Tim Eyman tries to hit back at Jay Inslee after Inslee urges Washington to vote down I‑1125

Yes­ter­day morn­ing, at the Wash­ing­ton Con­ser­va­tion Vot­ers’ annu­al Break­fast of Cham­pi­ons in Seat­tle, Demo­c­ra­t­ic guber­na­to­r­i­al can­di­date Jay Inslee took aim at Tim Eyman and his ini­tia­tive fac­to­ry, call­ing for the rejec­tion of Eyman’s lat­est scheme, I‑1125, and declar­ing, “It’s time to start build­ing bridges instead of fund­ing Tim Eyman’s bank account.”

His speech, which was very well-received (and expressed sen­ti­ments that we at NPI strong­ly agree with) evi­dent­ly touched a nerve, because Tim Eyman fired back only a few hours lat­er with a con­de­scend­ing reply. It began as fol­lows:

Wash­ing­ton DC Con­gress­man Inslee needs to under­stand that it is the vot­ers who are approv­ing our ini­tia­tives. Last year’s Ini­tia­tive 1053 passed with 64% of the vote. It was the 4th time vot­ers approved its’ tougher-to-raise-tax­es poli­cies. If you don’t like vot­ers, you’re in the wrong pro­fes­sion. This year’s Ini­tia­tive 1125 clos­es a mul­ti-bil­lion-dol­lar loop­hole the Leg­is­la­ture put in last year’s I‑1053, ensur­ing that trans­porta­tion tax­es and tolls com­ply with I‑1053′s pro­vi­sions and the 18th Amend­ment to our state Constitution.

Only Tim Eyman can pack so much mis­in­for­ma­tion into one paragraph.

First of all, Jay Inslee rep­re­sents Wash­ing­ton’s 1st Con­gres­sion­al Dis­trict — he does not rep­re­sent the Dis­trict of Colum­bia. Yes, he works there, but his home is here in the real Wash­ing­ton, and it has always been. Eyman would no doubt like vot­ers to think that Inslee is a trans­plant or some­thing, but that’s not true — Inslee is a native Wash­ing­ton­ian who knows his state very well.

Con­sid­er­ing that Jay has been elect­ed to Con­gress a total of eight times, and lost a con­gres­sion­al reelec­tion bid only once, Eyman’s retort, “if you don’t like vot­ers, you’re in the wrong pro­fes­sion” is down­right sil­ly. What’s more, Jay Inslee has won more elec­tions dur­ing his involve­ment in pol­i­tics than Tim Eyman has. Obvi­ous­ly, vot­ers like him, and pub­lic ser­vice is a call­ing he finds rewarding.

We have pre­vi­ous­ly point­ed out that Tim Eyman has a dou­ble stan­dard as far as respect­ing the will of the vot­ers goes. I‑1125 includes a pro­vi­sion intend­ed to pre­vent WSDOT from trans­fer­ring part of the Homer M. Hadley Memo­r­i­al Bridge to Sound Tran­sit for East Link light rail, even though vot­ers over­whelm­ing­ly approved East Link as part of the Sound Tran­sit 2 pack­age in 2008.

So, Tim Eyman does­n’t like vot­ers when they don’t agree with him. In his eyes, the Sound Tran­sit 2 vote does­n’t mat­ter… it nev­er hap­pened. By his log­ic, he must be in the wrong pro­fes­sion! We cer­tain­ly would­n’t object if he shut down his ini­tia­tive fac­to­ry and went back to sell­ing fra­ter­ni­ty wristwatches.

As for Ini­tia­tive 1053, it was not the fourth time vot­ers approved a mea­sure uncon­sti­tu­tion­al­ly impos­ing a two-thirds require­ment to raise tax­es. There were two sim­i­lar mea­sures before that: Ini­tia­tive 601 in 1993, and Eyman’s Ini­tia­tive 960 in 2007. Both of those mea­sures passed only nar­row­ly with about 51% of the vote in odd-years (when turnout was low­er). There was no fourth vote.

Eyman has claimed that Ref­er­en­dum 49 in 1998 was the fourth vote. But Ref­er­en­dum 49 did not con­cern impos­ing or re-impos­ing a two-thirds require­ment to raise tax­es. Read the bal­lot title for yourself:

Shall motor vehi­cle excise tax­es be reduced and state rev­enues real­lo­cat­ed; $1.9 bil­lion in bonds for state and local high­ways approved; and spend­ing lim­its modified?

Eyman’s asser­tion that “I‑1125 clos­es a mul­ti-bil­lion-dol­lar loop­hole the Leg­is­la­ture put in last year’s I‑1053” is also puzzling.

The Leg­is­la­ture did not spon­sor I‑1053 — Eyman did. The Leg­is­la­ture did not draft I‑1053 — Eyman and his pals at John Groen’s law firm did. Since I‑1053 went into effect, it has not been amend­ed by the Leg­is­la­ture. So how, exact­ly is it the Leg­is­la­ture’s fault that I‑1053 is not destruc­tive enough?

Eyman appar­ent­ly dis­likes the Leg­is­la­ture so much, he even blames that insti­tu­tion for his own mis­takes. The Leg­is­la­ture is, with­out ques­tion, his go-to scape­goat. (It would­n’t sur­prise me if Eyman’s ini­tial response when an appli­ance breaks inside his home is to blame the Legislature.)

Eyman is very fond of cit­ing the 18th Amend­ment to Wash­ing­ton State’s Con­sti­tu­tion — as far as we can tell, Eyman seems to think that pro­vi­sion, and the pro­vi­sions con­cern­ing ini­tia­tives, are the extent of the document!

The 18th Amend­ment, which is found in Arti­cle II of the Con­sti­tu­tion (as Sec­tion 40) says that license fees on motor vehi­cles, and tax­es on sales of motor vehi­cle fuel, shall be spent exclu­sive­ly on “high­way pur­pos­es”, which are then defined. Tolls are not men­tioned in Sec­tion 40.

Even if Sec­tion 40 did men­tion tolling along with fuel tax­es and license fees, the Leg­is­la­ture’s spe­cif­ic plan to use tolls and toll-backed bonds to pay for the new Ever­green Point Float­ing Bridge would still be per­fect­ly constitutional.

But, since tolls are not men­tioned, the Leg­is­la­ture has the free­dom to ded­i­cate toll rev­enues from a par­tic­u­lar facil­i­ty to tran­sit, or to projects that improve mobil­i­ty for bicy­clists and pedes­tri­ans, if it wish­es. Tim Eyman, of course, can’t stand the idea that tolls might go to help improve trans­porta­tion options for everybody.

Regard­less, the Leg­is­la­ture’s plans to toll SR 520 are legal­ly sound… they do not run afoul of the 18th Amend­ment. If there was a case to be made that they did, our courts would be try­ing to resolve a pret­ty high-pro­file dis­pute right now.

While we’re on the sub­ject of the Con­sti­tu­tion and law­suits that seek to uphold our Con­sti­tu­tion, it is worth not­ing that three of the sev­en Tim Eyman ini­tia­tives that have been passed by vot­ers have been thrown out by the state Supreme Court as uncon­sti­tu­tion­al. One of those, I‑747, was writ­ten by Tim Eyman’s friend Rob McKen­na, our cur­rent attor­ney gen­er­al and Jay Inslee’s oppo­nent in 2012.

There is also a law­suit in progress that seeks to have I‑1053 declared uncon­sti­tu­tion­al (I‑1053, like its pre­de­ces­sors, vio­lates Arti­cle II, Sec­tion 22 of the Con­sti­tu­tion, which says that bills shall pass by major­i­ty vote).

If Tim Eyman real­ly cared about hon­or­ing our Con­sti­tu­tion, he would­n’t rou­tine­ly spon­sor ini­tia­tives that bla­tant­ly vio­late its pro­vi­sions. Our founders gave us a plan of gov­ern­ment that they thought would serve us well. Tim Eyman has done every­thing he can to under­mine and attack the sys­tem that they gave us.

This autumn, please join NPI in say­ing NO to yet anoth­er destruc­tive Tim Eyman ini­tia­tive. Vote NO on I‑1125 and keep our roads safe.