Tim Eyman vigorously endorses Senate Republican budget that raises property taxes

Sound­ing very much like a spokesman for top Repub­li­can Sen­a­tor Mark Schoesler of Ritzville, Tim Eyman this morn­ing sent out an email offer­ing a ring­ing, fer­vent endorse­ment of the Sen­ate Repub­li­cans’ pro­posed bud­get for 2017–2019, which would increase prop­er­ty tax­es on many Washingtonians.

“Here’s how my day went yes­ter­day: drove to and from Olympia through hor­ren­dous traf­fic both ways, tes­ti­fied at a 1:30 pm hear­ing where I spoke out against a hor­ri­ble anti-tax­pay­er bill, sat in on and lis­tened to Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee’s hys­ter­i­cal press con­fer­ence, and then tes­ti­fied at a 3:30 pm hear­ing in favor of Sen­ate Repub­li­can’s no-new-tax­es bud­get (which I said earned an A+ on the tax­pay­ers report card),” Eyman wrote in an email to his followers.

After heap­ing scorn on Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee’s bold and excel­lent ideas for revamp­ing our upside down tax code, Eyman reem­pha­sized his endorse­ment: “The Sen­ate Repub­li­cans have pro­posed a sus­tain­able $43 bil­lion bud­get that does­n’t uni­lat­er­al­ly impose tax increas­es. That’s a seri­ous budget.”

No, it’s a scam.

I’ve been orga­niz­ing oppo­si­tion to Tim Eyman ini­tia­tives for over fif­teen years. I can’t remem­ber Tim Eyman ever endors­ing a multi­bil­lion dol­lar tax increase.

But I guess there’s a first time for everything.

Last month, Eyman offered a tac­it endorse­ment of this scheme; now he’s offer­ing an overt one. Per­haps he’s feel­ing less ashamed at hav­ing sold out.

What Sen­ate Repub­li­cans are try­ing to do here is tru­ly shame­ful. They want to raise the prop­er­ty tax­es of Wash­ing­to­ni­ans who are pri­mar­i­ly rep­re­sent­ed by Democ­rats, while low­er­ing them on Wash­ing­to­ni­ans they rep­re­sent. That way, they can false­ly claim to have addressed the Supreme Court’s McCleary deci­sion while hav­ing secured a reduc­tion in prop­er­ty tax­es for their own con­stituents at the same time.

Our pub­lic schools would remain under­fund­ed, while prop­er­ty own­ers in urban and sub­ur­ban school dis­tricts would be required to pay more in prop­er­ty tax­es. The Repub­li­cans’ “plan” is a giant, self-serv­ing wealth transfer.

It was­n’t that long ago that Tim Eyman was call­ing foul on this very idea.

As I not­ed in a post last month, back in April of 2015, Tim Eyman was loud­ly exco­ri­at­ing the Sen­ate Repub­li­cans for propos­ing a sim­i­lar prop­er­ty tax levy swipe, and call­ing on Gov­er­nor Inslee to save the day. Here’s what Eyman said then:

RE: Sen­ate Repub­li­cans pro­pose mas­sive prop­er­ty tax hike — will Inslee save the day?

Can­di­date Inslee ridiculed the so-called “prop­er­ty tax levy swap.” He repeat­ed­ly called it a “gim­mick”. He said it was “a clas­sic maneu­ver by politi­cians in Olympia.” He said it was a “shell game” that raised tax­es on near­ly half of all prop­er­ty tax pay­ers. He tore into it with vig­or and verve. He was emphat­ic. He was unambiguous.

The peo­ple elect­ed a man who adamant­ly opposed this.

Will Gov­er­nor Inslee come rid­ing to the res­cue when it comes to the Sen­ate Repub­li­cans’ bill (Sen­ate Bill 6109) which does exact­ly what he ridiculed? In today’s Taco­ma News Tri­bune, they report the Repub­li­cans’ bill “would raise prop­er­ty tax­es in more than 40 per­cent of Washington’s school districts.”

Inslee despised it as a can­di­date, will he stop it as Gov­er­nor? Can we count on him to pro­tect us from this mas­sive prop­er­ty tax hike?

That email was writ­ten Tues­day, April 23rd, 2015 — almost exact­ly twen­ty-three months ago. Here we are in 2017, and Tim Eyman is cheer­ing on the levy swipe scheme he once called a mas­sive prop­er­ty tax hike. Why? I think it’s because Eyman reached an under­stand­ing with the Sen­ate Republicans.

His deal with them may be a con­se­quence of the dis­in­te­gra­tion of his ini­tia­tive fac­to­ry. Eyman craves rel­e­vance, but his base of donors con­tin­ues to shrink, and he’s been unable to get any of the ini­tia­tives he’s recent­ly pro­posed off the ground.

Mean­while, he remains under inves­ti­ga­tion by Attor­ney Gen­er­al Bob Fer­gu­son’s office for seri­ous, fla­grant pub­lic dis­clo­sure law vio­la­tions. Fer­gu­son’s office is also suing him and his com­mit­tees over an array of addi­tion­al violations.

Eyman has slow­ly been tran­si­tion­ing from ini­tia­tive pitch­man to Olympia lob­by­ist; he makes reg­u­lar appear­ances in front of House and Sen­ate com­mit­tees, tes­ti­fy­ing in sup­port of or oppo­si­tion to leg­is­la­tion he’s inter­est­ed in. How­ev­er, he has not reg­is­tered as a lob­by­ist, even though lob­by­ing is arguably now his occupation.

Each side ben­e­fits from the new arrange­ment. Eyman is now inside the Sen­ate Repub­li­cans’ tent and repeat­ing the par­ty line, which means Repub­li­cans don’t have to wor­ry about him under­min­ing their schemes at inop­por­tune moments.

For Eyman, an alliance with the Sen­ate Repub­li­cans means he’s less alone in dif­fi­cult times. (Eyman made a big show of dis­trib­ut­ing pho­tos depict­ing him with mem­bers of the Sen­ate Repub­li­can cau­cus back in the winter.)

Eyman’s lat­est ini­tia­tive, I‑1550, would iron­i­cal­ly cut prop­er­ty tax rev­enue by 25%. Pas­sage of I‑1550 would dev­as­tate the vital pub­lic ser­vices we all rely on and ruin what­ev­er bud­get the Leg­is­la­ture and Gov­er­nor Inslee even­tu­al­ly agree on.

Eyman announced I‑1550 weeks ago, but so far it appears to be just anoth­er one of his recent crop of fake ini­tia­tives — mean­ing an ini­tia­tive he’s pre­tend­ing to try to qual­i­fy so he has an excuse to send out twice-week­ly fundrais­ing emails.

Sen­ate Repub­li­cans like­ly know that Eyman’s fundrais­ing has dried up and thus are uncon­cerned about I‑1550 or its poten­tial impacts. They fig­ure an aging Eyman still makes a good attack dog. And the des­per­ate, dis­graced ini­tia­tive pro­mot­er has decid­ed to embrace the role they want him to have.