Today, we at NPI cel­e­brate a mile­stone like no oth­er in our his­to­ry to date: the ten year anniver­sary of the found­ing of Per­ma­nent Defense, NPI’s old­est project.

For a decade, Per­ma­nent Defense has stood as a bul­wark against Tim Eyman’s ini­tia­tive fac­to­ry, respond­ing to anti-gov­ern­ment pro­pa­gan­da, refram­ing the debate around tax­es, push­ing for direct democ­ra­cy reform, and help­ing mobi­lize cam­paigns against harm­ful right wing bal­lot mea­sures. At times, the work has seemed thank­less and tiring.

But it has been worth it.

Before Per­ma­nent Defense was found­ed, Tim Eyman was get­ting an ini­tia­tive past the vot­ers every sin­gle year. Most of those ini­tia­tives (I‑695, I‑722, I‑747) were lat­er declared to be uncon­sti­tu­tion­al by the courts.

Sad­ly, those rul­ings unfor­tu­nate­ly did­n’t put Eyman’s ini­tia­tive fac­to­ry out of busi­ness. He seemed unstop­pable. Even strate­gists who had worked against Eyman came to think of his duplic­i­tous ini­tia­tives as unbeatable.

How­ev­er, I nev­er saw it that way.

If that had been my mind­set, I would have stayed a pas­sivist… some­one who sits and watch­es from the side­lines. Instead, I became an activist. After an eye-open­ing con­ver­sa­tion with two friends, I real­ized I had to do some­thing. I found­ed Per­ma­nent Defense because it was evi­dent to me that Tim Eyman need­ed oppo­si­tion that was as deter­mined to pro­tect Wash­ing­ton as he was to wreck it.

I believe that deter­mi­na­tion counts for a lot. What the mind can con­ceive and believe, it can achieve. I con­sid­er myself extreme­ly for­tu­nate to be able to work with peo­ple who share that can-do spir­it: Rick, Kath­leen, Ken, Patrick, Steve, Eve, Grace, Gael, Ralph, Rob, Steve, and Robert, plus NPI’s dozens of alumni.

And our thou­sands of donors and sup­port­ers — you know who you are!

Since Per­ma­nent Defense start­ed pro­vid­ing Tim Eyman with much-need­ed oppo­si­tion back in 2002, Eyman has had no con­sec­u­tive vic­to­ries. Think about that for a moment. For sev­er­al years run­ning, Eyman had been enjoy­ing suc­cess at the bal­lot. Even after he admit­ted pock­et­ing hun­dreds of thou­sands of dol­lars of his own sup­port­ers’ mon­ey, he still man­aged to qual­i­fy I‑776 (which was sup­posed to kill Sound Tran­sit’s Cen­tral Link light rail), and it passed nar­row­ly, despite our efforts to defeat it. But that was the end of Eyman’s win­ning streak.

Per­haps the most impor­tant thing we’ve accom­plished these past ten years is to prove that Tim Eyman can be stopped. We believe that an over­whelm­ing major­i­ty of Wash­ing­to­ni­ans want gov­ern­ment to be made bet­ter and more effec­tive at every level…state, coun­ty, city, port, school dis­trict.… not bro­ken. When we help Wash­ing­to­ni­ans under­stand the cost and con­se­quences of a right wing ini­tia­tive, most will vote no. But that takes work. And no one is going to do that work for us. Those of us who care about Wash­ing­ton’s future have to do it.

Of course, Eyman has not ceased to be a threat, even after his win­ning streak was bro­ken. He has kept his ini­tia­tive fac­to­ry going.

But we have kept Per­ma­nent Defense going, too. Per­ma­nent Defense tru­ly is a per­ma­nent defense. It’s also Wash­ing­ton’s first line of defense against Tim Eyman’s ini­tia­tive fac­to­ry, pro­vid­ing the only active, vis­i­ble oppo­si­tion to Eyman year-round. Per­ma­nent Defense does­n’t have an off-sea­son; it’s not a campaign.

Per­ma­nent Defense has opposed each and every one of the ini­tia­tives Tim Eyman has spon­sored since its found­ing, includ­ing I‑776, I‑267, I‑807, I‑684, I‑892, I‑900, I‑917, I‑960, I‑985, I‑1033, I‑1053, and I‑1125. (That’s a pret­ty long list!)

Per­ma­nent Defense also opposed Ref­er­en­dum 65, Eyman’s unsuc­cess­ful attempt to force a vote on the law that banned dis­crim­i­na­tion on the basis of sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion, and has fought sev­er­al oth­er destruc­tive right wing ini­tia­tives not spon­sored by Eyman, includ­ing I‑920, I‑933, I‑1082, I‑1100, I‑1105, and I‑1107.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, Tim Eyman only needs to be suc­cess­ful every once in a while to remain rel­e­vant. In recent years, his ini­tia­tives have shift­ed more towards under­min­ing our plan of gov­ern­ment and attack­ing our com­mon wealth at its foun­da­tions. In oth­er words, Eyman’s ini­tia­tives have become more dan­ger­ous — the harm they cause can’t be sum­ma­rized on a price tag.

That makes our task hard­er, but not any less impor­tant. Wash­ing­ton is a present­ly at a cross­roads. For years, elect­ed lead­ers at every lev­el of gov­ern­ment have man­aged to spare many of our vital pub­lic ser­vices from evis­cer­a­tion by tap­ping reserves, rais­ing fares and fees, rolling back hours, impos­ing fur­lough days, freez­ing pub­lic work­ers’ pay, and employ­ing account­ing tricks.

But the days when we could back­fill our way out of a bud­get hole are at an end. Now we must decide what kind of state we want to live in.

Do we want to live in a state that abides by its Con­sti­tu­tion, which requires that our Leg­is­la­ture oper­ate demo­c­ra­t­i­cal­ly? Do we want to live in a state that pro­vides a safe­ty net for its most vul­ner­a­ble citizens?

Do we want to live in a state that cares for its youth, pro­vid­ing them with a good edu­ca­tion — includ­ing a col­lege education?

Do we want to live in a state that pro­tects its forests, farm­lands, water­sheds, estu­ar­ies, rivers, lakes, and coast for future gen­er­a­tions to enjoy? Do we want to live in a state that sup­ports and encour­ages peo­ple to start busi­ness­es here?

If the answer to those ques­tions is yes, then we have to take a stand. We can’t slash and burn our way to pros­per­i­ty. Fur­ther aus­ter­i­ty mea­sures — Tim Eyman’s pre­scrip­tion for Wash­ing­ton — will only weak­en our state, not strength­en it.

As Per­ma­nent Defense begins its eleventh year, we reded­i­cate our­selves to our mis­sion: build­ing a strong first line of defense against threats to Wash­ing­ton’s com­mon wealth. In our sec­ond decade, we will work to ensure that Tim Eyman’s I‑1053 is over­turned, and orga­nize ear­ly to build oppo­si­tion against any copy­cat mea­sures that Eyman tries to get past the vot­ers. We will improve our cit­i­zen intel­li­gence net­work so we can bet­ter track right wing sig­na­ture dri­ves. And we will step up our efforts to research and doc­u­ment the harm that has been caused by the pas­sage and imple­men­ta­tion of right wing ini­tia­tives dur­ing the 2000s.

Here’s to anoth­er decade of pro­tect­ing Washington!