Offering frequent news and analysis from the majestic Evergreen State and beyond, The Cascadia Advocate is the Northwest Progressive Institute's unconventional perspective on world, national, and local politics.

Thursday, June 29, 2006

Tim Eyman turns in signatures for I-917

Tim Eyman was in Olympia this morning turning in what he claims are 252,000 signatures for Initiative 917, (his proposal which would gut $2.7 billion dollars in statewide transportation funding), NPI has learned.

Eyman, who showed up in a Buzz Lightyear costume as a media ploy, apparently did not attract very much attention for his press conference. (Perhaps because he and his cronies flagrantly burned the press corps earlier this month, telling reporters they'd been "duped").

224,880 valid signatures are required to qualify an initiative for the ballot. Eyman says he needs 30,000 more signatures to cushion against duplicates or invalids.

We think he already had all of his signatures at the beginning of last June and has just been sitting on them. We fully expect Eyman to show up in Olympia next week and turn in more signatures (the ones he's still sitting on), enough for a comfortable cushion to ensure I-917's qualification.

As this has been long anticipated, it's not much of a news development.

UPDATE: Eyman is receiving little more than a passing mention on the evening news broadcasts. KIRO, which did send cameras to Eyman's press conference, did not air any sound bites from Eyman, choosing only to show short footage of Eyman dressed as Buzz Lightyear while anchor Margo Myers narrated.

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