This autumn, statewide vot­ers must decide what to do with Tim Eyman’s Ini­tia­tive 976, a mea­sure designed to wreck bipar­ti­san, vot­er-approved trans­porta­tion invest­ments at the state, region­al, and local lev­els in Wash­ing­ton State.

I‑976 is the lat­est in a decades-long series of ini­tia­tives con­ceived by Eyman that are intend­ed to defund the Ever­green State’s essen­tial pub­lic ser­vices, col­lec­tive­ly rob­bing us as Wash­ing­to­ni­ans of the resources we need to sup­port each oth­er, build pros­per­ous busi­ness­es, and lead healthy lives.

If imple­ment­ed, I‑976 would elim­i­nate $4.2 bil­lion in trans­porta­tion invest­ments over the next six years, accord­ing to the Office of Finan­cial Man­age­ment. The impacts are even greater over a ten-year time­frame. Sound Tran­sit has esti­mat­ed that I‑976 could jeop­ar­dize up to $20 bil­lion in tran­sit expan­sion fund­ing that vot­ers in urban King, Sno­homish, and Pierce coun­ties approved three years ago.

At the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute, we’ve been work­ing to defeat I‑976 for almost a year and a half. Our efforts to defeat I‑976 began the same day that Eyman announced his inten­tion to qual­i­fy the mea­sure: April 16th, 2018.

On that day, through our Per­ma­nent Defense project, we pub­lished a state­ment say­ing we were ready to go to bat to defend the mul­ti­modal trans­porta­tion infra­struc­ture that we had repeat­ed­ly vot­ed for. Sev­er­al weeks lat­er, we launched no976.org and began recruit­ing oth­er orga­ni­za­tions to join us in oppos­ing I‑976.

In Jan­u­ary, when Eyman turned in the remain­der of his sig­na­tures, we were there. We pledged that there would be a vig­or­ous cam­paign against I‑976. And there is.

As we enter the home­stretch of the bat­tle against I‑976, our team at NPI is grat­i­fied to see so many peo­ple and orga­ni­za­tions step­ping up to join the cam­paign — which, like past cam­paigns against sim­i­lar­ly destruc­tive mea­sures, is being waged by the Keep Wash­ing­ton Rolling coali­tion, of which NPI is a member.

Keep Wash­ing­ton Rolling has won many fights in its almost fif­teen year history.

In 2005, the coali­tion defeat­ed John Carl­son and Kir­by Wilbur’s Ini­tia­tive 912, which Eyman had con­fi­dent­ly pre­dict­ed would pass in a landslide.

Six years lat­er, the coali­tion reformed to defeat Eyman’s I‑1125, a mea­sure that Eyman qual­i­fied eight years ago in the hopes of thwart­ing Sound Tran­sit’s East Link light rail project and ban­ning vari­able tolling on SR 520.

And the coali­tion worked with leg­is­la­tors and Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee to secure pas­sage of the 2015 Con­nect­ing Wash­ing­ton trans­porta­tion package.

Four years lat­er, Keep Wash­ing­ton Rolling is com­mit­ted to wag­ing the best pos­si­ble cam­paign against Eyman’s I‑976 that its coali­tion part­ners can put together.

Eyman, mean­while, seems locked in a destruc­tive spi­ral. His ini­tia­tive fac­to­ry is col­laps­ing and his legal woes are mount­ing. He’s trapped in Chap­ter 11 bank­rupt­cy after hav­ing unsuc­cess­ful­ly tried to stall the cam­paign finance enforce­ment law­suit brought against him and his asso­ciates by Attor­ney Gen­er­al Bob Ferguson.

At the same time, Eyman’s behav­ior has become more and more errat­ic, as we mem­o­rably saw in Feb­ru­ary when Eyman stole a chair from the Lacey Office Depot.

To pitch Ini­tia­tive 976, Eyman has deployed what could be called his great­est hits — a col­lec­tion of catch­phras­es, insults, attacks, and rejoin­ders that he devel­oped dur­ing his ear­ly years, pri­mar­i­ly 1999–2002. Eyman even has a prop to go with his great­est hits: for months, he has been bring­ing an old thir­ty dol­lar car tabs sign around with him to meet­ings and speak­ing engagements.

One of Eyman’s great­est hits is his ridicu­lous claim that his oppo­nents (that would be us) “don’t have a sin­gle mer­i­to­ri­ous argu­ment” against ini­tia­tives like I‑976. As Eyman put it in an email to his fol­low­ers on Jan­u­ary 4th, 2019:

So all we’re gonna hear from them are sto­ries about me. Just me. Only me. Tim’s bank­rupt. Tim’s divorced. Tim’s awful. […] For twen­ty years, politi­cians and the press have been try­ing the vote-no-on-Tim’s-ini­tia­tive-because-Tim’s-a-bad-guy mes­sage. It’s nev­er worked.

Take a moment to appre­ci­ate the absur­di­ty of what you just read.

Every time Eyman makes this stu­pid and false claim, it gives him anoth­er chance to talk about him­self and shake his elec­tron­ic tin cup.

Eyman talks about him­self and his per­son­al cir­cum­stances in pub­lic on an extreme­ly fre­quent basis, whether it’s through email mis­sives or Face­book posts. He does­n’t lim­it him­self to talk­ing about the ini­tia­tives he is try­ing to sell or com­ment­ing on state pol­i­tics. He has an insa­tiable need for attention.

If you look at the NO on I‑976 web­site, you can see for your­self that Eyman is a liar. Our web­site is full of mer­i­to­ri­ous argu­ments against Ini­tia­tive 976. It would wors­en traf­fic, it would make our tax code even more regres­sive, and it would imper­il projects all over the state that are intend­ed to make our com­mutes safer and give us more choic­es for get­ting around so that dri­ving isn’t our only option.

Edi­to­r­i­al boards like The Seat­tle Times and The Wal­la Wal­la Union Bul­letin have cit­ed these mer­i­to­ri­ous argu­ments in jus­ti­fy­ing their oppo­si­tion to I‑976.

Nonethe­less, Eyman con­tin­ues to assert that his oppo­si­tion has no good argu­ments and so is cling­ing to a des­per­ate strat­e­gy of make Tim Eyman the bad guy to win. Eyman’s pals on right wing talk radio, espe­cial­ly Dori Mon­son, have echoed this argu­ment, includ­ing as recent­ly as last week.

As usu­al, though, Tim Eyman is wrong. Eyman’s the one who has made him­self insep­a­ra­ble from the debate over Ini­tia­tive 976. 

It was Eyman who decid­ed, at the out­set, that the Ini­tia­tive 976 cam­paign would be him, and he would be the cam­paign. They are one and the same.

We did­n’t make that choice — he did.

If there is a bet­ter exam­ple of a one-man show in the his­to­ry of Wash­ing­ton State pol­i­tics, I’m hard pressed to think of it, and I know more Wash­ing­ton State polit­i­cal his­to­ry than most.

Con­sid­er the evidence.

Tim Eyman is the pri­ma­ry spon­sor and author of Ini­tia­tive 976, the prin­ci­pal donor to I‑976 (if the cam­paign finance reports his trea­sur­er filed are accu­rate) its main spokesman and pro­mot­er, and its chief strategist.

Tim wrote the state­ment in favor of I‑976 that appears in the voter’s pam­phlet and record­ed the video equiv­a­lent for TVW, the state’s pub­lic affairs cable tele­vi­sion net­work. He’s the one appear­ing in front of edi­to­r­i­al boards to push I‑976 in his orange t‑shirt with his tab-shaped stickers.

And of course, he fields the media inquiries.

In fact, he has instruct­ed jour­nal­ists and colum­nists to reach out to him before writ­ing any­thing about I‑976. Repeat­ed­ly. Like on Jan­u­ary 22nd, 2019, when he sent out an email say­ing: “Media: plz con­tact me when report­ing on ini­tia­tive.” He sent a sim­i­lar email on August 1st with a one page pro­pa­gan­da piece attached.

Eyman has always rel­ished the spot­light. He loves being in the are­na, and I’ve heard him say it many times. He’s also said in it writ­ing many times.

Glo­ry is arguably just as impor­tant to Tim as mak­ing mon­ey. He absolute­ly loves being the cen­ter of atten­tion. He has dressed up as Darth Vad­er, Buzz Lightyear, a pris­on­er, and a goril­la in var­i­ous ploys for atten­tion over the years.

Per­haps the best fresh evi­dence that Tim Eyman is syn­ony­mous with the ini­tia­tives he’s pitch­ing (like I‑976) is his most recent C1-PC (polit­i­cal com­mit­tee) reg­is­tra­tion filed in June 2019. If you look at it, you’ll see that Tim Eyman is the com­mit­tee’s one and only named offi­cer aside from his Trea­sur­er, Thurston Coun­ty’s Sarah Eck­ert, who Eyman pays to keep the books.

Eyman is pro­hib­it­ed under the terms of a 2002 set­tle­ment with the state from serv­ing as a cam­paign trea­sur­er, so he’s oblig­at­ed to have some­one like Eck­ert as his Trea­sur­er. Aside from Eck­ert, though, there’s nobody else listed.

And that’s because there are no oth­er deci­sion mak­ers. Eyman isn’t even pre­tend­ing oth­er­wise any­more. His long­time side­kicks — Mike and Jack Fagan of Spokane — have part­ed ways with him, which is why they don’t appear on the com­mit­tee’s lat­est reg­is­tra­tion as they have in the past. The younger Fagan con­firmed this to The Spokesman-Review in an arti­cle that ran yes­ter­day.

Spokane City Coun­cil­man Mike Fagan and his father, Jack, have worked with Eyman since 1999. Fagan, too, is a spon­sor of the ini­tia­tive and large­ly agreed with Eyman’s assess­ment. How­ev­er, he said he part­ed ways with Eyman and dis­solved any busi­ness­es and com­mit­tees relat­ed to his ini­tia­tive work with Eyman.

Fagan said his father’s old age was the main cause, but Eyman has trou­bles that may spell the end of his cru­sad­ing career.

Aside from an embar­rass­ing episode in Feb­ru­ary when he alleged­ly stole a $70 chair from an Office Depot store in Lacey, Wash­ing­ton, he con­tin­ues to fight a cam­paign-finance law­suit, in which Attor­ney Gen­er­al Bob Fer­gu­son has accused Eyman of using the ini­tia­tive process to get rich, accord­ing to the Seat­tle Times.

He has been found in con­tempt twice and faces a life­time ban on direct­ing the finances of polit­i­cal action committees.

Even when the Fagans were named offi­cers of Eyman’s com­mit­tees, they did not share equal own­er­ship in the strate­gic deci­sion-mak­ing with Eyman.

That is abun­dant­ly clear from the thou­sands of pages of depo­si­tions I’ve read in the State of Wash­ing­ton’s cam­paign finance enforce­ment law­suit against Eyman, which includes depo­si­tions of both of the Fagans as well as Eyman’s wife.

Eyman has long been — and remains — a solo act. It’s how he likes it.

What Eyman can’t do him­self that he requires in order to keep his ini­tia­tive fac­to­ry run­ning, he pro­cures… like peti­tion sig­na­tures, web­site host­ing, or account­ing ser­vices. Even a one-man show can have stage­hands, and Tim’s does.

Let’s be clear, though: the peo­ple Eyman says he runs with — his bene­fac­tors, his Face­book friends, sym­pa­thet­ic state Repub­li­can leg­is­la­tors, the sub­scribers on his email list — those folks are not Eyman’s costars. They are the peo­ple in the audi­ence that Eyman is per­form­ing for. They’re the ones who keep buy­ing the tick­ets to the show. The show itself is Eyman’s alone.

When Eyman accus­es his oppo­si­tion of mak­ing our cam­paigns against his ini­tia­tives all about him instead of the issues, he’s pro­ject­ing. It was Eyman who glee­ful­ly made him­self into a house­hold name and a light­ning rod. It is Eyman who choos­es to exer­cise tight con­trol over the ini­tia­tive fac­to­ry he cre­at­ed. There isn’t room in his act for any­one else. The mon­ey and the glo­ry must go to him.

Our cam­paign is dif­fer­ent. Keep Wash­ing­ton Rolling is a strong and diverse coali­tion that includes busi­ness­es large and small, labor unions, envi­ron­men­tal orga­ni­za­tions, civic groups, elect­ed lead­ers, and com­mu­ni­ty activists. We have joined forces to pro­tect the state that we love from I‑976. We are work­ing togeth­er – coop­er­a­tive­ly – to wage this cam­paign to the best of our ability.

Usu­al­ly, statewide bal­lot mea­sure cam­paigns have a lot of peo­ple involved. They have a steer­ing com­mit­tee of some kind, a cam­paign man­ag­er, field orga­niz­ers, con­sul­tants who help with strat­e­gy, mes­sag­ing, fundrais­ing, and com­mu­ni­ca­tions, speak­ers who par­tic­i­pate in a speak­er’s bureau, and so on. Hav­ing lots of peo­ple involved is advan­ta­geous, as there is no one sin­gle point of failure.

As I’ve explained, Tim Eyman’s oper­a­tion does­n’t look like that.

But our coali­tion does. Look at its mem­ber­ship.

We are build­ing an inclu­sive coali­tion that seeks to unite Wash­ing­to­ni­ans around the val­ues and prin­ci­ples our state was found­ed upon. Every­one who shares our objec­tive of expand­ing free­dom of mobil­i­ty is wel­come to join us.

Togeth­er, we believe we can say no to the pol­i­tics of mal­ice and divi­sion. Togeth­er, we can build a trans­porta­tion sys­tem that is safer and empow­ers peo­ple to get where they want to go with­out pol­lut­ing the Earth, our com­mon home. Join us and get engaged as we work to secure our state’s future by defeat­ing I‑976.