Monthly Archives: July 2003

In a Special guest op-ed for The Seattle Times today, Steve Zemke, Director of Taxpayers for Washington’s Future, urged Eyman to open his books to the Public Disclosure Commission.

Spin master Tim Eyman is at it again. When confronted with questions regarding his various schemes to finance his political campaigns, Eyman claims to be a victim of government harassment. He again is throwing up a smokescreen and claims to be the poor victim of a “political witch hunt.” (“Government harassment won’t stop my tax fight” guest commentary, July 23.)

But let’s back up and look at the facts. Eyman is engaged in trying to influence and change government in Washington state. He has run numerous initiative campaigns and has raised lots of money. He has heavily lobbied the Legislature. By any definition of the word, he is engaged in political campaigns and lobbying.

In 1972, Washington voters passed Initiative 276, with over 72 percent of the vote, to create the Public Disclosure Commission. I-276 declared “that the public’s right to know of the financing of political campaigns and lobbying … far outweighs any right that these matters remain secret and private.”

Fast forward to last year. Eyman publicly admitted that he took over $200,000 for his salary from political campaign funds and lied on campaign-finance reports, saying he was not receiving any compensation for his work. In an Associated Press story on Feb. 5, 2002, he was quoted as saying, “This entire charade was set up so I could maintain a moral superiority over our opposition, so I could say our opponents make money from politics and I don’t.”

After investigation by the Public Disclosure Commission and the state Attorney General’s Office, Eyman signed a consent agreement rather than go to court. He agreed to a $55,000 fine and to never again be the treasurer of a campaign committee.

By now, one would think that Eyman would have gotten the message to be squeaky clean and avoid even the slightest appearance of violating campaign-disclosure laws.

However, that was not the case. In August of last year, Eyman sent out a personal fund-raising letter stating, “If you appreciate my past efforts and want to encourage me to continue, please send me a generous financial gift … made out to ‘Tim Eyman, Taxpayer Advocate’ ” — money that he said “will be used to help Tim Eyman resolve his current financial challenges.”

On Aug. 14, 2002, in The Olympian, Vicki Rippie, the executive director of the Public Disclosure Commission, responded, “If it were a candidate soliciting money, presumably for personal expenses so he could spend time campaigning, there’s no question that those would be perceived by everyone to be (campaign) contributions. This situation is analogous.”

Eyman assured the Public Disclosure Commission that the contributions were for legal expenses and continued to send out similar letters asking that checks be “made payable to ‘Tim Eyman, Taxpayer Advocate’ — to my home in Mukilteo.” In a small postscript, he then added that funds were for a legal-defense fund so contributors’ names would be anonymous.

In his Times guest commentary on Wednesday, Eyman publicly admitted that he deposited some $118,000 in contributions made out to Tim Eyman, Taxpayer Advocate, directly into his “personal savings account” and wrote checks from his “personal checking account” to pay expenses.

Amazingly there is no official “legal defense fund” registered with the state or the Internal Revenue Service; instead, all the money went into his personal bank account in his name. There is no board of directors or independent treasurer overseeing the funds. There are no bylaws or articles of incorporation or public disclosures. There is only Tim Eyman as de facto treasurer.

All the money is again under the control of Eyman to do with as he wants, which certainly flouts the spirit of his consent agreement with the attorney general. There is an appearance that something is not right.

At the same time Eyman was collecting tens of thousands of dollars in anonymous personal contributions, he reported donating some $42,770 of in-kind services to his failed Initiative 807 campaign. How is this possible? Is Eyman independently wealthy or is he trying to pull a shell game on the voters of this state? Is he again shuffling tens of thousands of dollars out of the public eye between campaign, business and personal accounts to further his political agenda and for personal gain while appearing to be working for free?

These are legitimate questions to ask based on his past multiple violations of the law. This is why I filed the official complaint with the Public Disclosure Commission that prompted its current investigation.

Now, if there isn’t any legal problem with how he has used the money or how it has been transferred around, why didn’t Eyman just open his personal records and get this issue quickly resolved? Eyman instead prefers to wage the battle in the media. Why not come clean, or is there something to hide?

With apologies to Shakespeare, methinks the gentleman doth protest too much.

Steve Zemke is a political activist and a veteran of numerous initiative campaigns. He heads up Taxpayers for Washington’s Future, a citizens’ tax reform organization.

Why Initiative 807 will not be on the November ballot…

It’s now obvious that Tim Eyman’s super hyped 800, I mean 807 pound gorilla was really no more than a squeaky mouse. Eyman on July 3rd sent out an e-mail saying he didn’t have the necessary signatures to file Initiative 807. Long before the deadline it appeared he gave up on the campaign when he started to divert attention from it to propose an anti-education campaign next year. He wants to cut dedicated state support for public education by proposing to cut state property taxes by a whopping 25%. It is his revenge for the legislature passing a gas tax increase.

The lack of citizen support for the idea of supermajority votes requirements to raise revenue that I-807 advocated removes the political threat that Eyman posed to the Legislature and Washington’s citizens. Eyman is a lot of hype and bluster in the media but this year’s efforts show that his two word mantra of “No Taxes.” is wearing thin on taxpayers when they realize the end result is the same as saying “No Government Services”. When parks get closed, teachers don’t get a pay raise, children’s health care gets cut and potholes don’t get filled taxpayers can make the connection. Even if Eyman had come in with signatures at the last minute, his effort to file Initiative 807 with the Secretary of State would have been challenged on legal grounds on several issues.

Steve Zemke with Taxpayers for Washington’s Future charged that Tim Eyman failed to comply with state law requiring that ‘a full, true and correct copy” of the actual text of Initiative 807 as filed with the Secretary of State be printed in full on the back of his petitions. As many as half of his printed petitions were invalid. Eyman’s mistake was a costly one for the campaign – particularly one which relies so heavily on paid signature gathers. “We were aware of his error early on but we certainly weren’t going publicize it to give his campaign any chance to regroup,” said Zemke. “If somehow he got enough signatures it was our ace in the hole.”

Another reason Initiative 807 would have been challenged in court is that Eyman’s attempt with I-807 to give a one third legislative minority veto power over the state budget is unconstitutional. Article II, Section 22 of the Washington State Constitution gives the legislature the power to pass laws by a majority vote. Eyman can not change the state constitution by initiative.

It is obvious that I-807 did not generate much public support. For all the money and hype he put into the effort he came up with a colossal failure in not getting the necessary signatures. The highest signature count he ever reported to his supporters was some 30,839 signatures on April 22. As more people became aware of the true impact of Eyman’s efforts to cut government services by indiscriminately slashing the government’s ability to raise or spend money, his support has been decreasing. Each of his initiatives has been passed by smaller margins. I-776 barely passed with a 51.5% of the vote. And every initiative after I-695 has required the use of paid signature gatherers – in other words he has had to buy a place on the ballot for his initiatives. Eyman’s campaign management skills didn’t help his current failed campaign either.

When one looks at Eyman’s handling of his campaign funds given by supporters, one has to wonder why any taxpayers really would look to this guy as an expert of any kind in how the state should raise or spend funds. He has a terrible record in wasting funds on poorly drafted measures that the courts throw out. His “management of funds” and accounting and lying just are just like Enron folks did. When he said he was an unpaid volunteer, he was actually paying himself over $233,000. That resulted in last year’s fines of over $50,000 to the state. And this year he is under investigation for his “creative fundraising efforts” to pay money to “Tim Eyman, Taxpayer Advocate” for a so-called legal fund that he controls after he was forbidden from being treasurer on any campaign committee for life as part of his legal settlement with the state. He claimed that any funds sent to “Tim Eyman, Taxpayer Advocate” would be “anonymous”, suggesting his supporters could send contributions to support his political work and avoid public disclosure. He meanwhile has donated some $43,000 in kind to the I-807 campaign.

Eyman’s current costly and fatal campaign mistake was incorrectly printing Initiative 807 on the back of his petitions. He made no notation or underlining as required by law to indicate proposed new language. Anyone reading his text would in error believe it was current law. Eyman failed to print up Initiative 807 as he filed it with the Secretary of State. According to Public Disclosure Commission reports his first massive printing of up to 100,000 copies of this invalid Initiative 807 petition on Jan 27, 2003 cost $10,626. In addition he spent $6,308 to print up the mailing envelope and letter and close to $18,000 to mail out the misleading and invalid printed initiative.

Eyman later spent some $14,000 more printing up a “new version” of Initiative 807 which removed the “No State Income Tax” tag. He said he removed it because of the I-776 ruling. He told his supporters in a letter he mailed with the new version that the original petitions were legal. “… we are told that the old petitions are fine, but we decided to be totally safe (new petitions say: RENEW STATE SPENDING LIMITS). Mail in all partially-filled or filled petitions that have the old design, DON’T THROW THE OLD PETITIONS AWAY – THEY DO COUNT – And there’s no reason to have people who signed the old petition, resign the new petition – just make sure to use the new ones from now on.”

Eyman never mentioned his costly snafu on the back of the petition. He never told his supporters the original petitions were invalid and that the campaign really needed to start over. He quietly reprinted the correct text of Initiative 807 on the back and never mentioned to his supporters that he had wasted some $34,000 of their money because he had not checked the back of the petition before he printed it up to insure that it was “a full, true and correct copy”. It’s a good thing that he said he would not take any money for his efforts on Initiative 807 unless it qualified for the ballot because his supporters certainly got taken to the cleaners.

So after this colossal blunder it is no wonder that we did not see Eyman in the past month urging his supporters to send back their copies of I-807. Half of what he printed up was invalid petitions and anyone who signed them would not have had their name counted toward the minimum 198,000 valid signatures needed to qualify for the Nov. ballot.

So now you have the rest of the story – why Initiative 807 has became another doomed Eyman initiative. No surprise that Eyman is now talking about next year and refused to talk to the media on July 3rd. He just wants this year and Initiative 807 to fade away. Sorry Tim. Those of us who don’t support your extreme right wing libertarian agenda of cutting and ending most government services without regard to the impact on the people of Washington state only hope that you continue your “winning ways” next year and have as much success and campaign savvy as you’ve had this year.

Any effort by Tim Eyman to try to file Initiative 807 with the Secretary of State by July 3, 2003 will be challenged on legal grounds. Steve Zemke with Taxpayers for Washington’s Future today charged that Tim Eyman failed to comply with state law requiring that ‘a full, true and correct copy” of the actual text of the measure as filed with the Secretary of State be printed in full on the back of his petitions.

Besides incorrectly asserting that the measure would prevent an income tax, he printed the text on the back with no notations or underlining as required by law that indicated his proposed new language. Anyone reading it would in error believe it was current law. It is hard to believe but Eyman failed to print up Initiative 807 as he filed it with the Secretary of State. According to Public Disclosure Commission reports his first massive printing of up to 100,000 copies of initiative 807 on Jan 27, 2003 cost $10,626. In addition he spent $6,308 to print up the mailing envelope and letter and close to $18,000 to mail out the misleading and invalid printed initiative.

Eyman later spent some $14,000 printing up a “new version” of Initiative 807 which removed the “No State Income Tax” tag. He said he removed it because of the I-776 ruling. He said he was assured that his original petitions were legal. In a letter to his supporters he said “… -we are told that the old petitions are fine, but we decided to be totally safe (new petitions say: RENEW STATE SPENDING LIMITS). Mail in all partially-filled or filled petitions that have the old design, DON’T THROW THE OLD PETITIONS AWAY – THEY DO COUNT – And there’s no reason to have people who signed the old petition, resign the new petition – just make sure to use the new ones from now on.”

Eyman never mentioned the snafu on the back of the petition. He never told them the petitions were invalid and that the campaign really needed to start over. He quietly reprinted the correct text of Initiative 807 on the back and never mentioned to his supporters that he had wasted some $35,000 of their money because he never checked the back of the petition before he printed it up to insure that it was “a full, true and correct copy”. If he did he missed the costly error. It’s a good thing that he said he would not take any money for his efforts on Initiative 807 unless it qualified for the ballot because his supporters certainly got taken to the cleaners.

So after this colossal blunder it is no wonder that we have not seen Eyman in the past month urging his supporters to send back their copies of I-807. Half of what he printed up are invalid petitions and anyone who signed them would not their name counted toward the minimum 198,000 valid signatures needed to qualify for the Nov. ballot.

So now you have the rest of the story – why Initiative 807 has became another doomed Eyman initiative. No surprise that Eyman is now talking about next year. He just wants this year and Initiative 807 to fade away. Sorry Tim. Those of us that who don’t support your extreme right wing libertarian agenda of cutting and ending most government services without regard to the impact on the people of Washington state only hope that you continue your “winning ways” next year and haves as much success and campaign savvy as you’ve had this year.

A comparison of Section 6 of the original printing of I-807 with the revised version shows the mistake Eyman made. The original version is misrepresented as being current state law while the second version is what he actually filed with the Secretary of State and has the underlined words showing it as new language he is trying to add to the law. In this case he is trying to amend the current law by setting up a one third legislative vote to veto raising any fee or force a vote of the people to pass any fee.

Original petition

Revised petition

Note: This is only one example. Hard copies of both initiatives are available.