Permanent Defense launches Eye on Money

This morn­ing, we’re proud to announce we have added a new tool to Per­ma­nent Defense’s web­site called Eye on Mon­ey, which can be found under Research & Reports. Eye on Mon­ey uses Stop­Greed-style charts to visu­al­ly break down con­tri­bu­tions to Tim Eyman’s ini­tia­tive factory.

As the chart for Tim Eyman’s cur­rent mea­sure shows, the vast major­i­ty of fund­ing for Ini­tia­tive 1125 came from just one wealthy bene­fac­tor: Kem­per Free­man, Jr. He’s respon­si­ble for 84% of the total raised. Anoth­er 10% is mon­ey trans­fers from Tim Eyman’s oth­er com­mit­tees. The remain­ing 6% rep­re­sents every­one else.

Eyman would have us all believe his ini­tia­tives are made pos­si­ble by the thou­sands of sup­port­ers he claims to have. In real­i­ty, as we’ve said for years, he would­n’t have the pow­er and influ­ence he has with­out his wealthy benefactors.

Eye on Mon­ey also ranks Tim Eyman’s top all-time wealthy bene­fac­tors. As reg­u­lar read­ers might expect, Michael Dun­mire comes in at No. 1. He’s giv­en more than three mil­lion dol­lars to prop up Eyman’s schemes.

Kem­per Free­man, Jr. comes in at No. 2. Not only has he put more than a mil­lion dol­lars into I‑1125, he’s also donat­ed tens of thou­sands of dol­lars to past Eyman schemes going back more than a decade.

Com­ing in at No 3. is for­eign gam­bling con­glom­er­ate Great Cana­di­an Gam­ing, which col­lab­o­rat­ed with Eyman on I‑892 in 2004. They sunk near­ly a quar­ter of a mil­lion into that scheme, which was resound­ing­ly defeat­ed by voters.

The list also includes Michaels Devel­op­ment at No. 4 (an ad agency, the sec­ond largest donor to I‑892) and for­mer Colum­bia Heli­copters chair­man Wes Lemat­ta at No. 5. British Petro­le­um (BP) and Tesoro are tied for sixth place. Gam­ing Con­sul­tants, anoth­er I‑892 donor, holds the sev­enth spot, and the Sam Adams Alliance and Cono­coPhillips are tied for eighth place.

These enti­ties rep­re­sent Eyman’s top-ten all time wealthy bene­fac­tors. Each has put at least $75,000 at Eyman’s dis­pos­al over the years. More than half of them have sup­port­ed mul­ti­ple Eyman initiatives.

With­out these bene­fac­tors, Eyman’s ini­tia­tive fac­to­ry would have ground to a halt years ago. Big mon­ey is what greas­es its gears and keeps Eyman in business.

We antic­i­pate adding more charts and data to Eye on Mon­ey in the weeks and months to come. We encour­age read­ers to book­mark Eye on Mon­ey and check in reg­u­lar­ly to see who is fun­nel­ing cash into Tim Eyman’s ini­tia­tive factory.