NPI's Cascadia Advocate

Offering commentary and analysis from Washington, Oregon, and Idaho, The Cascadia Advocate provides the Northwest Progressive Institute's uplifting perspective on world, national, and local politics.

Friday, September 25th, 2015

Tim Eyman hides from the public as NO on I‑1366 coalition continues to ramp up

The most dan­ger­ous place in Wash­ing­ton State is no longer between Tim Eyman and a tele­vi­sion cam­era, it seems.

The noto­ri­ous­ly brash ini­tia­tive prof­i­teer, who has in pre­vi­ous years been so eager to get on TV that he has crashed oppo­nents’ press con­fer­ences, has sud­den­ly become cam­era-shy, and is choos­ing to fire off email mis­sives from home rather than appear in pub­lic, where he might be asked uncom­fort­able questions.

On Mon­day, as read­ers of the Cas­ca­dia Advo­cate know, PDC staff released a report con­clud­ing that Tim Eyman broke Wash­ing­ton’s pub­lic dis­clo­sure law again three years ago when he qual­i­fied I‑517 to the bal­lot with a stealth sig­na­ture drive.

Eyman was invit­ed to appear at the Pub­lic Dis­clo­sure Com­mis­sion’s meet­ing yes­ter­day to speak in his defense, but nei­ther he nor his lawyer showed. The PDC vot­ed unan­i­mous­ly to refer the cas­es against him to Attor­ney Gen­er­al Bob Fer­gu­son for pros­e­cu­tion, and also asked Fer­gu­son to widen the scope of the investigation.

Then today, for the sec­ond week in a row, Eyman was a no-show at the stu­dios of KING5 Tele­vi­sion for a sched­uled debate on Ini­tia­tive 1366 with Fuse founder Aaron Ostrom (Fuse, like NPI, belongs to the coali­tion that is work­ing to defeat I‑1366, Tim Eyman’s most destruc­tive ini­tia­tive ever).

Appar­ent­ly, Eyman’s been get­ting a case of the cold feet. What else could explain his deci­sion to blow off KING5 and Ostrom not once, but twice?

Though it seems unlike­ly Eyman will ever show up to debate I‑1366 with Ostrom, the Fuse founder is call­ing on Eyman to resched­ule anyway.

“The vot­ers of Wash­ing­ton deserve to have an open and hon­est debate about the mer­its of Ini­tia­tive 1366,” Ostrom said in a state­ment released by Fuse.

“This mea­sure would lock in place our upside down tax sys­tem and make it impos­si­ble to close tax loop­holes to fund our schools. I chal­lenge Eyman to come out of hid­ing and show up for a tele­vised debate next week so that vot­ers can make an edu­cat­ed and informed deci­sion about how to vote on I‑1366.”

“Tim Eyman has ille­gal­ly filled his wal­let by pro­mot­ing ini­tia­tives with bom­bas­tic state­ments and out­ra­geous press stunts. Sud­den­ly, he’s avoid­ing the press and refus­ing to defend him­self or his lat­est self-serv­ing ini­tia­tive, 1366. With only three weeks left until vot­ing begins, Eyman is in hid­ing and knows he’s in deep legal trou­ble that could final­ly end his mil­lion-dol­lar ini­tia­tive business.”

Eyman also declined to talk to our region’s TV sta­tions ear­li­er this week after the PDC’s report was released. He has said noth­ing him­self about the find­ings, not even by email, though his lawyer Mark Lamb, who is him­self no stranger to con­tro­ver­sy, has released mul­ti­ple state­ments on Eyman’s behalf (also by email).

Eyman may be out of action, but we are rolling full steam ahead with our efforts to defeat I‑1366, in part­ner­ship with a long list of allies that includes Democ­rats and Repub­li­cans. Our aim is to bring togeth­er as many Wash­ing­to­ni­ans as pos­si­ble to stand togeth­er to reject the pol­i­tics of hostage-taking.

NO on I‑1366 now has a staff of three to facil­i­tate this impor­tant work, led by cam­paign man­ag­er Neil Beaver. The coali­tion con­tin­ues to enthu­si­as­ti­cal­ly wel­come indi­vid­u­als and orga­ni­za­tions to its ros­ter on a dai­ly basis.

We at NPI would like to extend our thanks to the Faith Action Net­work, AFT Wash­ing­ton, Com­mu­ni­ty Health Net­work of Wash­ing­ton, Chil­dren’s Alliance, State Sen­a­tor Andy Bil­lig, and State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Mar­cus Ric­cel­li for recent­ly join­ing NO on I‑1366. We’re glad to have them all aboard.

If you would like to help defeat I‑1366, you can make a con­tri­bu­tion online, or pledge to vote no at the coali­tion’s web­site. We’ve only got a few weeks left to fin­ish pulling this cam­paign togeth­er, so any help you can pro­vide now is great­ly appre­ci­at­ed. Let’s keep them momen­tum building!

POSTSCRIPT: Eyman told the Seat­tle Post-Intel­li­gencer he’s try­ing to resched­ule with KING5, and send Pam Roach in his place, because the sta­tion refus­es to guar­an­tee that it would­n’t ask ques­tions about Eyman’s prob­lems with the PDC.

KING5 also has a sto­ry up about Eyman’s refusal to debate.

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One Comment

  1. One thing the Auro­ra Bridge acci­dent taught us is how great our emer­gency ser­vices are. Now Tim wants to cut into those ser­vices and he can’t even do it the legal way.

    # by Mike Barer :: September 25th, 2015 at 3:52 PM

2 Pings

  1. […] Tim Eyman not being will­ing to go on TV to talk about his lat­est ini­tia­tive warms my […]

    Ping from opine thread | HorsesAss.Org :: September 28th, 2015 at 7:52 AM
  2. […] 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. […]

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