Coalition fighting Tim Eyman’s incredibly destructive Initiative 1366 is gaining strength

For the past few months, we’ve been sound­ing the alarm about Ini­tia­tive 1366, the most cyn­i­cal, mean-spir­it­ed, destruc­tive ini­tia­tive that Tim Eyman has ever spon­sored (and that’s say­ing some­thing!) and ask­ing orga­ni­za­tions com­mit­ted to the defense of Wash­ing­ton’s val­ues to join us in oppos­ing I‑1366.

We are hap­py to report that our efforts have been meet­ing with suc­cess. The list of orga­ni­za­tions oppos­ing I‑1366 is get­ting longer and longer as orga­ni­za­tions sign up and com­mit to the cause of defeat­ing Tim Eyman’s out­ra­geous scheme to black­mail law­mak­ers into sab­o­tag­ing our cher­ished tra­di­tion of major­i­ty rule.

This week, we are pleased to wel­come the Wash­ing­ton Envi­ron­men­tal Coun­cil,
Wash­ing­ton Con­ser­va­tion Vot­ers, Statewide Pover­ty Action Net­work, Pierce Coun­ty Democ­rats, and Met­ro­pol­i­tan Demo­c­ra­t­ic Club to the NO on I‑1366 coali­tion. We’re very hap­py to have these orga­ni­za­tions (and many oth­ers) with us.

But we’re look­ing for more. We want the biggest, broad­est coali­tion pos­si­ble work­ing to defeat I‑1366. Read­ers, if you are involved with one or more orga­ni­za­tions that cares about effec­tive gov­ern­ment, ful­ly fund­ing our pub­lic schools, fix­ing our bro­ken tax code, and uphold­ing our state Con­sti­tu­tion, please ask those orga­ni­za­tions to join our cause as soon as they pos­si­bly can.

There’s no rea­son to wait. It’s a safe assump­tion that I‑1366 will be on the ballot.

Yes­ter­day, Tim Eyman sent out an email to his fol­low­ers exhort­ing them to give him more mon­ey, claim­ing that he ans asso­ciates are “ago­niz­ing­ly close to qualifying”.

“We have just the final weeks and days of June to raise the mon­ey nec­es­sary to col­lect the required sig­na­tures,” Eyman wrote.

Once again, Eyman is mis­lead­ing his fol­low­ers. He has already raised $1.2 mil­lion for I‑1366, and trans­ferred $1 mil­lion of that to Cit­i­zen Solu­tions for sig­na­ture gath­er­ing. That’s plen­ty of mon­ey for a sig­na­ture drive.

We’re told Eyman and his asso­ciates aren’t pay­ing more than $1.50 per sig­na­ture, which means the actu­al cost to col­lect around 320,000 sig­na­tures (all that’s need­ed) can’t be more than around $480,000 (if it’s even that much).

Cit­i­zen Solu­tions will be able to pock­et the remain­der of the $1 mil­lion as prof­it. The sig­na­ture dri­ve is most­ly over, and Eyman will soon be mak­ing an appoint­ment with the Sec­re­tary of State to turn in his peti­tion sheets.

The time to take a stand against I‑1366 is now.

To make things easy, we’ve got a mod­el res­o­lu­tion you can pro­vide to the boards or gov­ern­ing bod­ies of orga­ni­za­tions you work with. This mod­el res­o­lu­tion can be tweaked or adapt­ed as desired, but it’s also well-pol­ished and can be adapt­ed as is once an orga­ni­za­tion has added its name to the There­fore clauses.

After an orga­ni­za­tion you work with has tak­en a posi­tion, it’s impor­tant they let us know by fill­ing out the form on the NO on I‑1366 web­site so we can update the list of orga­ni­za­tions that are opposed to Eyman’s dia­bol­i­cal plot force law­mak­ers to choose between sab­o­tag­ing our state Con­sti­tu­tion or blow­ing a mas­sive hole in the state bud­get. The loss of $1 bil­lion a year in state sales tax rev­enue would destroy the lit­tle progress that’s been made to date towards McCleary com­pli­ance and cre­at­ing an even big­ger school fund­ing deficit.

Like I‑517 and I‑1125/I‑1033/I‑985 before it, I‑1366 is beat­able, but only if those of us who care about Washington’s val­ues and Washington’s future come togeth­er to stand up to the extrem­ism of Tim Eyman and his wealthy benefactors.

Take a stand against I‑1366 today, and join the effort to send this uncon­scionable ini­tia­tive to the polit­i­cal grave­yard that it belongs in.