The Seattle Times sensibly joins the coalition opposing Tim Eyman’s self-serving I‑517

In an edi­to­r­i­al just pub­lished to the Web this evening, The Seat­tle Times’ edi­to­r­i­al page — which we have not always been in agree­ment with — has wise­ly come out against Ini­tia­tive 517, the lat­est scheme to roll out of Tim Eyman’s ini­tia­tive factory.

I‑517, which NPI has been help­ing orga­nize oppo­si­tion to for almost a year, was writ­ten to make it eas­i­er and cheap­er for Eyman to get sig­na­tures on the bal­lot. I‑517 would allow out of state paid sig­na­ture gath­er­ers to oper­ate in Wash­ing­ton year round, crim­i­nal­ize decline to sign activ­i­ty with­in twen­ty-five feet of a peti­tion­er, and force munic­i­pal­i­ties to send local ini­tia­tives to the bal­lot even if they’re invalid or uncon­sti­tu­tion­al, need­less­ly wast­ing tax dollars.

Sim­ply put, I‑517 infringes on Wash­ing­to­ni­ans’ free speech and prop­er­ty rights, which are guar­an­teed to us by the U.S. Con­sti­tu­tion and the Wash­ing­ton State Con­sti­tu­tion. The Times is spot-on in describ­ing the ini­tia­tive as a boon to Eyman:

On the Novem­ber 4 bal­lot, it would grease the sig­na­ture-gath­er­ing process. It reads as if Tim Eyman wrote it to expand his ini­tia­tive-man­u­fac­tur­ing industry.

We sus­pect Eyman’s bud­dy Eddie Agazarm, who is one half of the duo behind “Cit­i­zen Solu­tions”, had a big hand in writ­ing I‑517… Eyman did­n’t write it on his own. But Eyman is cer­tain­ly the spon­sor and the pri­ma­ry beneficiary.

Eyman has so far cho­sen not to active­ly cam­paign for I‑517’s pas­sage, except with­in Repub­li­can cir­cles, where he main­tains some credibility.

How­ev­er, many Repub­li­cans have come out against I‑517, includ­ing Rob McKen­na, Sam Reed, Ralph Munro, and the Main­stream Repub­li­cans of Wash­ing­ton. The Repub­li­can-lean­ing Asso­ci­a­tion of Wash­ing­ton Busi­ness, which fundraised for Eyman’s I‑1053 in 2010 and I‑1185 last year, is also opposed to I‑517.

The Times edi­to­r­i­al oppos­ing I‑517 calls it redun­dant and an over­reach — not once, not twice, but three times. We agree: I‑517 is sim­ply not need­ed. Harass­ment of any­one is already ille­gal, and the right to peti­tion is in the Bill of Rights. Courts have upheld the peo­ple’s right to peti­tion on many occasions.

I‑517 pur­ports to be about expand­ing the free­dom to peti­tion. But it’s real­ly about tak­ing away the free speech rights, free assem­bly rights, and prop­er­ty rights of oth­ers so that peo­ple who already prof­it from the ini­tia­tive process can make sig­na­ture gath­er­ing an even more lucra­tive enterprise.

Of the approx­i­mate­ly $1.3 mil­lion raised by the cam­paign to pass Ini­tia­tive 1185 last year, $1.2 mil­lion went to Eddie Agazarm and Roy Ruffi­no’s Cit­i­zen Solu­tions. We know from talk­ing to peti­tion­ers who worked on the I‑1185 sig­na­ture dri­ve that they were only paid a dol­lar for every sig­na­ture they col­lect­ed. The Sec­re­tary of State says 320,003 sig­na­tures were sub­mit­ted for I‑1185.

Giv­en that peti­tion­ers were only being paid a dol­lar a sig­na­ture, we don’t see how the dri­ve could have cost much more than $320,000. Even if there were, say, $80,000 in addi­tion­al expens­es asso­ci­at­ed with the dri­ve (which is a lot!) that still leaves more than three quar­ters of a mil­lion dol­lars left over.

So where did that mon­ey go? We can only con­clude it went into the pock­ets of Agazarm, Ruffi­no, and (pos­si­bly) Eyman. What a haul!

We also know that peti­tion­ers who were hired to work on I‑1185 (the last of Eyman’s I‑601 clones) were told to col­lect for I‑517 too, or they’d be fired.

This arrange­ment was doc­u­ment­ed in the com­plaint filed against the I‑517 cam­paign by Sher­ry Bock­winkel more than a year ago.

The slow-mov­ing Pub­lic Dis­clo­sure Com­mis­sion con­firmed ear­li­er this year it would open a for­mal inquiry into Sher­ry’s alle­ga­tions. The inves­ti­ga­tion remains open with less than two weeks to go before vot­ing begins.

In the mean­time, the NO on I‑517 Coali­tion con­tin­ues to grow stronger. The Taco­ma News Tri­bune has also joined the no side, and more busi­ness­es, indi­vid­u­als, and orga­ni­za­tions are sign­ing on every week.

With­out ques­tion, the NO on I‑517 Coali­tion is one of the most diverse and bipar­ti­san cam­paigns we have ever been a part of. The Coali­tion’s diver­si­ty speaks to just how poor­ly con­ceived I‑517 is. The Yes on I‑517 has so few endorse­ments that it has­n’t even pub­lished a list of sup­port­ers on its website.

I don’t often agree with Rob McKen­na and Bri­an Son­ntag, but I’m glad to have them as part of the coali­tion opposed to this lat­est short­sight­ed Tim Eyman ini­tia­tive. The team at NPI urges you to join us in pro­tect­ing our speech and prop­er­ty rights this autumn. Vote NO on Tim Eyman’s Ini­tia­tive 517.