VICTORY! Tim Eyman ordered to cooperate with AG investigation, pay enforcement costs

Hope­ful­ly putting an end to months of stonewalling by Tim Eyman, Sno­homish Coun­ty Supe­ri­or Court Judge Ellen Fair today ordered the ini­tia­tive prof­i­teer to coop­er­ate with Attor­ney Gen­er­al Bob Fer­gu­son’s inves­ti­ga­tion into his alleged vio­la­tions of Wash­ing­ton’s pub­lic dis­clo­sure law, which began last fall with a refer­ral of a com­plaint from the Pub­lic Dis­clo­sure Commission.

Eyman has until July 13th to turn over tax returns, bank state­ments and oth­er infor­ma­tion sought by Fer­gu­son’s office as part of its inves­ti­ga­tion. Eyman is also being required to pay attor­ney’s fees to com­pen­sate the State of Wash­ing­ton for costs asso­ci­at­ed with enforc­ing its law­ful orders.

Judge Fair (whose sur­name earned her a pro­file in The Her­ald of Everett a few years ago) heard oral argu­ments dur­ing today’s civ­il motions cal­en­dar from Chad Stan­difer, rep­re­sent­ing the State of Wash­ing­ton, and Mark Lamb, rep­re­sent­ing Tim Eyman. After lis­ten­ing to pre­sen­ta­tions by each, she deter­mined that Eyman had no jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for not coop­er­at­ing with the investigation.

Eyman’s posi­tion, as rep­re­sent­ed by Lamb, is that he’s okay with the state’s inves­ti­ga­tors com­ing to Lam­b’s office or some oth­er loca­tion and look­ing at the request­ed records, but he does­n’t want to turn over copies of the because he’s afraid that his oppo­nents, or oth­er per­sons who are not in align­ment with his aims and agen­da, would request the infor­ma­tion through the Pub­lic Records Act.

Fer­gu­son’s office main­tains they need the records to prop­er­ly inves­ti­gate Eyman’s wrong­do­ing, that Eyman has no legit­i­mate grounds for with­hold­ing them, and that if some­body makes a request for the infor­ma­tion, there is a mech­a­nism in place that would allow Eyman to request the infor­ma­tion be exempt­ed from disclosure.

Fair agreed and grant­ed the relief request­ed by the State.

“Mr. Lamb has been quite can­did with the Court in terms of indi­cat­ing, sev­er­al times, and in his writ­ten mate­ri­als, that his client has absolute­ly no objec­tion to the State view­ing the records […] and is con­cerned clear­ly not about the State view­ing them, but about, I guess, the pub­lic view­ing them, or being out in the pub­lic purview,” she said, once Stan­difer and Lamb had fin­ished their presentations.

“But I would agree with the State that I don’t think that is what’s before the Court today. There is no pub­lic records request; this is just a request to enforce sub­poe­nas, which there’s no argu­ment being made that the State does not have the right to do. So I would agree […] there’s no pro­tec­tive order before the Court, there’s no pub­lic records request before the Court, and so I think that the State is enti­tled to the records,” she concluded.

After award­ing the State attor­ney’s fees, which the State is enti­tled to under Chap­ter 42.17A of the Revised Code of Wash­ing­ton, Fair brought the hear­ing to an end. It’s our under­stand­ing that the pro­posed order draft­ed by the State gives Eyman a cou­ple of weeks to turn over the request­ed doc­u­ments. Should he fail to do so, he could be found in con­tempt in court, which could land him in jail.

UPDATE: Attor­ney Gen­er­al Bob Fer­gu­son’s office has released a state­ment laud­ing the order and vow­ing to hold Tim Eyman accountable.

“No one is above the law,” Fer­gu­son said. “My office will con­duct a full inves­ti­ga­tion of this mat­ter, and I will not allow Tim Eyman to impede it.”

We thank Attor­ney Gen­er­al Fer­gu­son for his deter­mi­na­tion to bring the truth to light. It is vital that Tim Eyman be held respon­si­ble for his wrongdoing.