VICTORY! Washington State Senate approves legislation to repeal Tim Eyman’s push polls

The effort to per­ma­nent­ly abol­ish Tim Eyman’s waste­ful and decep­tive push polls is offi­cial­ly halfway to the fin­ish line. This morn­ing, the Wash­ing­ton State Sen­ate approved Sen­a­tor Pat­ty Kud­er­er’s Sen­ate Bill 5224 on a twen­ty-sev­en to twen­ty bipar­ti­san vote, send­ing it over to the House of Representatives.

Enact­ment of SB 5224, one of NPI’s pri­or­i­ty bills for 2019, would mean Wash­ing­to­ni­ans would no longer see “advi­so­ry votes” on their bal­lots every Novem­ber. We call the “advi­so­ry votes” Tim Eyman’s push polls because that is what they real­ly are. At NPI’s Per­ma­nent Defense project, we have a page that explains their true func­tion, which is to influ­ence pub­lic opin­ion, not mea­sure it.

Three Democ­rats — Reuven Car­lyle, Guy Palum­bo, and Emi­ly Ran­dall — sided with most of the Sen­ate’s twen­ty-one Repub­li­cans in oppo­si­tion to SB 5224.

Their votes were off­set by three Repub­li­cans who crossed over to help Democ­rats pass the bill: Hans Zeiger, Bar­bara Bai­ley, and Brad Hawkins. Not coin­ci­den­tal­ly, these Sen­a­tors all serve on the Sen­ate’s State Gov­ern­ment Com­mit­tee and heard tes­ti­mo­ny one month ago from NPI, the League of Women Vot­ers, and King Coun­ty Elec­tions Direc­tor Julie Wise in favor of abol­ish­ing Eyman’s push polls.

The full roll call vote on Sen­ate Bill 5224 was as fol­lows:

Roll Call
SB 5224
Advi­so­ry votes
3rd Read­ing & Final Passage
3/1/2019

Yeas: 27; Nays: 20; Excused: 2

Vot­ing Yea: Sen­a­tors Bai­ley, Bil­lig, Cleve­land, Con­way, Darneille, Das, Dhin­gra, Frockt, Hasegawa, Hawkins, Hunt, Keis­er, Kud­er­er, Liias, Lovelett, McCoy, Mul­let, Nguyen, Ped­er­sen, Rolfes, Sal­daña, Salomon, Takko, Van De Wege, Well­man, Wil­son (Claire), Zeiger

Vot­ing Nay: Sen­a­tors Beck­er, Braun, Brown, Car­lyle, Erick­sen, For­tu­na­to, Holy, Hon­ey­ford, King, O‘Ban, Pad­den, Palum­bo, Ran­dall, Rivers, Schoesler, Shel­don, Short, Wag­oner, War­nick, Wil­son (Lyn­da)

Excused: Sen­a­tors Hobbs, Walsh

We’ve pub­lished a state­ment thank­ing the Sen­ate over at Per­ma­nent Defense.

For us, Sen­ate Bill 5224 is not just about undo­ing a harm­ful Tim Eyman scheme. It is about tak­ing a stand in favor of elec­tions that mat­ter. It is about uphold­ing the prin­ci­ples of gath­er­ing good data. Pub­lic resources should not be wast­ed to put mes­sages on peo­ple’s bal­lots that are designed to influ­ence how they think.

For SB 5224 to reach Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee’s desk, it must pass the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives. We’re excit­ed about the oppor­tu­ni­ty to work with our elect­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives in the peo­ple’s House to get this bill across the fin­ish line.