BP and ConocoPhillips revealed as the big money behind Tim Eyman’s I‑1185

The wheels and gears of Tim Eyman’s ini­tia­tive fac­to­ry are once again being lubri­cat­ed with piles of mon­ey from greedy multi­na­tion­al oil com­pa­nies, new­ly updat­ed Pub­lic Dis­clo­sure Com­mis­sion records show.

Min­utes ago, Tim Eyman’s trea­sur­er uploaded cam­paign finance reports for the lat­est incar­na­tion of Eyman’s “Vot­ers Want More Choic­es” com­mit­tee for the month of April, which is serv­ing as the repos­i­to­ry for the mon­ey Eyman is rais­ing for I‑1185, his lat­est destruc­tive ini­tia­tive, which is essen­tial­ly a car­bon copy of I‑1053 from two years ago. Of the $247,285.59 raised for I‑1185, more than eighty per­cent — $200,000 — came from BP and Cono­coPhillips, which sent Eyman match­ing checks dat­ed April 11th and April 30th, respectively.

This isn’t the first time BP or Cono­coPhillips have con­tributed to Eyman’s ini­tia­tive fac­to­ry. As reg­u­lar read­ers no doubt remem­ber, both com­pa­nies were big donors to I‑1053 two years ago, and pri­or to their just-revealed April con­tri­bu­tions, they were already among Eyman’s top ten all time wealthy bene­fac­tors.

As a result of its April 11th con­tri­bu­tion, BP has now moved into the fifth spot on the all-time wealthy bene­fac­tors list, ahead of deceased heli­copter log­ging mag­nate Wes Lemat­ta. And Cono­coPhillips has now gone from being tied for ninth place in the rank­ings to sev­enth place with its own $100,000 check.

Eyman has already fun­nelled some of his new oil mon­ey into the cof­fers of his friends Roy Ruffi­no and Eddie Agrazarm, who run “Cit­i­zen Solu­tions”, the firm that has brought in most of the sig­na­tures for all of Eyman’s recent ini­tia­tives. In fact, the very same day that BP’s check arrived (April 11th), Eyman wrote a check for an iden­ti­cal amount to Cit­i­zen Solu­tions, records show.

If his­to­ry is any indi­ca­tion, con­tri­bu­tions from oth­er cor­po­ra­tions are sure to fol­low. Eyman does­n’t have to report what he hauls in for the month of May until June 10th. That’s sev­er­al weeks from now.

Back in Jan­u­ary, Eyman told his fol­low­ers that he and his cohorts — Mike and Jack Fagan of Spokane — had­n’t decid­ed what their ini­tia­tive would be for 2012. We inter­pret­ed that announce­ment (or non-announce­ment) to mean that Eyman did­n’t have mon­ey lined up to do a sig­na­ture drive.

But evi­dent­ly he had some con­ver­sa­tions with pow­er­ful lob­by­ists as the year wore on, and secured a finan­cial com­mit­ment from BP to launch I‑1185.

We have long said that any­one will­ing to put up half a mil­lion dol­lars to run an ini­tia­tive can buy them­selves a spot on the bal­lot. BP and Cono­coPhillips alone could make sure that Eyman’s I‑1185 qual­i­fies by send­ing the Muk­il­teo prof­i­teer a few more checks. It’s pos­si­ble they already have sent Eyman more mon­ey and we don’t know it yet.

For the last few weeks, we’ve been gear­ing up to fight I‑1185, oper­at­ing under the assump­tion that Eyman had the mon­ey to buy the sig­na­tures he need­ed to get it on the bal­lot. It’s clear that our assess­ment of the dan­ger was spot-on.

Now we must shift into high­er gear.

Wash­ing­ton sim­ply can­not afford for Eyman’s uncon­sti­tu­tion­al, unde­mo­c­ra­t­ic “two thirds for tax increas­es” scheme to remain in place. It’s chok­ing our com­mon wealth and the pub­lic ser­vices our com­mon wealth pays for.

We at NPI will do all we can to defeat I‑1185. But we’re going to need your help. This is going to be an extreme­ly dif­fi­cult bat­tle. But we can’t afford not to fight. Noth­ing less than Wash­ing­ton’s eco­nom­ic secu­ri­ty is at stake. We have to stop Tim Eyman and the pow­er­ful inter­ests that are using him as a pup­pet from win­ning. We have to pro­tect our state’s future.