I‑1125 campaign site admits that 1125 was bought and paid for by Kemper Freeman

Not long ago, Tim Eyman began pro­mot­ing a new “Yes on 1125” web­site that appears to have been com­mis­sioned by his No. 2 all-time wealthy bene­fac­tor Kem­per Free­man, Jr., the man respon­si­ble for more than eighty per­cent of the mon­ey behind Ini­tia­tive 1125. I say appears to have been com­mis­sioned by because its text bears all the hall­marks of some­thing writ­ten by Kem­per and his oper­a­tives. Their pro­duc­tions have a dis­tinc­tive style… as do Eyman’s.

Hav­ing worked against Eyman for much of his career, we’re pret­ty famil­iar with his writ­ing, and how he choos­es to por­tray him­self. Eyman has long been in the habit of false­ly imply­ing or claim­ing that his ini­tia­tive fac­to­ry is grass­roots, when in fact it is not. We have repeat­ed­ly point­ed out that Eyman’s mill would grind to a halt were it not for his wealthy bene­fac­tors. His oper­a­tion is whol­ly depen­dent on big mon­ey. And he knows it. But he pre­tends otherwise.

Kem­per Free­man, Jr., on the oth­er hand, appears to be more of a straight-shoot­er, at least in terms of dis­clos­ing his involve­ment. Have a look at these two para­graphs from the “Myths vs. Facts” page on the “Yes on 1125” website.

Ini­tia­tive 1125 was filed by Tim Eyman on behalf of Belle­vue Busi­ness­man, Kem­per Free­man. Mr. Free­man and oth­ers want vot­ers to be aware of very seri­ous pol­i­cy changes com­ing out of Olympia.  These new poli­cies will have a tremen­dous­ly neg­a­tive impact on auto­mo­bile dri­vers total­ly chang­ing the way we live and less­en­ing our qual­i­ty of life. Mr. Free­man believes that vot­ers are being kept in the dark on these changes and that they deserve an oppor­tu­ni­ty to reaf­firm or reject these ideas.

Kem­per Free­man paid for the ini­tia­tive 1125 sig­na­ture dri­ve to give vot­ers an oppor­tu­ni­ty to reaf­firm long-stand­ing prin­ci­ples of tolling and gas tax­es, or to reject them, as they wish. He did so, too, so that the 97% who dri­ve their cars every­day will under­stand the com­ing pol­i­cy of “sys­tem wide” tolling all roads.

This has to be the first time that I can remem­ber that an Eyman bene­fac­tor has admit­ted, upfront, to hav­ing paid for the sig­na­ture dri­ve for an Eyman ini­tia­tive on the cam­paign web­site for said ini­tia­tive. It’s too bad that almost noth­ing else on the web­site is accu­rate. In addi­tion to putting dozens of apos­tro­phes in the wrong place, the per­son who authored the “Myths vs. Facts” page some­how man­aged to fig­ure out how to unfair­ly slam tran­sit in pret­ty much every passage.

Free­man may not real­ize it, but every time he talks or pub­lish­es some­thing, he pro­vides fur­ther evi­dence for the view that all he seems to care about is destroy­ing and defund­ing tran­sit — and widen­ing high­ways. Free­man likes to dis­miss tran­sit activists as zealots, but he’s the real ide­o­logue… an uncom­pro­mis­ing road war­rior from decades past who believes that if we just pave over more ter­rain, we’ll all be able to hap­pi­ly dri­ve our cars wher­ev­er and when­ev­er we want.

In real­i­ty, grid­lock can only be solved by get­ting peo­ple out of their cars and pro­vid­ing trans­porta­tion choic­es. True free­dom of mobil­i­ty means being able to get around with­out a car. If Free­man under­stood this, he’d be an enthu­si­as­tic sup­port­er of tran­sit, rather than an unre­lent­ing critic.