Coalition against I‑1125 includes past, likely future Tim Eyman supporters

One of the phras­es Tim Eyman fre­quent­ly uses to describe the anti-tolling, anti-light rail scheme that he pur­chased a pub­lic vote on (with Kem­per Free­man Jr.‘s mon­ey) is “Son of 1053”. To hear Eyman tell it, 1053 clos­es a pur­port­ed loop­hole that he left in his own uncon­sti­tu­tion­al ini­tia­tive last year — the loop­hole being the absence of a pro­vi­sion restrict­ing what the Leg­is­la­ture can do with tolls.

I‑1053 does include a pro­vi­sion requir­ing that fees be approved by the state Leg­is­la­ture. Eyman ini­tial­ly thought that pro­vi­sion would pre­clude the Leg­is­la­ture from del­e­gat­ing its toll-set­ting author­i­ty to the State Trans­porta­tion Com­mis­sion, or allow­ing agen­cies to raise fees on their own.

But an opin­ion issued by the office of Eyman’s good friend Rob McKen­na last Decem­ber held that while I‑1053 did take away the Trans­porta­tion Com­mis­sion’s pow­er to set tolls, no statute could restrict the Leg­is­la­ture from del­e­gat­ing its author­i­ty. So, dur­ing the 2011 ses­sion, state law­mak­ers vot­ed to re-empow­er the Trans­porta­tion Com­mis­sion to set tolls. Eyman filed I‑1125 in response, but the mea­sure did not move for­ward until Eyman received a guar­an­tee of fund­ing from Kem­per Free­man, Jr. to pay for the sig­na­ture drive.

As it turns out, some of the cor­po­ra­tions that sup­port­ed I‑1053 finan­cial­ly last year are not enam­ored with Eyman’s “Son of 1053” measure.

They like I‑1053 because the lan­guage of the ini­tia­tive has been inter­pret­ed to mean that the repeal of any tax exemp­tion con­sti­tutes a tax increase, which is (uncon­sti­tu­tion­al­ly) sub­ject to a two-thirds vote under I‑1053. As long as I‑1053 is in effect, all that cor­po­ra­tions have to do is con­vince the Sen­ate’s sev­en­teen most con­ser­v­a­tive sen­a­tors to vote against any bill that would elim­i­nate a loop­hole they enjoy. I‑1053 is basi­cal­ly a cor­po­rate wel­fare racket.

But they don’t like I‑1125 because I‑1125 would mess with the financ­ing for high­way projects that they care about.

Because Wash­ing­ton dri­vers have col­lec­tive­ly been buy­ing few­er gal­lons of gaso­line per year than in pre­vi­ous years, the gas tax is bring­ing in less rev­enue than it used to. This trend is pro­ject­ed to con­tin­ue. That’s why the state is begin­ning to col­lect tolls on SR 520 even before the new bridge is built; the tolls are need­ed to secure bonds for the con­struc­tion of the new bridge.

Eyman’s I‑1125 would blow a hole in this long-agreed financ­ing plan, as State Trea­sur­er Jim McIn­tire has put it.

So major Wash­ing­ton employ­ers are step­ping up to fund the NO on I‑1125 cam­paign… includ­ing some that donat­ed to I‑1053 last year.

Microsoft (which did not donate to I‑1053 last year), is par­tic­u­lar­ly enthu­si­as­tic about beat­ing I‑1125. The com­pa­ny  — which, like NPI, calls Red­mond home — has already donat­ed $100,000 to the cause. Puget Sound Ener­gy, Par­sons Brinck­er­hoff, and Pem­co have all made five-fig­ure contributions.

But so have Wey­er­hauser ($25,000 to NO on 1125), Port Blake­ly Tree Farms ($10,000 to NO on 1125), and the Green Dia­mond Resource Com­pa­ny ($10,000 to NO on 1125). All wrote five-fig­ure checks to help Eyman only a few sea­sons ago. Now they’ve writ­ten five-fig­ure checks to the cam­paign work­ing to beat Eyman.

What a dif­fer­ence a year makes.

The con­ser­v­a­tive Asso­ci­a­tion of Wash­ing­ton Busi­ness, which lined up much of I‑1053’s  cor­po­rate sup­port and calls itself the state’s cham­ber of com­merce, has also decid­ed to oppose I‑1125. As far as the AWB is concerned:

Ini­tia­tive 1125 would jeop­ar­dize con­struc­tion and fund­ing for mul­ti­ple major trans­porta­tion projects, includ­ing the Colum­bia Riv­er cross­ing in Van­cou­ver and the 520 bridge in Seat­tle, and that just means more delays and traf­fic headaches for Wash­ing­ton dri­vers. AWB mem­bers also believe vari­able tolling is a nec­es­sary part of today’s trans­porta­tion infra­struc­ture projects, and that it would be bet­ter to have the Leg­is­la­ture set up a com­mis­sion to set the tolls and tolling cri­te­ria than keep­ing those deci­sions with law­mak­ers in Olympia.

I‑1125’s sup­port­ers include Eyman and his band of fol­low­ers, Kem­per Free­man, Jr., and the Wash­ing­ton State Repub­li­can Par­ty, Eyman’s most depend­able endors­er. That’s about the extent of the Yes on I‑1125 forces.

NPI strong­ly oppos­es I‑1125 and urges a no vote on the mea­sure this autumn.