Bill to repeal Tim Eyman’s push polls advances to floor of Washington State Senate

Hap­py news to share: One of NPI’s most impor­tant Wash­ing­ton State leg­isla­tive pri­or­i­ties for 2019 is anoth­er step clos­er to the fin­ish line.

Yes­ter­day, the Sen­ate Rules Com­mit­tee vot­ed unan­i­mous­ly to advance Sen­a­tor Pat­ty Kud­er­er’s SB 5224 to the floor of the Sen­ate, where it now awaits a vote on final pas­sage by the cham­ber’s forty-nine members.

SB 5224 would per­ma­nent­ly abol­ish Tim Eyman’s waste­ful and decep­tive push polls, which Eyman false­ly calls advi­so­ry votes. Nine­teen of Eyman’s push polls have clut­tered up Wash­ing­to­ni­ans’ bal­lots since 2012, but the absurd things could soon be his­to­ry if the Sen­ate takes action to repeal them and the House fol­lows suit.

The Sen­ate State Gov­ern­ment gave SB 5224 a unan­i­mous, bipar­ti­san “do pass” rec­om­men­da­tion ear­li­er this month, spark­ing an epic Tim Eyman melt­down that includ­ed the insti­ga­tion of a mul­ti-day cam­paign of harass­ment against Repub­li­can State Sen­a­tor Hans Zeiger (R‑25th Dis­trict: Pierce County).

The bill is now list­ed thir­ty-ninth on the Sen­ate’s cal­en­dar order. A total of six­ty-nine bills are cur­rent­ly in the queue wait­ing for floor debate.

While we don’t expect to see SB 5224 sail out of the full Sen­ate pri­or to the next cut­off with­out oppo­si­tion, it sure would be nice if it did.

Repub­li­cans have spent years com­plain­ing about waste, fraud, and abuse in gov­ern­ment. Now they have an oppor­tu­ni­ty to vote for a sim­ple bill that gets rid of some­thing that’s unques­tion­ably, incred­i­bly waste­ful: Tim Eyman’s push polls.

Huge kudos to Sen­a­tor Pat­ty Kud­er­er, who rep­re­sents NPI’s home dis­trict, for spon­sor­ing this bill and shep­herd­ing it to the Sen­ate floor.

Along with Sen­a­tor Man­ka Dhin­gra (Red­mond’s oth­er sen­a­tor and a board­mem­ber of the North­west Pro­gres­sive Foun­da­tion, NPI’s sib­ling), Sen­a­tor Kud­er­er has proven her­self to be one of the Sen­ate’s most effec­tive, dri­ven lawmakers.

It’s because of law­mak­ers like them that the Sen­ate has been trans­formed into a launch­pad for ideas we need instead of a grave­yard of progress.

Well done, Sen­a­tor Kud­er­er! Now, on to the floor vote for SB 5224…