Dis­graced ini­tia­tive pro­mot­er Tim Eyman has at last filed an answer to the State of Wash­ing­ton’s law­suit against him and his asso­ciates — and it’s a doozy.

In a ten page plead­ing filed today with Thurston Coun­ty Supe­ri­or Court, Eyman assert­ed through his lawyer Mark Lamb that he has­n’t done any­thing wrong and is being per­se­cut­ed — uncon­sti­tu­tion­al­ly — by Attor­ney Gen­er­al Bob Fer­gu­son’s office. Accord­ing­ly, Eyman is coun­ter­su­ing and request­ing declara­to­ry judg­ment find­ing that the relief sought by the state vio­lates his con­sti­tu­tion­al rights.

Besides a dis­missal of the state’s suit, Eyman also wants an injunc­tion bar­ring the state from seek­ing or impos­ing its own pre­vi­ous­ly request­ed injunc­tion block­ing him from engag­ing in future finan­cial manipulations.

And he wants the state to pay Lam­b’s attor­ney’s fees, too.

Fer­gu­son’s office had no imme­di­ate com­ment on the plead­ing. But judg­ing by this answer and its coun­ter­claims, it seems that we are head­ed for a trial.

Whether that tri­al will take place in Thurston Coun­ty, where the state filed its law­suit, remains to be seen, as Eyman is object­ing to the venue.

It’s true Eyman does­n’t live in Thurston Coun­ty. But Eyman is in Thurston Coun­ty fre­quent­ly and has actu­al­ly filed his own actions in Thurston Coun­ty Supe­ri­or Court rep­re­sent­ing him­self. We imag­ine that Eyman is only con­tend­ing that Thurston Coun­ty is an incon­ve­nient, inap­pro­pri­ate venue for this suit because he wants to con­tin­ue to delay a poten­tial judg­ment against him for as long as possible.

Fif­teen years ago, when then-Attor­ney Gen­er­al Chris Gre­goire sued Eyman for con­ceal­ing pay­ments to him­self and fail­ing to file truth­ful reports, Eyman’s attor­ney nego­ti­at­ed a set­tle­ment, in which Eyman agreed to nev­er again to serve as a cam­paign trea­sur­er. The set­tle­ment was announced in July of 2002.

This time, though, Eyman wants to play hard­ball and drag every­thing out.

He’s up against a very tough oppo­nent in Ferguson.

Hav­ing suc­cess­ful­ly tak­en on defen­dants like Don­ald Trump and the Gro­cery Man­u­fac­tur­ers Asso­ci­a­tion in the courts, Fer­gu­son is unlike­ly to back down. And that’s a good thing, because Eyman’s con­duct has been atrocious.

Eyman has repeat­ed­ly refused to clean up his act despite hav­ing been giv­en many oppor­tu­ni­ties to do so. He’s clear­ly not sor­ry for his behav­ior. It is vital that he be held account­able for his repeat­ed law­break­ing by the courts.

Most of the answer Eyman sub­mit­ted to the court con­sists of state­ments admit­ting to basic facts while deny­ing all alle­ga­tions of wrongdoing.

Eyman’s attor­ney Mark Lamb states in this plead­ing that Eyman and his lim­it­ed lia­bil­i­ty com­pa­ny (“Watch­dog For Tax­pay­ers”) will present a num­ber of coun­ter­claims and affir­ma­tive defens­es. These are, in their words:

• Fault of a nonparty.
• Statute of limitations.
• Fail­ure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted.
• Unclean hands.
• Equi­table Estoppel.
• Plain­tiff’s claims vio­late the Defen­dan­t’s right to equal pro­tec­tion under the laws as guar­an­teed by the Four­teenth Amend­ment to the Unit­ed States Constitution.
• Plain­tiff brings this suit in vio­la­tion of the First Amend­ment to the United
  States Con­sti­tu­tion and Arti­cle I Sec­tion 5 of the Wash­ing­ton State Con­sti­tu­tion by assert­ing a vague and ambigu­ous inter­pre­ta­tion of RCW 42.17A (includ­ing but not lim­it­ed to 42.17A.445) which does not apply to Defen­dan­t’s con­duct in this case.
• The relief sought by Plain­tiff vio­lates the Defen­dants’ rights under Arti­cle 1 Sec­tion 4 & Arti­cle II Sec­tion 1 of the Wash­ing­ton State Con­sti­tu­tion which enshrines the right of the peo­ple to peti­tion and reserves for the cit­i­zens of this state the pow­er of initiative.
• The relief sought by Plain­tiff vio­lates the Defen­dants’ rights under the First
  Amend­ment to the Unit­ed States Con­sti­tu­tion and Arti­cle I Sec­tion 5 of the Wash­ing­ton State Con­sti­tu­tion which grants the cit­i­zens of this state the right to freely speak, write and pub­lish on all subjects.

“Defen­dant reserves the right to assert addi­tion­al Affir­ma­tive Defens­es as the facts and cir­cum­stances of Plain­tiff’s Com­plaint are more ful­ly deter­mined through dis­cov­ery,” the plead­ing adds.

The oth­er defen­dants in the suit — William Agazarm and Cit­i­zen Solu­tions — have yet to file an answer to the state’s law­suit. In the past, they have also been rep­re­sent­ed by Mark Lamb, but it’s pos­si­ble they have now retained their own counsel.

Look for more analy­sis from NPI regard­ing this case in the days to come.