Ser­i­al pub­lic dis­clo­sure law offend­er Tim Eyman has reg­is­tered with the Pub­lic Dis­clo­sure Com­mis­sion to run for Gov­er­nor of Wash­ing­ton State as an inde­pen­dent, vio­lat­ing (once again!) the very laws the Com­mis­sion is charged with enforc­ing on behalf of the peo­ple of Amer­i­ca’s forty-third state.

Eyman’s C1 (can­di­date reg­is­tra­tion state­ment) is one of two bits of paper­work he is required to file with the state’s cam­paign finance agency with­in two weeks of becom­ing a can­di­date. The oth­er is his F1 — Per­son­al Finan­cial Affairs Statement.

Eyman claimed today at a media event he called in Olympia at the Sec­re­tary of State’s office that he has­n’t put his F1 togeth­er yet because his bank­rupt­cy attor­neys at Vort­man & Fein­stein are out of town for the Thanks­giv­ing holiday.

On his can­di­date reg­is­tra­tion state­ment, on his cam­paign web­site, and in pro­mo­tion­al emails, Eyman has cho­sen to call his uncon­ven­tion­al guber­na­to­r­i­al bid “Gov­er­nor Tim Eyman for Wash­ing­ton,” which is ille­gal, because it implies that Eyman is the incum­bent gov­er­nor, when in fact he is not (Jay Inslee is).

RCW 42.17A.335(1)(b) explic­it­ly for­bids such conduct:

(1) It is a vio­la­tion of this chap­ter for a per­son to spon­sor with actu­al mal­ice a state­ment con­sti­tut­ing libel or defama­tion per se under the fol­low­ing circumstances:

(a) Polit­i­cal adver­tis­ing or an elec­tion­eer­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tion that con­tains a false state­ment of mate­r­i­al fact about a can­di­date for pub­lic office;

(b) Polit­i­cal adver­tis­ing or an elec­tion­eer­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tion that false­ly rep­re­sents that a can­di­date is the incum­bent for the office sought when in fact the can­di­date is not the incumbent;

The PDC’s polit­i­cal adver­tis­ing guide, which is eas­i­ly acces­si­ble, warns can­di­dates not to do what Eyman is doing. “Do not false­ly imply incum­ben­cy in a polit­i­cal adver­tise­ment about a can­di­date who does not hold the office,” it admonishes.

Exam­ples of cor­rect syn­tax for a chal­lenger’s cam­paign are “John Smith for Gov­er­nor” or “Suzie Q. Pub­lic for Sec­re­tary of State”. Alter­na­tive­ly: “Elect Michael Rogers Trea­sur­er.” The can­di­date’s name needs to comes first, as opposed to the title of the office, because putting the title first implies incumbency.

Respon­si­ble can­di­dates cam­paign respon­si­bly with­in the bounds of the law. Mas­querad­ing as an incum­bent in cam­paign adver­tis­ing is a big no-no.

Eyman, of course, does not care. He has been vio­lat­ing RCW Chap­ter 42.17A (our body of pub­lic dis­clo­sure laws) with impuni­ty for years. What’s more, he has so far suc­cess­ful­ly evad­ed hav­ing to pay a penal­ty for doing so. He may not be able to hold off Attor­ney Gen­er­al Bob Fer­gu­son for­ev­er, but he’s cer­tain­ly trying.

Unlike the land­mark case Fer­gu­son has going against Eyman in Thurston Coun­ty Supe­ri­or Court, which is com­plex and con­cerns a mul­ti-year kick­back and con­ceal­ment scheme, this is a fair­ly straight­for­ward case of wrongdoing.

Wash­ing­to­ni­ans For Eth­i­cal Gov­ern­ment (WFEG) — which I cofound­ed to hold uneth­i­cal polit­i­cal fig­ures like Eyman account­able for their wrong­do­ing with Sher­ry Bock­winkel and Knoll Lowney — is push­ing for a prompt investigation.

To secure one, we filed a com­plaint with the Pub­lic Dis­clo­sure Com­mis­sion this after­noon alleg­ing that Eyman is in vio­la­tion of the afore­men­tioned RCW.

“The PDC must act swift­ly to dis­ci­pline Tim Eyman for this vio­la­tion of our laws,” our com­plaint states in its con­clud­ing para­graph, observ­ing: “Past com­plaints against Eyman have tak­en years to inves­ti­gate. This com­plaint must be inves­ti­gat­ed imme­di­ate­ly. Eyman, a ser­i­al offend­er, will ben­e­fit from any delay in address­ing this vio­la­tion of our pub­lic dis­clo­sure laws.”

Eyman will make his uncon­ven­tion­al guber­na­to­r­i­al bid as an inde­pen­dent instead of as a Repub­li­can or Lib­er­tar­i­an. He told the gag­gle of reporters gath­ered at the Sec­re­tary of State’s office to hear his mono­logue that he con­tem­plat­ed affil­i­at­ing with a polit­i­cal par­ty, but decid­ed against doing so.

Eyman has named Dave Hob­ley as his cam­paign man­ag­er, Michele Dar­nell as his vol­un­teer coor­di­na­tor, and Sarah Eck­ert as his Treasurer.

Eck­ert han­dles the books for Eyman’s ini­tia­tive fac­to­ry in a min­is­te­r­i­al capac­i­ty and Dar­nell occa­sion­al­ly accom­pa­nies Eyman to speak­ing appearances.

Dar­nell has pre­vi­ous­ly run for state lev­el office her­self sev­er­al times as a Lib­er­tar­i­an, los­ing repeat­ed­ly to well regard­ed Democ­rats like Pat­ty Kuderer.

Sev­er­al Repub­li­cans are already express­ing annoy­ance with Eyman over his long­shot guber­na­to­r­i­al bid, includ­ing Phil For­tu­na­to, an arch­con­ser­v­a­tive Repub­li­can state sen­a­tor who is a can­di­date for gov­er­nor himself.

“This is a seri­ous thing,” For­tu­na­to remarked.

“Repub­li­cans have a win­dow of oppor­tu­ni­ty this year… His enter­ing into the race, espe­cial­ly as an inde­pen­dent, makes the thing a circus.”

State and nation­al pol­i­tics were arguably already a cir­cus, but we can under­stand For­tu­na­to’s annoy­ance. If it makes him feel any bet­ter, he should know that Eyman’s guber­na­to­r­i­al bid faces steep odds. Eyman is an unpop­u­lar, divi­sive fig­ure, and no inde­pen­dent has ever been elect­ed as Gov­er­nor of Wash­ing­ton State.

Except for the state’s third gov­er­nor, John Rankin Rogers, every sin­gle per­son pre­vi­ous­ly elect­ed to the state’s high­est office has been elect­ed with the sup­port of either the Demo­c­ra­t­ic or the Repub­li­can Par­ty going back to state­hood. Rogers was ini­tial­ly elect­ed with the sup­port of the Peo­ple’s Par­ty, but then switched his par­ty affil­i­a­tion to Demo­c­ra­t­ic (and was reelect­ed with Demo­c­ra­t­ic support.)

Repub­li­cans, how­ev­er, haven’t won a guber­na­to­r­i­al race in a while.

The last time a non-Demo­c­ra­t­ic can­di­date was elect­ed Gov­er­nor of Wash­ing­ton was in 1980, when Repub­li­can John Spell­man sought the state’s top job.

That was almost forty years ago.

The Wash­ing­ton State Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty boasts the longest active streak of con­sec­u­tive guber­na­to­r­i­al wins in the coun­try, with nine: 1984, 1988, 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004, 2008, 2012, and 2016.

The par­ty hopes to make it ten next year with Inslee, who is seek­ing a third term.

Eyman has made no secret of his dis­like for Inslee, although it’s hard to tell who he dis­likes more: Inslee or Attor­ney Gen­er­al Bob Fer­gu­son. Both are fre­quent tar­gets of his trash talk. Eyman also despis­es King Coun­ty Exec­u­tive Dow Con­stan­tine and every­one who is an elect­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the City of Seattle.

Eyman has sig­naled he will run on a plat­form of Seat­tle-bash­ing. Repub­li­cans have tried doing that for sev­er­al years now in key races, like the spe­cial elec­tion in the 45th Leg­isla­tive Dis­trict two years ago. It has not yield­ed favor­able results.

Despite claim­ing to have an opin­ion on every issue imag­in­able, Eyman demurred when asked by reporters about his posi­tions on top­ics like the abo­li­tion of Wash­ing­ton’s death penal­ty, a cause NPI emphat­i­cal­ly sup­ports and has advo­cat­ed for. Eyman was repeat­ed­ly invit­ed to share his views on abo­li­tion and refused, although he crit­i­cized Inslee for impos­ing a mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions and hint­ed he would­n’t sup­port elim­i­nat­ing the state’s death penal­ty statute, which the Supreme Court struck down as uncon­sti­tu­tion­al but which remains on the books.

Vot­ers will decide who should serve as Gov­er­nor through 2024 in a lit­tle less than a year. The Novem­ber 2020 gen­er­al elec­tion will be pre­ced­ed by Fil­ing Week (in May of 2020) and the Top Two elim­i­na­tion elec­tion (in August of 2020).

Eyman’s can­di­da­cy will be at an end if he does not secure one of the top two spots in the elim­i­na­tion elec­tion. The tri­al in the cam­paign finance enforce­ment law­suit Eyman is embroiled in is present­ly sched­uled for the pre­vi­ous month (July), which could severe­ly com­pli­cate Eyman’s abil­i­ty to cam­paign in the home stretch.