This past Wednes­day, the Sen­ate State Gov­ern­ment & Trib­al Rela­tions Com­mit­tee vot­ed unan­i­mous­ly to advance Pat­ty Kud­er­er’s Sen­ate Bill 5224, which would per­ma­nent­ly abol­ish Tim Eyman’s advi­so­ry votes push polls.

The bill is sim­ple and straight­for­ward: it elim­i­nates the RCWs that require an “advi­so­ry vote” mea­sure to appear on the bal­lot every time the Leg­is­la­ture pass­es a bill that rais­es rev­enue. We would no longer have to put up with the stu­pid things.

These RCWs date back to 2007, when Eyman’s I‑960 nar­row­ly passed. It was­n’t until sev­er­al years lat­er, in 2012, that the “advi­so­ry votes” began appear­ing on our bal­lots, because no one remem­bered they exist­ed… not even Tim Eyman.

A total of nine­teen “advi­so­ry vote” mea­sures have now appeared on Wash­ing­to­ni­ans’ bal­lots, going back to 2012. We call them push polls because they are intend­ed to influ­ence rather than mea­sure pub­lic opin­ion, just like the faux tele­phone sur­veys they appear to be mod­eled after.

NPI Advi­so­ry Coun­cilmem­ber Steve Zemke and I tes­ti­fied in sup­port of Sen­ate Bill 5224 on Feb­ru­ary 1st before the Sen­ate State Gov­ern­ment Com­mit­tee, along with King Coun­ty Elec­tions Direc­tor Julie Wise, Kathy Saka­hara of the League of Women Vot­ers of Wash­ing­ton, and Car­ol Butterfield.

Eyman was the only speak­er in oppo­si­tion to the bill.

On Wednes­day of this week, the com­mit­tee vot­ed unan­i­mous­ly to give the bill a “do pass” rec­om­men­da­tion and send it to the Rules Committee.

To say that Tim Eyman was not pleased would be an under­state­ment. With­in hours, Eyman had flipped out. Lost it. Entered Total Melt­down Mode.

How­ev­er, unlike on Feb­ru­ary 1st, when he trained his ire on Sen­a­tor Pat­ty Kud­er­er, this time his fury was direct­ed at a more unusu­al tar­get… Repub­li­can Hans Zeiger.

Zeiger (who in his younger years was a paid peti­tion­er), vot­ed with all four of the com­mit­tee’s Demo­c­ra­t­ic Sen­a­tors to move the bill forward.

That left Eyman spit­ting mad.

In an email to his band of fol­low­ers (many of whom are also active Repub­li­can PCOs), Eyman declared a cam­paign of elec­tron­ic harass­ment against Zeiger.

(It’s his go-to tac­ti­cal response when a Repub­li­can offi­cial cross­es him.)

He exhort­ed his fol­low­ers to email, call, and text Zeiger, sup­ply­ing them and every­one else on his list with not only the Sen­a­tor’s offi­cial con­tact infor­ma­tion, but his per­son­al cell­phone num­ber and non-leg­isla­tive email address.

“One turn­coat Repub­li­can,” Eyman fumed on Wednes­day, appar­ent­ly unaware that the com­mit­tee’s vote in sup­port of SB 5224 includ­ed all three of its Repub­li­can mem­bers, not just Zeiger. “That’s what Democ­rats want: just one.”

“Turn­coat Repub­li­cans make a cal­cu­la­tion,” Eyman con­tin­ued: “the crumbs they might get from the Democ­rats are worth more than the blow­back they’ll get from the peo­ple who sup­port­ed their cam­paign and their party.”

“Zeiger thinks you won’t care that he sold you out or you won’t find out. Tell Zeiger what you think about him join­ing with Democ­rats on this.”

By the time this morn­ing rolled around, Eyman was still angry.

And so he lashed out again.

“Zeiger thinks play­ing pat­ty-cake with lib­er­als and vot­ing for their bills will shield him from Demo­c­rat [sic] attacks at elec­tion time. How’d that work out for the last Repub­li­can who tried that?” Eyman sneered above a pic­ture of Joe Fain.

“Tell Zeiger what you think about his turn­coat treach­ery,” Eyman thundered.

The pub­li­ca­tion of peo­ple’s per­son­al, non-offi­cial or non-busi­ness con­tact infor­ma­tion is explic­it­ly against the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute’s Code of Ethics and is a prac­tice that we con­sid­er abu­sive and unacceptable.

Eyman, on the oth­er hand, is hap­py to use any con­tact infor­ma­tion he can get his hands on for the pur­pose of insti­gat­ing cam­paigns of harass­ment. He has been try­ing to intim­i­date peo­ple in Wash­ing­ton pol­i­tics with such cam­paigns for years.

I have first­hand expe­ri­ence. In 2011, Eyman tried going after me.

If his goal was to deter me from orga­niz­ing oppo­si­tion to his destruc­tive ini­tia­tives, then he failed mis­er­ably. His cam­paign cer­tain­ly gave me a chance to count the num­ber of dif­fer­ent ways that his fol­low­ers spell his name (Eiman, Iman, Eman… I saw a num­ber of dif­fer­ent vari­a­tions from the delight­ful folks I got emails from.)

But aside from enter­tain­ing me, the rude, obnox­ious, and occa­sion­al­ly pro­fane emails Eyman prompt­ed his fol­low­ers to send me achieved nothing.

If Eyman sim­ply want­ed to use some­thing I’d writ­ten as a foil for his fundrais­ing appeals, then he could have done that with­out ask­ing peo­ple to both­er me.

It is a dif­fer­ent sto­ry with Repub­li­can elect­ed offi­cials, who run in the same cir­cles as Eyman does as opposed to run­ning pro­gres­sive non­prof­its. At least some of their con­stituents and even their friends are Eyman fans who Eyman can mobi­lize to engage in his cam­paigns of harass­ment. (Eyman has his­tor­i­cal­ly waged these cam­paigns using mass emails, but he’s also on Face­book now, so watch out.)

The thing is, by sup­port­ing the abol­ish­ment of “advi­so­ry votes”, Repub­li­can Sen­a­tors Hans Zeiger, Bar­bara Bai­ley, and Brad Hawkins are actu­al­ly adher­ing to con­ser­v­a­tive prin­ci­ples. Elim­i­nat­ing waste­ful gov­ern­ment spend­ing is a core tenet of right wing beliefs. How many times have we heard Repub­li­cans call for elim­i­nat­ing red tape, or tack­ling waste, fraud, and abuse in gov­ern­ment? I’ve lost track.

“Advi­so­ry votes” are not just use­less, they’re harm­ful. They were craft­ed with mali­cious intent. When Eyman says their abol­ish­ment would mean less democ­ra­cy, what he real­ly means is that their demise would harm his self-serv­ing efforts to under­mine Wash­ing­to­ni­ans’ trust and con­fi­dence in their own government.

“Advi­so­ry votes” are actu­al­ly push polls. They don’t mea­sure any­thing, so they can’t be used for advi­so­ry pur­pos­es. And since the results are not bind­ing and do not affect pub­lic pol­i­cy, they are not votes. Rather, they are just anoth­er Eyman scam.

A scam that costs tax­pay­ers each and every elec­tion cycle.

Of course Eyman wants to keep his con going. But that does­n’t mean the Repub­li­can Par­ty or Repub­li­can elect­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives should want to. Hon­est con­ser­v­a­tives and right wing intel­lec­tu­als should be appalled by Eyman’s behavior.

If  Repub­li­cans are seri­ous about get­ting rid of waste­ful spend­ing like they say they are on the stump, then they must join Democ­rats in vot­ing to get rid of Eyman’s push polls. This is a per­fect oppor­tu­ni­ty to save the tax­pay­ers some money.

Sen­a­tor Zeiger, if you get around to read­ing this post, then know that we’re sor­ry you have been sub­ject­ed to this cam­paign of harass­ment by Tim Eyman.

From our van­tage point, you are not betray­ing con­ser­v­a­tive prin­ci­ples or the Repub­li­can Par­ty by sup­port­ing Sen­ate Bill 5224. Rather, you are sup­port­ing sen­si­ble leg­is­la­tion that we should all (well, except for Eyman and his fans) be able to agree on. Thank you for your vote in sup­port of this bill, and don’t let Eyman’s nas­ti­ness get to you. Unlike him, you were elect­ed to serve our state. You’ve got a job to do. We appre­ci­ate your ser­vice even if we don’t always agree on the issues.