“There are no limits on how much can be given”: Tim Eyman would like your money

Twen­ty years ago, before Tim Eyman had become a house­hold name and a mas­ter media manip­u­la­tor, he was a sell­er of wrist­watch­es to fra­ter­ni­ties and soror­i­ties, resid­ing near Green Lake in Seat­tle. This was, for many years, the text that greet­ed vis­i­tors to Eyman’s Insignia Cor­po­ra­tion web­site, greekwatch.com:

Estab­lished in 1989, Insignia Cor­po­ra­tion is offi­cial­ly licensed with over 60 Nation­al Fra­ter­ni­ties and Sororities.

We spe­cial­ize in a wide selec­tion of logo wrist watch­es car­ry­ing the offi­cial Coat-of-Arms and Greek let­ters for all groups.

All our watch­es car­ry a gen­er­ous mul­ti-year war­ran­ty and every pur­chase includes our 90-day mon­ey-back guarantee.

And you’ll be glad to know we con­tribute half of the prof­its from the sale of these watch­es to the edu­ca­tion­al pro­grams and activ­i­ties of your organization.

In 1999, Eyman spon­sored Ini­tia­tive 695, which gut­ted the statewide motor vehi­cle excise tax (MVET), which fund­ed roads, fer­ries, tran­sit, pub­lic health, and a host of oth­er pub­lic ser­vices. The cam­paign cat­a­pult­ed Eyman into the pub­lic eye, and he rel­ished the atten­tion. In the wake of I‑695’s pas­sage and even­tu­al demise in the courts, Eyman’s watch busi­ness fell by the way­side as he began rais­ing mon­ey to qual­i­fy more destruc­tive ini­tia­tives to Wash­ing­ton’s statewide ballot.

By 2002, Eyman had begun raid­ing his cam­paign trea­sury for his own per­son­al use. When ques­tioned about sus­pi­cious trans­fers from his Per­ma­nent Offense polit­i­cal com­mit­tee to a for-prof­it cor­po­ra­tion he’d set up with the same name (Per­ma­nent Offense, Inc.), Eyman main­tained he was a vol­un­teer and was not get­ting paid to work on ini­tia­tives. But of course, that was a lie. Eyman was help­ing him­self to the mon­ey he was rais­ing from donors with­out telling them.

In Feb­ru­ary of 2002, after again lying to the pub­lic and the press about his pay­ments to him­self, Eyman unloaded his guilty con­science in a Sun­day evening phone call to The Asso­ci­at­ed Press’ David Ammons, who is now retired after a long career in jour­nal­ism and pub­lic ser­vice. Some notable quotes from that sto­ry:

“The fact is, it is true that I made mon­ey in past cam­paigns and planned to make mon­ey on future campaigns.”

“This entire cha­rade was set up so I could main­tain a moral supe­ri­or­i­ty over our oppo­si­tion, so I could say our oppo­nents make mon­ey from pol­i­tics and I don’t.”

“It was addic­tive. I was get­ting deep­er and deep­er and deep­er into this cha­rade. I thought I found a way to make mon­ey off our ini­tia­tives with­out our oppo­nents know­ing it, or know­ing it for sure. I was too clever by half. I just got deep­er and deep­er into this lie.”

“I was in lie mode… I became rid­dled with guilt. It was the biggest lie of my life and it was over the stu­pid­est thing in the world. The biggest thing I’m guilti­est of is an enor­mous ego. Hubris.”

“I want to con­tin­ue to advo­cate issues and I want to make a lot of mon­ey doing it.”

“I am worth every penny.”

I’ve bold­ed the last two quotes because they exem­pli­fy how, even as Eyman was admit­ting his big lie, he was still exalt­ing him­self. I’m not sure he has ever learned the virtue of humil­i­ty, as hum­ble is about the last word that I’d use to describe him. He’s cer­tain­ly engaged in self-dep­re­ca­tion at times, but that isn’t the same thing.

There is arguably no one in Wash­ing­ton State more shame­less at ask­ing for mon­ey than Tim Eyman. Leg­endary KOMO com­men­ta­tor Ken Schram used to reg­u­lar­ly berate Eyman for his dis­hon­esty and self-serv­ing appeals for cam­paign cash.

Fif­teen years ago Tues­day, Schram aired a mem­o­rable com­men­tary in which he said:

I’m tryin’ to iron out this new Tim Eyman wrinkle.

Let’s see if I got it right:

Tim’s ask­ing peo­ple to send him mon­ey to bail him out of the trou­ble he’s in for tak­ing mon­ey that at one time he said he nev­er took.

Now, since Tim cer­tain­ly could­n’t pay tax­es on mon­ey he lied about tak­ing, he’s in that hole.

And, since he got caught with cam­paign dol­lars stuck to his fin­gers, Tim’s also being sued by the state.

Which means he’s got legal bills and fines like­ly lurk­ing in his future.

And so, that’s why Tim has come back to the peo­ple whose mon­ey he took, ask­ing them to send him more money.

I’ve now got a whole new image of Tim now.

I see a Tim who’s not too proud to beg; a Tim who’s not afraid of stoop­ing to new lows.

I see a Tim who’s not ashamed to say, ‘Sure, I took your mon­ey before and lied about it. But send me your mon­ey now and I’ll tell you the truth: It’s for me. All of it. Every pen­ny goes into my pocket.’

Me? I think Tim can go out and earn all the mon­ey he wants.

He should just hit the pro­fes­sion­al ten­nis circuit.

He’s already got all the rack­et he’ll ever need.

It is remark­able how this com­men­tary rings true fif­teen years lat­er. Once again, Tim Eyman is being sued by the state and is ask­ing those of his fol­low­ers who still believe in him to bail him out, claim­ing to be the vic­tim of a “stun­ning witch hunt” by Demo­c­ra­t­ic State Attor­ney Gen­er­al Bob Ferguson.

In real­i­ty, all of Eyman’s legal woes are self-inflict­ed. He got him­self in trou­ble by arro­gant­ly refus­ing to obey our state’s pub­lic dis­clo­sure laws.

But Eyman does not want to be held to account for those mis­takes. He does­n’t want to work off the court costs and the legal bills him­self by find­ing a new, more respectable line of work. Rather, he wants his sup­port­ers to take care of that.

In a let­ter sent by U.S. Mail to a list of poten­tial donors, Eyman says he is aim­ing to raise $600,000 for his legal defense. “I need help, a lot of help,” Eyman says.

At the same time, Eyman is try­ing to secure hun­dreds of thou­sands of addi­tion­al dol­lars to finance a sig­na­ture dri­ve for I‑947. With­out com­mit­ments from wealthy bene­fac­tors, I‑947 is doomed to suf­fer the fate of the last four ini­tia­tives Eyman print­ed up peti­tions for, which all end­ed up in the dustbin.

Eyman hap­pi­ly col­lect­ed dona­tions for each of those four failed ini­tia­tives. Then he turned around and dis­pensed the mon­ey to him­self and his asso­ciates the Fagans (Jack, Mike, and Janet) in the form of pay­outs and reimbursements.

Since Eyman was­n’t able to lock down com­mit­ments from his wealthy bene­fac­tors to launch sig­na­ture dri­ves for any of those ini­tia­tives, he became a lob­by­ist, using the dona­tions made to his fake ini­tia­tives to sub­si­dize his travel.

This past leg­isla­tive ses­sion, Eyman tight­ly aligned him­self with Mark Schoesler and the Sen­ate Repub­li­cans, even with­hold­ing crit­i­cism of them for propos­ing to raise the prop­er­ty tax­es of sub­ur­ban home­own­ers like him­self.

Now Eyman is try­ing to get his ini­tia­tive fac­to­ry restart­ed. And once again, he is shak­ing his elec­tron­ic tin cup and exhort­ing his fol­low­ers to give, give, give.

If you sup­port stick­ing it to Sound Tran­sit by Bring­ing Back Our $30 Tabs for every­one in the state of Wash­ing­ton (for cars, trucks, vans, SUVs, motor­cy­cles, motor homes, RVs, 5th wheels, and oth­er vehi­cles), then please send us a dona­tion for $10, $25, $50, $100, $250, $500, $1000, $2500, $5000 or more (there are no lim­its on how much can be giv­en). You can go to our web­site right now and make a secure on-line con­tri­bu­tion by Pay­Pal or VISA or M/C. OR, you can print this form, fill it out, and return it with a check or cred­it card information.

For as long as I can remem­ber, the stan­dard Eyman fundrais­ing pitch has always includ­ed this line: There are no lim­its on how much can be giv­en.

Eyman empha­sizes this because he real­ly, real­ly, real­ly wants your mon­ey. Give him some, and you can expect in short order to be asked to give him more.

To be a patron of this man, you’ve got to be will­ing to put up with a lot.

That is cer­tain­ly true of Eyman’s wealthy bene­fac­tors, who have been less and less gen­er­ous to Eyman since 2015. Because they’ve pulled back and stopped writ­ing six fig­ure checks, Eyman has­n’t been able to run any sig­na­ture dri­ves.

If you are a vot­er who resents pay­ing tax­es to Sound Tran­sit and are intrigued by the prospect of help­ing Eyman “stick it to Sound Tran­sit”, real­ize that in the long run, sup­port­ing Tim Eyman is going to cost you more than the vehi­cle fees you cur­rent­ly pay, unless you donate only very small sums. (Eyman would pre­fer that you give him large sums — as much as you can pos­si­bly afford.)

If you give Eyman a few hun­dred bucks for I‑947, like he’s ask­ing right now, you’re not going to “save” any mon­ey should vehi­cle fee increas­es be repealed, cer­tain­ly not in the first year, unless you own a lot of cars.

The mon­ey you hear Eyman talk­ing about going back into your pock­et­book will have gone to him instead. You won’t be any bet­ter off finan­cial­ly than if you’d sim­ply con­tin­ued to pay vehi­cle fees to Sound Tran­sit… which is a far bet­ter invest­ment. (With Sound Tran­sit you’re at least get­ting some­thing tan­gi­ble for your money.)

And if you give Eyman thousands?

Well, then, you’re real­ly part­ing with your money.

Final­ly, real­ize that if you choose to stay on his list, Eyman will NEVER stop ask­ing you for mon­ey. You will get appeals for dol­lars at least twice a week.

If you’re an Eyman fan read­ing this post, you may think I’m being unfair. After all, every­one fundrais­es in pol­i­tics. Includ­ing us.

But here’s the thing: Most cam­paigns and orga­ni­za­tions are not fun­da­men­tal­ly dis­hon­est like Tim Eyman is.

Eyman has a long track record of dup­ing his donors. He has tak­en cam­paign cash to pay him­self while lying about it. He has mis­cal­cu­lat­ed how many sig­na­tures he need­ed to buy and missed the bal­lot. He has used mon­ey raised for one ini­tia­tive to qual­i­fy a com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent ini­tia­tive. He has arranged, ille­gal­ly, to receive kick­backs from the com­pa­ny he con­tracts with to run his sig­na­ture dri­ves (“Cit­i­zen Solu­tions”). He has kept on fundrais­ing for ini­tia­tives he’s giv­en up try­ing to qualify.

There’s just no lim­it to his dis­hon­esty. Or his greed. It goes on, and on, and on.

Eyman’s cred­i­bil­i­ty has tak­en a lot of hits over the years due to his lying, cheat­ing, and dou­ble-deal­ing, and deserved­ly so. But he still has some fans out there. And what’s dis­heart­en­ing is that once again, Eyman is try­ing to exploit them to get ahead. He sees an oppor­tu­ni­ty to revive his fail­ing, flail­ing operation.

If you’re some­one read­ing this post who is upset about vehi­cle fees, under­stand that help­ing Tim Eyman “stick it to Sound Tran­sit” isn’t a good invest­ment. Many Repub­li­can activists and cap­tains of indus­try in Wash­ing­ton have got­ten burned by doing busi­ness with this man, and regret­ted it, deeply. If you care about what hap­pens to your mon­ey, don’t entrust a cent of it to Tim Eyman.