transit!”

Eyman has been nursing a deep grudge against Sound Transit for years, as is evident from his email today in which he rants at length against the agency, even falsely accusing it of having every law firm around on its payroll.

Eyman has previously contended that “voters are smart” and that the typical voter is perfectly capable of listening to the arguments made by ballot measure proponents and opponents, then making up their minds on their own. But Eyman clearly doesn’t believe that himself, as he is once again trying to overturn their will. Every time you get the chance, ask Eyman, “Why are you trying to overturn the will of the voters?”

Read more about Eyman’s obsession with taking out Sound Transit and how it inspired the creation of NPI’s Permanent Defense project — and later NPI itself.

2.  Eyman is trying to raise money for I-947 while also trying to raise $600,000 to pay legal bills

The cost of getting on the ballot exclusively with hired help runs into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Even more money is needed when the initiative sponsor wants to arrange to receive illegal kickbacks from the company providing the signatures.

Those kickbacks and other serious public disclosure law violations are the basis for four — yes, four — lawsuits filed by the State of Washington against Tim Eyman.

Like his idol Donald Trump, Eyman is claiming to be the victim of a “witch hunt”. He recently sent out an appeal for money via the United States Postal Service, writing, “I need help, a lot of help…. For the past five years, the AG has been investigating me and it has been incredibly stressful, burdensome, and costly to me and my family.”

“I implore you. Please help me get through this,” Eyman adds.

He says his goal is to raise $600,000 for his legal defense — about what a signature drive would cost minus the kickbacks Eyman has received in the past. Eyman says he has seeded his own legal defense fund by taking out a loan against his house.

How is Eyman going to manage to raise over half a million for a new initiative at the same time he’s trying to raise over half a million for his legal defense? That’s a lot to ask, even of his wealthy benefactors, who have been less and less generous since 2015.

3. Initiative 947 is actually Eyman’s sixth attempt to slash vehicle fees, not his third

Some of the accounts of Tim Eyman’s “announcement” from yesterday have portrayed Initiative 947 as Eyman’s third attempt to set vehicle fees at thirty dollars. It is actually Eyman’s sixth attempt to do so. Eyman doesn’t like talking about his many failures, which is why he painted an incomplete picture yesterday.

Here’s a rundown of the prior initiatives:

I-695, 1999: Voted on in November of 1999. Gutted the statewide motor vehicle excise tax, eviscerating funding for ferries, roads, bridges, transit, and a host of other local public services. Declared unconstitutional by the courts; partially reinstated by the Legislature. Read more about the impacts of I-695.

I-776, 2002: Voted on in November of 2002. Repealed local motor vehicle excise taxes in King, Pierce, Snohomish, and Douglas counties and also revoked Sound Transit’s authority to collect vehicle fees. I-776 ended up not applying to Sound Transit because the vehicle fees were used as the basis for bond sales. Read more about the impacts of I-776.

I-917, 2006: Failed to qualify to the 2006 ballot. Using Michael Dunmire’s money, Tim Eyman hired petition crews to gather signatures for I-917, but he didn’t buy enough to qualify the measure. It took the Secretary of State the rest of the summer to check all of the I-917 signatures. In September of 2006, the office announced I-917 had not qualified for the ballot. Read more about the spectacular collapse of I-917.

I-1421, 2016: Failed to qualify to last year’s ballot. In February of 2016, Tim Eyman made a similar announcement to the one he made yesterday, saying the time was ripe for another initiative to slash vehicle fees. He summoned reporters to a morning press conference, made a big show of being the first to sign, and then send out a flurry of fundraising emails. But I-1421 didn’t go anywhere. It turned out there wasn’t much interest. Only a few months later, Eyman was forced to acknowledge I-1421 had been abandoned.

I-869, 2016: Failed to qualify as an initiative to the 2017 Legislature. After the failure of I-1421, Eyman started over with a clone, I-869, rebranding the effort as “We Love Our Cars”. But it was no more successful than I-1421. In December of 2016, it died a quiet death, without so much as passing obituary from Eyman.

Given that Eyman’s last three attempts to qualify an initiative slashing vehicle fees have ended in failure, we should all be skeptical that I-947 is going anywhere until Tim Eyman shows us the commitments from his wealthy benefactors. Eyman has not gotten on the ballot with mostly volunteer labor since 1999. His initiative factory relies on big money to function — it’s not a grassroots operation. Without sizable commitments from the likes of Kemper Freeman, Jr., Kenneth Fisher, or Clyde Holland, Eyman will not be able to get a signature drive going for I-947.

NPI’s Permanent Defense ready to fight Eyman’s latest attack on Sound Transit — if there’s money behind it

Statements & AdvisoriesThreat Analysis

Disgraced initiative promoter Tim Eyman said today that he will again attempt to defund Sound Transit, Puget Sound’s regional mass transportation authority, telling reporters in front of Seattle’s King Street Station that he’s “excited” to launch a new attack on the highly successful agency, which continues to build out a voter approved network of light rail lines, Sounder commuter rail runs, and Express bus routes.

“Let’s stick it to Sound Transit!” Eyman sneered in an email distributed to his followers immediately after his appearance.

The Northwest Progressive Institute stands ready, through its Permanent Defense project, to once again take on Eyman and win — should he actually have commitments from his wealthy benefactors to finance a signature drive this time around.

“The people of Puget Sound have voted repeatedly, by clear margins, to authorize Sound Transit to build the mass transit network our region needs to ensure we all have the freedom to liberate ourselves from auto congestion,” said NPI founder and Executive Director Andrew Villeneuve, who has been organizing opposition to Eyman initiatives for fifteen and a half years. “That investment must be protected.”

“Ridership on Sound Transit’s system is soaring. People want the freedom that rail and frequent bus service offer. It’s important to note that Link light rail has just surpassed two million boardings per month. And more service is on the way: Sound Transit is on track to extend light rail north to Northgate by 2021 with three new stations.”

“Tim Eyman admitted today he has no respect for the voters’ will and remains obsessed with destroying the crucial investments in regional mobility that they have approved. The team at NPI stands ready to provide the vigorous opposition his destructive scheme deserves should his wealthy benefactors be on board. And we won’t be alone. We’ll be working to re-mobilize the coalition that successfully advocated for passage of ST3 and defeated Eyman’s 2008 and 2011 attempts to mess with our transportation system.”

It remains to be seen if the measure Eyman announced he’s doing today is going anywhere. Eyman has now failed to make the ballot for two years in a row because he could not get his wealthy benefactors to pony up the hundreds of thousands needed to hire petition crews to collect the 330,000 signatures required to pass a random sample check.

The gears of Eyman’s initiative factory cannot turn without money, and at present, money remains in short supply. Eyman’s fundraising to date in 2017 has been anemic, and the Mukilteo-based pitchman recently disclosed that he’s taken out a second mortgage on his house to raise money to defend himself against the four lawsuits filed against him by the State of Washington for serious public disclosure law violations.

But, as Eyman considers initiatives his business, he must always have one to sell, even if there is no prospect of it actually qualifying.

Eyman’s last four consecutive announced initiatives have all turned out to be fakes, including I-1421 and I-869, which Eyman tried to qualify last year as initiatives to the people and the Legislature, respectively. I-1421 and I-869 closely resembled I-947, the measure Eyman said today that he’s printing petitions for. I-1421 was announced in February of 2016 and acknowledged as abandoned three months later. It was succeeded by I-869, which met its demise six months later without so much as a word from Eyman.

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