Tim Eyman is los­ing in court and under inves­ti­ga­tion by Attor­ney Gen­er­al Bob Fer­gu­son for sub­stan­tive vio­la­tions of Wash­ing­ton pub­lic dis­clo­sure law, but that’s not stop­ping him from swing­ing for the fences in 2016. Today, Eyman announced that he plans to qual­i­fy not one, but two ini­tia­tives to the bal­lot this year.

The first, unveiled back in Novem­ber, would uncon­sti­tu­tion­al­ly slap an one-year expi­ra­tion date on any rev­enue increase passed by the Leg­is­la­ture.

The sec­ond, glee­ful­ly revealed by Eyman in front of a bevy of tele­vi­sion cam­eras today, is Ini­tia­tive 1421. I‑1421 would evis­cer­ate fund­ing for rail tran­sit and road improve­ments by rolling back exist­ing statewide and local vehi­cle fees.

Tim Eyman becomes the first sign­er of Ini­tia­tive 1421 (Pho­to: Andrew Villeneuve/NPI)

Eyman’s I‑1421 would also rescind the recent­ly restored motor vehi­cle excise tax (MVET) author­i­ty giv­en to Sound Tran­sit by the Leg­is­la­ture enable ST to pro­pose a com­pre­hen­sive Sound Tran­sit 3 pack­age backed by sta­ble rev­enue sources.

Eyman made it clear in his script­ed remarks for today’s media event that he intends to resume his war on Sound Tran­sit and Link light rail with this initiative:

Seat­tle-cen­tric Sound Tran­sit is, by far, the most arro­gant, unac­count­able gov­ern­ment agency in our state’s his­to­ry. They’re forc­ing tax­pay­ers out­side Seat­tle to pay for their mul­ti-bil­lion dol­lar choo choo train boon­dog­gles in Seattle. 

Seat­tle-cen­tric Sound Tran­sit is a mul­ti-bil­lion-dol­lar black hole for our tax dol­lars and needs to be held account­able for their arro­gance and incom­pe­tence. [Ini­tia­tive 1421] gets rid of car tab tax­es cur­rent­ly being imposed by Seat­tle-cen­tric Sound Transit.

In addi­tion, Seat­tle-cen­tric Sound Tran­sit is going to try to impose $15-$25 bil­lion in addi­tion­al tax­es this year — our ini­tia­tive derails that.  [Ini­tia­tive 1421] throws a much need­ed mon­key wrench into what they’re call­ing “ST3.”

I could­n’t help but laugh when I read the above in an email Eyman sent out this morn­ing. Seri­ous­ly… it’s like he’s liv­ing in anoth­er decade.

Earth to Tim: this is 2016, not 2002. Sound Tran­sit is not the weak tar­get of yes­ter­year. Today, Sound Tran­sit is a high-per­form­ing, extreme­ly effec­tive pub­lic agency that is pop­u­lar with the pub­lic. And Link light rail is no longer a far-off dream — it’s real. It’s here. It exists. Peo­ple use it to get to work every day. And this year, we’re adding three new sta­tions to it. Two of those will open with­in fifty days.

Sound Tran­sit is still here and Link is a real­i­ty because we came togeth­er as a region to get it done. Tim Eyman tried to dis­man­tle Sound Tran­sit and pre­vent Cen­tral Link — which he denounced as a “choo choo train” — from ever being built.

But he failed. We over­came his oppo­si­tion, along with that of his fel­low anti-rail zealots. And since the ground­break­ing of Cen­tral Link (an event that occurred in late 2003, the same year as the found­ing of NPI), we have seen steady, unin­ter­rupt­ed progress. Progress that must continue.

I remem­ber all this his­to­ry well because I’ve lived it. 2002 was the year I became an activist, leav­ing my pas­sivist past behind. Four­teen Feb­ru­arys ago, many peo­ple thought that Eyman might be fin­ished in pol­i­tics after he was caught hav­ing lied about lin­ing his own pock­ets with his cam­paign cash. I was­n’t so sure.

Once I saw that the right wing was pre­pared to for­give Eyman, I real­ized Eyman would remain a threat for years to come. I con­clud­ed our state need­ed a Per­ma­nent Defense against Eyman’s ini­tia­tive fac­to­ry. And so I cre­at­ed one.

Today, Per­ma­nent Defense is still going strong, as NPI’s old­est project. It will cel­e­brate its four­teenth anniver­sary next Monday.

Per­ma­nent Defense’s very first mis­sion, all the way back in 2002, was to defend Sound Tran­sit from Tim Eyman’s ini­tia­tive fac­to­ry. 2002 was the year that Eyman launched Ini­tia­tive 776, a scheme to repeal Sound Tran­sit’s motor vehi­cle excise tax author­i­ty, so that it would be unable to con­struct Cen­tral Link.

I spent a good chunk of 2002 help­ing orga­nize oppo­si­tion to I‑776; it was my first cam­paign. One of the tasks that I worked on was coali­tion recruit­ment. I reached out to as many com­pa­nies and orga­ni­za­tions as I could, ask­ing if they’d tak­en a posi­tion against I‑776, and to go on record against I‑776 if they hadn’t.

In Novem­ber of 2002, I‑776 nar­row­ly passed statewide while fail­ing in Sound Tran­sit’s juris­dic­tion. Eyman thought he had won, but Sound Tran­sit argued in court that because it had already pledged its MVET rev­enue to pay off bonds, its MVET had to con­tin­ue to be col­lect­ed. To Eyman’s sur­prise and dis­gust, the courts agreed. Light rail moved for­ward, and Tim Eyman’s plans to wreck it were foiled.

I should point out that, in ear­ly 2002, there weren’t many peo­ple or orga­ni­za­tions defend­ing Sound Tran­sit. NPI’s Per­ma­nent Defense was one of a few out­spo­ken ST sup­port­ers, along with Ron Sims, Greg Nick­els, our friends at the Trans­porta­tion Choic­es Coali­tion, and Richard Borkows­ki of Peo­ple for Mod­ern Transit.

The young, vibrant, pro-Sound Tran­sit com­mu­ni­ty that you’ll find today on social media and in the com­ment threads at Seat­tle Tran­sit Blog sim­ply did­n’t exist then. Being a sup­port­er of Sound Tran­sit was, in some ways, like being a Sea­hawks fan when the team played in the King­dome and was­n’t very good. It felt lone­ly at times. There weren’t as many peo­ple on the bandwagon.

Thank­ful­ly, those days are a dis­tant blip in the rearview mirror.

Nowa­days, Sound Tran­sit has lots and lots of sup­port­ers — and not just among my gen­er­a­tion. Sound Tran­sit has proved that it can con­sis­tent­ly deliv­er projects on time (or even ahead of sched­ule!) and under bud­get. ST’s increased respect and trust with the pub­lic has been earned, one project at a time.

Since 2002, in addi­tion to open­ing Cen­tral Link and Air­port Link, Sound Tran­sit has expand­ed Sounder com­muter rail in two direc­tions, built the Taco­ma Link street­car, added routes and hours to its Express bus net­work, and helped WSDOT improve our urban trans­porta­tion sys­tem by con­struct­ing express bus ramps, new HOV lanes, and part­nered with Metro to cre­ate big­ger and bet­ter park and rides.

Very sim­ply, Sound Tran­sit is mak­ing things hap­pen. Peo­ple can see it with their own eyes. Because ST con­tin­ues to offer more options for get­ting around, rid­er­ship has con­tin­ued to increase. And so has the agen­cy’s popularity.

I bring all this up because I’m real­ly not sure if Tim Eyman real­izes who he is pick­ing a fight with. It isn’t just NPI. As I already said, the way Tim’s talk­ing, it sounds like he thinks it’s still 2002. And it’s not. We will be in very, very good com­pa­ny as we launch and rapid­ly accel­er­ate the NO on I‑1421 cam­paign. The peo­ple of this region want Sound Tran­sit 3. They want Sound Tran­sit to succeed.

Eyman is bet­ting he can sab­o­tage Sound Tran­sit with anoth­er statewide ini­tia­tive. He’s boast­ing that the ear­ly polling that he did for I‑1421 shows I‑1421 has lots of sup­port. Of course, his polling num­bers are worth­less. Eyman makes sim­i­lar claims about every ini­tia­tive that he runs, and he fre­quent­ly pro­duces polling which he claims demon­strates his mea­sures are unbeatable.

But there’s no such thing as an unbeat­able ini­tia­tive. We know from expe­ri­ence that Eyman can be defeat­ed. It takes resources and it takes orga­niz­ing, but it can be done. Three years ago, we helped trounce a sup­pos­ed­ly unbeat­able Eyman ini­tia­tive, hand­ing Eyman his worst-ever elec­toral defeat.

With I‑1421, Eyman is also going after WSDOT and Amtrak Cas­cades. It’s impor­tant to remem­ber that con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly, gas tax rev­enue can­not be used for non-high­way pur­pos­es. This means rail projects have to be fund­ed with oth­er sources of rev­enue… like vehi­cle weight fees.

Eyman’s I‑1421 would pret­ty much evis­cer­ate this rev­enue, hurt­ing not only Cas­cades, but also WSDOT’s freight mobil­i­ty programs.

To every pro-tran­sit activist out there who is read­ing this post, I say: We need you. This is an all-hands-on-deck sit­u­a­tion. Tim Eyman’s I‑1421 can and must be defeat­ed. With your help, we can ensure that I‑1421 gets the vig­or­ous, unrelet­ing oppo­si­tion that it needs and deserves.

If you’d like to become part of the team that will lead the way in fight­ing I‑1421, we urge you to con­sid­er becom­ing a mem­ber of the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute.

A great oppor­tu­ni­ty to learn about our work is com­ing up in two months at our 2016 Spring Fundrais­ing Gala on April 1st. Details about the event are avail­able on our web­site. Ear­ly-bird tick­ets are on sale for a few more days… secure your spot at this great event while the ear­ly-bird rate is still in effect.

Next week, when Per­ma­nent Defense offi­cial­ly turns four­teen, I’ll have more to say about our plans to defeat I‑1421 and the oth­er ini­tia­tive Eyman intends to qual­i­fy to the bal­lot this year with the help of his wealthy benefactors.

NPI sup­port­ers can rest assured that we are already busy lay­ing ground­work against Eyman’s lat­est assault on Sound Tran­sit and WSDOT. Time is a pre­cious resource, and not some­thing that should be wast­ed. We are ready to take on Tim Eyman’s ini­tia­tive fac­to­ry again, and we hope that you are, too. Let’s win!