VICTORY! Washington State Senate again passes bill to abolish Tim Eyman’s push polls

A North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute bill that would advance vot­ing jus­tice in Wash­ing­ton by get­ting rid of Tim Eyman’s advi­so­ry votes push polls sailed out of the Wash­ing­ton State Sen­ate after receiv­ing a bipar­ti­san vote of sup­port this morn­ing, with thir­ty sen­a­tors vot­ing in favor and eigh­teen vot­ing against.

Sen­ate Bill 5082, prime spon­sored by Sen­a­tor Pat­ty Kud­er­er (D‑48th Dis­trict: Red­mond, Belle­vue, Kirk­land) does two things: it lib­er­ates our bal­lots from Eyman’s annu­al anti-tax pro­pa­gan­da, sav­ing tax­pay­ers mil­lions of dol­lars, and replaces them with use­ful, truth­ful fis­cal infor­ma­tion pre­pared by leg­isla­tive and OFM staff that will be avail­able online in advance of every gen­er­al elec­tion, ref­er­enced in the voter’s pam­phlet with a QR code, phone num­ber, and URL.

The bill is cospon­sored by near­ly half of the Sen­ate Demo­c­ra­t­ic cau­cus and was select­ed by Sen­ate lead­er­ship for ear­ly bill action this session.

The bill had its pub­lic hear­ing on the sec­ond day of ses­sion, with eleven speak­ers tes­ti­fy­ing in favor and two opposed. Tim Eyman hilar­i­ous­ly did not show up at the hear­ing because he was not pay­ing atten­tion. The bill received a “do pass” rec­om­men­da­tion in the State Gov­ern­ment Com­mit­tee a few days lat­er, and then breezed through both Ways & Means and Rules onto the Sen­ate’s floor calendar.

SB 5082 is the fifth incar­na­tion of this vot­ing jus­tice leg­is­la­tion; Sen­a­tor Pat­ty Kud­er­er and NPI have kept deter­mined­ly bring­ing it back because our state needs it. Hope­ful­ly, this is the year that it gets signed into law by Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee.

Pri­or to pass­ing the bill, the Sen­ate adopt­ed a floor strik­ing amend­ment spon­sored by Sen­a­tor Kud­er­er, which reflects our input and which we sup­port. This amend­ment strength­ens Part III of the bill, ensur­ing that the replace­ment for “advi­so­ry votes” can be smooth­ly imple­ment­ed and ful­fill its noble pur­pose of help­ing vot­ers under­stand the state of the state’s finances.

A slew of Repub­li­can attempts to sab­o­tage the bill and sub­ject it to a ref­er­en­dum were vot­ed down by the cham­ber’s Demo­c­ra­t­ic majority.

The roll call vote on SB 5082 was as follows:

SSB 5082
Repeal and replace­ment of “advi­so­ry votes”
Sen­ate vote on 3rd Read­ing & Final Passage
2/8/2023

Yeas: 30; Nays: 18; Excused: 1

Vot­ing Yea: Sen­a­tor Bil­lig, Cleve­land, Con­way, Dhin­gra, Frame, Hasegawa, Hawkins, Hunt, Kauff­man, Keis­er, Kud­er­er, Liias, Lovelett, Lovick, Mul­let, Nguyen, Nobles, Ped­er­sen, Ran­dall, Robin­son, Rolfes, Sal­daña, Salomon, Shew­make, Stan­ford, Trudeau, Valdez, Van De Wege, Well­man, Wil­son (Claire)

Vot­ing Nay: Sen­a­tor Boehnke, Braun, Dozi­er, For­tu­na­to, Gildon, Holy, King, MacEwen, McCune, Muz­za­ll, Rivers, Schoesler, Short, Tor­res, Wag­oner, War­nick, Wil­son (Jeff) Wil­son (Lyn­da)

Excused: Sen­a­tor Padden

Every Demo­c­ra­t­ic sen­a­tor vot­ed for the bill, joined by Repub­li­can Brad Hawkins. The cham­ber’s oth­er Repub­li­cans vot­ed against the bill.

Hawkins also crossed par­ty lines to sup­port this leg­is­la­tion in 2019. He was joined by two oth­er Repub­li­cans in back­ing the first incar­na­tion of the bill — Sen­a­tors Hans Zeiger and Bar­bara Bai­ley — who have since left the Legislature.

We’ve pub­lished a state­ment thank­ing the Sen­ate for its lead­er­ship and deci­sive vote for this bill, which is avail­able through our Per­ma­nent Defense project.

Sen­a­tor Kud­er­er, Sen­a­tor Hunt, and Sen­a­tor Bil­lig deserve every­one’s thanks for get­ting us to this impor­tant mile­stone less than one month into session.

We are also deeply grate­ful to all of our allies and part­ners for their help in advo­cat­ing for this nec­es­sary leg­is­la­tion. Today’s vote is proof that our grass­roots lob­by­ing is get­ting results for the vot­ers and tax­pay­ers of Wash­ing­ton State.

SB 5082 now heads to the Wash­ing­ton State House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives. It will have its first read­ing short­ly and then be referred to the House State Gov­ern­ment & Trib­al Rela­tions Com­mit­tee for a hear­ing and exec­u­tive action.

That com­mit­tee has already held a hear­ing on 5082’s House com­pan­ion bill, HB 1158, which is prime spon­sored by our House cham­pi­on, Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Amy Walen (D‑48th Dis­trict: Red­mond, Kirk­land, Belle­vue) and cospon­sored by a third of the House Demo­c­ra­t­ic cau­cus, includ­ing Major­i­ty Leader Joe Fitzgib­bon, Major­i­ty Whip Alex Ramel, and Major­i­ty Floor Leader Mon­i­ca Stonier.