Surprise! Tim Eyman shows up for I‑1366 editorial board meeting with Seattle Times

He’s back… sort of.

Noto­ri­ous ini­tia­tive prof­i­teer Tim Eyman emerged briefly from his self-imposed seclu­sion ear­li­er today to attend a meet­ing with the edi­to­r­i­al board of The Seat­tle Times to make his case for I‑1366, his lat­est and most destruc­tive ini­tia­tive yet, with extrem­ist Repub­li­can State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Ed Orcutt in tow as his side­kick du jour.

I‑1366 would wipe out $8 bil­lion in sales tax rev­enue over the next six years unless the Leg­is­la­ture bows to Eyman’s will and pass­es an amend­ment per­ma­nent­ly sab­o­tag­ing our Con­sti­tu­tion’s major­i­ty vote require­ment for pas­sage of legislation.

Eyman failed to show up last week to debate I‑1366 with Fuse’s Aaron Ostrom because KING5 refused to agree to Eyman’s stip­u­la­tion that he not be asked about his secret mon­ey manip­u­la­tions. He also blew off the edi­to­r­i­al boards of The Stranger and The Olympian. But he appar­ent­ly felt he could­n’t do the same with the Times.

The Times’ Jim Brun­ner, who sat in on the edi­to­r­i­al board meet­ing, reports that Eyman refused to answer any ques­tions per­tain­ing to his alleged law­break­ing:

Eyman said he’d only talk about the mer­its of that ini­tia­tive in response to numer­ous ques­tions from edi­to­r­i­al board mem­bers and a Seat­tle Times reporter about the PDC alle­ga­tions, which are now under review by Attor­ney Gen­er­al Bob Ferguson’s office.

Let’s make one thing clear: There are no mer­its to I‑1366. It’s Tim Eyman’s worst idea ever. I‑1366 is a mean-spir­it­ed, scorched-earth ini­tia­tive rem­i­nis­cent of Repub­li­cans’ failed fed­er­al gov­ern­ment shut­down of two years ago.

With I‑1366, Eyman aims to wreak cat­a­stroph­ic dam­age on Wash­ing­ton’s K‑12 schools, col­leges, uni­ver­si­ties, and oth­er vital pub­lic ser­vices if the Leg­is­la­ture does­n’t sab­o­tage our cher­ished tra­di­tion of major­i­ty rule.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly for Tim, his past mis­deeds caught up with him with a month to go before vot­ing begins in the Novem­ber 2015 gen­er­al elec­tion. The Pub­lic Dis­clo­sure Com­mis­sion has asked Attor­ney Gen­er­al Bob Fer­gu­son to pros­e­cute Eyman for seri­ous vio­la­tions of Wash­ing­ton’s pub­lic dis­clo­sure law. Nat­u­ral­ly, the Times tried to get Eyman to respond to the alle­ga­tions. But he would­n’t.

He would not say whether he was being paid this year by Cit­i­zen Solu­tions, the sig­na­ture-gath­er­ing firm that received more than $1.2 mil­lion this year to qual­i­fy I‑1366 for the Novem­ber ballot.

The PDC probe found evi­dence Eyman has received hun­dreds of thou­sands of dol­lars in pay­ments from the firm — includ­ing a $300,000 wire trans­fer in 2012. Eyman also refused to say whether he believes he should have been more trans­par­ent or whether any donors have told him they feel mis­led by his activities.

“I believe that I will be talk­ing exclu­sive­ly about Ini­tia­tive 1366. You can ask me every ques­tion you want,” Eyman said.

All attempts to pin Eyman down proved fruitless.

“I respect the fact that you have to ask the ques­tions … But any ques­tion you ask me about it, I’m sim­ply going to talk more about 1366,” he said.

It’s like 2002 all over again:

[Eyman] refused to answer ques­tions about the state attor­ney gen­er­al’s law­suit against him and his cam­paign com­mit­tee, Per­ma­nent Offense. State inves­ti­ga­tors say he secret­ly paid him­self $233,000 in cam­paign donations.

“I won’t be address­ing those ques­tions today,” he said repeatedly.

Before the Seat­tle Post-Intel­li­gencer exposed his mon­ey diver­sions and his for­mer busi­ness part­ner con­firmed it, why had Eyman con­sis­tent­ly claimed to be an unpaid cam­paign volunteer?

And why did he tell sup­port­ers in a mass e‑mail Mon­day that most peo­ple knew all along he was being paid?

“We’re not address­ing those ques­tions today,” he said. “Today is about Ini­tia­tive 776, and we won’t be address­ing those questions.”

Will he ever address them? Same answer.

Was yes­ter­day’s appear­ance a per­ma­nent com­ing out? Has Eyman decid­ed he’s had enough of his self-imposed pur­ga­to­r­i­al period?

“I appre­ci­ate the ques­tion, and we won’t be answer­ing that ques­tion today.”

Is he sor­ry he took the cam­paign money?

“I won’t be able to address that ques­tion today.”

The above para­graphs are from a Seat­tle Post-Intel­li­gencer sto­ry filed by leg­endary reporter Neil Modie on July 2nd, 2002 — the day Eyman turned in sig­na­tures for I‑776 (the first Eyman ini­tia­tive that NPI’s Per­ma­nent Defense fought). Modie attend­ed Eyman’s press con­fer­ence at the Sec­re­tary of State’s Elec­tions Annex and tried to get Eyman to talk about the state’s inves­ti­ga­tion into his wrongdoing.

But, like a slip­pery eel, Eyman deflect­ed every ques­tion reporters threw his way, repeat­ed­ly piv­ot­ing back to pro­mot­ing I‑776, which Eyman con­ceived to crip­ple Sound Tran­sit and pre­vent ST from start­ing con­struc­tion on Link light rail. (Thank­ful­ly, Eyman’s I‑776 failed to stop Link’s groundbreaking.)

A few weeks lat­er, he set­tled Attor­ney Gen­er­al Chris Gre­goire’s law­suit against him, pay­ing a $50,000 fine and agree­ing nev­er to again serve as a cam­paign treasurer.

Thir­teen years have passed since, but Eyman has­n’t changed much. He’s still ped­dling destruc­tive ini­tia­tives and break­ing our state’s pub­lic dis­clo­sure law in the process. Eyman seems to think the rules sim­ply don’t apply to him (iron­ic for a guy who once tried to sell a ini­tia­tive to expand gam­bling using the slo­gan Just Treat Us The Same). He resents it when the media won’t let him stick to his script.

He’s also extreme­ly irri­tat­ed that he has to put up with oppo­nents with us.

Eyman said his crit­ics are always try­ing to “change the sub­ject” from the pol­i­cy debate, and that sup­port­ers of I‑1366 want him to stay focused on the bal­lot mea­sure and noth­ing else.

What pol­i­cy debate? Tim Eyman, his wealthy bene­fac­tors, and his side­kicks aren’t inter­est­ed in hav­ing a debate, let alone a dia­logue, over what would con­sti­tute good pub­lic pol­i­cy for our state. They’re not inter­est­ed in reform­ing our tax code, mak­ing pub­lic ser­vices work more effec­tive­ly, improv­ing our state’s busi­ness cli­mate, or empow­er­ing our cities and coun­ties to bet­ter serve their constituents.

No, their objec­tive is to car­ry out Grover Norquist’s agen­da here in this Wash­ing­ton. They want to wreck our gov­ern­ment so it can’t func­tion the way our founders intend­ed it to any­more. They’re mil­i­tant extremists.

We’ve seen what hap­pens at the fed­er­al lev­el when mil­i­tant extrem­ists get to call the shots. That’s not the future we want for Wash­ing­ton State.

NPI is proud to be part of a broad, diverse, and grow­ing coali­tion com­mit­ted to the defeat of Tim Eyman’s I‑1366. Every day, more indi­vid­u­als and orga­ni­za­tions join our cause. This week, we are hap­py to wel­come the Alzheimers Asso­ci­a­tion, Asso­ci­a­tion of Man­u­fac­tured Home­own­ers, Retired Pub­lic Employ­ees of Wash­ing­ton, Group Health Coop­er­a­tive Senior Cau­cus, and Catholic Com­mu­ni­ty Ser­vices of Wash­ing­ton to the NO on I‑1366 coali­tion roster.

If you haven’t pledged to vote NO on I‑1366, we invite you to do so today. You can also make a dona­tion online to help us defeat Tim Eyman’s I‑1366.

Now is the time for us to come togeth­er as a state and reject the pol­i­tics of hostage-tak­ing. I‑1366 needs and deserves our whole­heart­ed opposition.