It’s time to vote NO on Tim Eyman’s I‑1366

We are just over a week away from Elec­tion Night 2015 here in Wash­ing­ton State. With the vot­ing peri­od more than halfway over, now is a good time to fill out that bal­lot and vote NO on Tim Eyman’s I‑1366, Eyman’s worst mea­sure yet.

It is crit­i­cal that we defeat I‑1366 and reject the dis­as­trous pol­i­tics of hostage-tak­ing. Con­ceived by Eyman in the wake of the crip­pling fed­er­al gov­ern­ment shut­down of 2013, I‑1366 aims to bring D.C.-style grid­lock and paral­y­sis to our state­house. It would evis­cer­ate $8 bil­lion (with a b!) in sales tax rev­enue over six years start­ing next April, unless the Leg­is­la­ture bowed to the will of Eyman and his wealthy bene­fac­tors by sab­o­tag­ing our Con­sti­tu­tion’s major­i­ty vote requirement.

Wash­ing­ton’s sales tax sup­plies near­ly half of the rev­enue we rely on to fund K‑12 schools and high­er edu­ca­tion, which con­sti­tute over fifty per­cent of gen­er­al fund expen­di­tures. The loss of $8 bil­lion over the next six years would neces­si­tate dev­as­tat­ing cuts to schools, at a time when the Supreme Court has held the Leg­is­la­ture in con­tempt for fail­ing to amply pro­vide for the edu­ca­tion of all of Wash­ing­ton’s youth, as our Con­sti­tu­tion requires.

I‑1366 is itself uncon­sti­tu­tion­al every way to Sun­day, but it is imper­a­tive that we defeat it in the court of pub­lic opin­ion this autumn, so that we can be rid of it and not have to wor­ry about chal­leng­ing it again in the courts.

With I‑1366, Eyman is try­ing to legit­imize the mil­i­tant shut­down tac­tics favored by Ted Cruz and the tea par­ty fac­tion of the House Repub­li­can cau­cus here in Wash­ing­ton State. Eyman and his extrem­ist pals want vot­ers to endorse the crazy idea of blow­ing up the state bud­get next April if law­mak­ers refuse to sab­o­tage our cher­ished tra­di­tion of major­i­ty rule for pas­sage of bills and budgets.

By vot­ing down I‑1366, we can pro­tect our vital pub­lic ser­vices, uphold our Con­sti­tu­tion, and show our elect­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives that a major­i­ty of us are opposed to the destruc­tive pol­i­tics of hostage-taking.

I‑1366 is easy to find on the bal­lot — it’s the first item that appears. For exam­ple, in King Coun­ty, I‑1366 appears just to the right of the instruc­tions, like so:

Depend­ing on what coun­ty you reside in, you’ll either need to fill in an oval, fill in a box, or con­nect bro­ken arrows to sig­ni­fy your NO vote on I‑1366.

For more infor­ma­tion on the harm I‑1366 would cre­ate, or to see the long list of peo­ple and orga­ni­za­tions opposed to I‑1366, please vis­it the NO on I‑1366 site.