Tim Eyman offers tacit backing of Republican levy swipe scheme he once opposed

Dis­graced ini­tia­tive pro­mot­er Tim Eyman today revealed mid­way through an email to his fol­low­ers that he’s on board with Wash­ing­ton State Sen­ate Repub­li­cans’ plan to swipe prop­er­ty tax school levy dol­lars from urban and sub­ur­ban school dis­tricts and send them to rur­al school dis­tricts they hap­pen to represent.

After shak­ing his fist at the Sen­ate Demo­c­ra­t­ic cau­cus for refus­ing to capit­u­late to his demands to sub­vert the Con­sti­tu­tion and impose restric­tions on rais­ing rev­enue, Eyman went after them for not sup­port­ing the Repub­li­cans’ levy swipe scheme:

A few weeks ago, these same 19 Democ­rats also vot­ed against the Repub­li­cans’ edu­ca­tion plan which lets the vot­ers decide on a reform pack­age that reduces prop­er­ty tax­es for 80% of prop­er­ty owners.

So not only have these 19 Demo­c­rat [sic] sen­a­tors vot­ed to make it eas­i­er to raise tax­es, they’ve also vot­ed against reduc­ing prop­er­ty tax­es. Seat­tle already has 5 Sen­a­tors, they don’t deserve 19 more.

(There are cur­rent­ly twen­ty-four mem­bers of the Sen­ate Demo­c­ra­t­ic cau­cus; Eyman is sin­gling out the nine­teen mem­bers who rep­re­sent leg­isla­tive dis­tricts out­side of Seat­tle, because Seat­tle vot­ers nev­er sup­port his initiatives.)

Con­sid­er­ing that many of the Sen­ate’s twen­ty-four Demo­c­ra­t­ic sen­a­tors rep­re­sent school dis­tricts where prop­er­ty tax­es would be increas­ing under the Sen­ate Repub­li­cans’ SSB 5607, it’s par­tic­u­lar­ly absurd for Eyman to be claim­ing they vot­ed against reduc­ing prop­er­ty tax­es. That’s a whop­per of a falsehood.

The Sen­ate Repub­li­cans’ 2017 levy swipe scheme is a scam of epic pro­por­tions, much like Tim’s ini­tia­tives. It would result in less mon­ey going to schools over­all, and it would trans­fer tax oblig­a­tions away from rur­al prop­er­ty own­ers while increas­ing the oblig­a­tions of urban and sub­ur­ban prop­er­ty own­ers. It’s bad all around.

It is impor­tant to under­stand Wash­ing­ton would not end up with a fair­er tax code as a result of this. Instead, the tax code would become even more unbal­anced.

Sen­ate Repub­li­cans admit their levy swipe scheme would mean sig­nif­i­cant prop­er­ty tax increas­es for King Coun­ty tax­pay­ers. Via The Seat­tle Times:

State Sen­ate Repub­li­cans have released revised num­bers for their pro­pos­al to ful­ly fund the state’s K‑12 school sys­tem — and they show that many Seat­tle-area home­own­ers would see a big prop­er­ty-tax increase. The aver­age home­own­er in the Seat­tle School Dis­trict would pay $628 more in prop­er­ty tax­es in 2019, accord­ing to the revised num­bers in the plan. And in 2021, the new GOP data show the increase to an aver­age Seat­tle home­own­er reach­ing $686.

Neigh­bor­ing sub­ur­ban dis­tricts would see big increas­es too:

In 2019, the aver­age home­owner in the Mer­cer Island School Dis­trict would see an increase of $1,302 in prop­er­ty tax­es — ris­ing to $1,430 in 2021. In the Lake Wash­ing­ton School Dis­trict, the aver­age home­own­er would see a prop­er­ty-tax hike in 2019 of $576 — ris­ing to $648 in 2021.

The Muk­il­teo School Dis­trict, which Eyman pays prop­er­ty tax­es to, is among those dis­tricts that would see an increase, although its increase would be much small­er than the afore­men­tioned dis­tricts in King Coun­ty — $19 in 2019 and $84 in 2021.

Two years ago, when Repub­li­cans pro­posed a sim­i­lar levy swipe scheme, Eyman came out swing­ing… at them. In an email authored Tues­day, April 23rd, 2015, he appealed to Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee to put the kibosh on their scheme:

RE: Sen­ate Repub­li­cans pro­pose mas­sive prop­er­ty tax hike — will Inslee save the day?

Can­di­date Inslee ridiculed the so-called “prop­er­ty tax levy swap.” He repeat­ed­ly called it a “gim­mick”. He said it was “a clas­sic maneu­ver by politi­cians in Olympia.” He said it was a “shell game” that raised tax­es on near­ly half of all prop­er­ty tax pay­ers. He tore into it with vig­or and verve. He was emphat­ic. He was unambiguous.

The peo­ple elect­ed a man who adamant­ly opposed this.

Will Gov­er­nor Inslee come rid­ing to the res­cue when it comes to the Sen­ate Repub­li­cans’ bill (Sen­ate Bill 6109) which does exact­ly what he ridiculed? In today’s Taco­ma News Tri­bune, they report the Repub­li­cans’ bill “would raise prop­er­ty tax­es in more than 40 per­cent of Washington’s school districts.”

Inslee despised it as a can­di­date, will he stop it as Gov­er­nor? Can we count on him to pro­tect us from this mas­sive prop­er­ty tax hike?

Sen­ate Bill 6109 received a hear­ing in the Sen­ate Ways & Means Com­mit­tee on April 17th, a week pri­or to the email quot­ed above. It nev­er made it any fur­ther than that. But the idea did not die. Sen­ate Repub­li­cans recy­cled it and made it the cen­ter­piece of the edu­ca­tion bill they passed out of the Sen­ate ear­li­er this month.

Tim Eyman was unequiv­o­cal­ly opposed to Sen­ate Repub­li­cans’ levy swipe scheme just two years ago. Now he’s tac­it­ly endors­ing the newest incar­na­tion of it and blast­ing Demo­c­ra­t­ic sen­a­tors for vot­ing against it on the Sen­ate floor.

What gives? Hypocrisy is noth­ing new for Eyman, to be sure, but how can he be okay with SSB 5607 when it rais­es prop­er­ty tax­es on sub­ur­ban home­own­ers like him­self? If there’s one thing that we know Eyman absolute­ly detests, it’s hav­ing to pay more in tax­es to sup­port our vital pub­lic services.

It sure seems like Eyman and the Sen­ate Repub­li­cans have reached some kind of under­stand­ing, because Eyman has for­sak­en his sup­posed prin­ci­ples to march in lock­step with Sen­ate Repub­li­cans, and they been will­ing­ly asso­ci­at­ing with him, even though he’s under inves­ti­ga­tion for seri­ous pub­lic dis­clo­sure law violations.