Four out of five KIRO talk radio hosts say they’re voting NO on Tim Eyman’s I‑1366

Ear­li­er this week, Bon­neville Inter­na­tion­al-owned KIRO 97.3 FM pub­lished a 2015 Elec­tion Guide, in which it asked five of its radio per­son­al­i­ties how they feel about this year’s crop of can­di­dates and bal­lot mea­sures. As part of the sur­vey, hosts John Cur­ley, Tom Tangney, Dori Mon­son, Ron Upshaw, and Jason Rantz were asked how they planned to vote on Tim Eyman’s dra­con­ian I‑1366.

(I‑1366, if you’re not a reg­u­lar read­er of the Cas­ca­dia Advo­cate, is Eyman’s lat­est bad idea. It’s a hostage-tak­ing scheme that would wipe out $8 bil­lion in fund­ing for vital pub­lic ser­vices if the Leg­is­la­ture does­n’t bow to the will of Eyman and his wealthy bene­fac­tors by next April and pass a con­sti­tu­tion­al amend­ment per­ma­nent­ly sab­o­tag­ing our Con­sti­tu­tion’s major­i­ty vote requirement.)

With the pre­dictable excep­tion of Mon­son, all said they were vot­ing no, which just demon­strates once again how broad and diverse I‑1366’s oppo­si­tion tru­ly is.

Here’s what the oth­er four hosts had to say about I‑1366.

“When­ev­er some­thing is that big and cum­ber­some and writ­ten that poor­ly, you have to vote ‘no’.” — John Curley

“Vote ‘no’. Because Tim Eyman’s ear­li­er pro­pos­al was found uncon­sti­tu­tion­al, he now wants a con­sti­tu­tion­al amend­ment or else! I’m not a big fan of dra­con­ian cuts or leg­isla­tive threats.” — Tom Tangney

“No, enough with this guy. They always find a work-around.” — Ron Upshaw

“No. I like the idea to make it hard­er to raise tax­es, in the­o­ry. But I don’t like how this goes about it. If you can’t pass this rule in the Leg­is­la­ture, start vot­ing peo­ple into office who won’t raise tax­es. This gives too much pow­er to a small minor­i­ty in Olympia and that can be abused by both sides. Some­times tax­es must be raised. Let’s not be held hostage by a small group of politi­cians.” — Jason Rantz

Cur­ley and Rantz are hard­ly pro­gres­sives, as Rantz him­self not­ed lat­er on in the com­ment thread, so their oppo­si­tion to I‑1366 is notable.

Also against I‑1366 are the Main­stream Repub­li­cans of Wash­ing­ton State, for­mer Gov­er­nor Dan Evans, for­mer Sec­re­taries of State Sam Reed and Ralph Munro, for­mer King Coun­ty Coun­cilmem­ber Louise Miller, and the Wash­ing­ton Round­table and Seat­tle Met­ro­pol­i­tan Cham­ber of Com­merce. They all agree that I‑1366 rep­re­sents bad pub­lic pol­i­cy and should be reject­ed by voters.

It’s no exag­ger­a­tion to say that 1366 is Eyman’s most dra­con­ian, mean-spir­it­ed ini­tia­tive yet. We need to ensure that it receives a thor­ough burial.

By Novem­ber 3rd, join us in send­ing this piece of garbage to Wash­ing­ton’s polit­i­cal grave­yard where it belongs — ten feet under­ground. Vote NO on I‑1366.