Article by Erik Smith. Published on Tuesday, April 13, 2010 EST.

Legislature Barely Adjourns and Eyman Files Eight Initiatives

Initiative promoter Tim Eyman.
 

By Erik Smith

Staff writer/ Washington State Wire

OLYMPIA, April 13.—Well, that didn’t take long!

            Lawmakers passed $800 million in tax increases Monday, then knocked off work for the year. And by Tuesday morning initiatives were already being filed to turn them back.

            Eight of them, in fact, from a single person – the state’s initiative king, Tim Eyman.

            It’s an interesting approach, and there’s a bit of strategy involved. Instead of using a single initiative to roll back all of the 20-odd tax increases imposed by the Legislature this year, Eyman says he’s going after the ones most likely to hit voters in the gut.

            They are:

n      The cheap-beer tax,

n      The soda-pop tax,

n      The candy-and-gum tax,

n      The tobacco tax,

n      The bottled-water tax,

n      The first-mortgage tax, and

n      The business and occupations tax surcharge on service businesses.

That’s seven, but Eyman’s stack includes two versions of the soda-pop initiative, each with slightly different wording.

           Eyman is First in Line

By getting his initiatives in first, Eyman beats the rush. Grocery and beverage-industry interests had been hinting last week that they might try an initiative of their own. Eyman’s dash to the elections office stakes the turf as his own, and leaves others to decide whether they want to join him or compete with him.
            “We picked these eight because we wanted to go after the most consumer-impactful, job-killing tax increases,” Eyman said. “These were the ones that hit Joe Sixpack. So we didn’t go after the livestock nutrient management tax.”

Nor did Eyman choose to challenge some of the more arcane tax increases that affect banks, utilities and other corporate interests.

In a sense, Eyman is really test-marketing his product. In about a month he said he and his supporters will decide in about a month whether to combine individual measures, or drop them. Much will depend on the kind of support he gets in coming weeks. That could mean support from voters or corporate interests. Thus his filing offers a signal to potential backers that the signature-collector is willing.

 Eyman will need 241,143 signatures to place any measure on the ballot. Ordinarily a bill passed by the Legislature might be turned back with a referendum, which has a lower signature requirement, about 150,000 signatures. But ordinary bills don’t take effect for 90 days, allowing time for signatures to be collected. On this year’s tax bill, lawmakers included an “emergency clause,” which means the measure takes effect immediately. Lawmakers said they wanted to start collecting tax money right away, but a side-effect of that decision was that it prevented a referendum. That makes it harder for Eyman to make the ballot.
             Eyman is the most successful initiative promoter in state history, having run 17 initiative campaigns over the last 10 years. Twelve measures have made the ballot and voters have approved eight of them. Eyman already is collecting signatures on another ballot measure for this year, Initiative 1053, which would restore a two-thirds vote requirement for the Legislature to raise taxes.

            Governor Denounces Idea

Gov. Christine Gregoire, meeting with reporters Tuesday morning, took a weary here-we-go-again stance, offering the same defense of the tax increases she offered all session long. She said the tax hikes maintain health and education programs, college financial aid and hospice care. If Eyman were to turn back any of the taxes, the state would have to cut an equal amount of spending – and those programs would have to go.

“The consequences of that will be immediate and long-term,” she said. “I don’t want to see a state like that. There’s a big difference between the values of Washington state and others I see around this country.”

            Gregoire noted that the $794 million tax package really doesn’t mean $794 million in tax increases. About $154 million of that represents a tax exemption that was opened by a court decision in the Dot Foods case, never intended by the Legislature. The tax bill will close the loophole. There are other similar elements in the tax package. Take them all away all and there is really only $631 million in new revenue, she said.

            Eyman said that if all his anti-tax measures pass, the total would be about $500 million, roughly the same as the $484 million ending fund balance that the Legislature’s budget deal leaves behind. So technically the state might be able to survive without cutting programs – it just wouldn’t have a contingency fund.

Soda-Pop Bottlers Caught Off-Guard

The state’s soda-pop bottlers didn’t have a clue that Eyman was going to file an initiative on their behalf, said Tim Martin, president of the Washington Beverage Association. The first he heard of it was when a reporter called late in the day.

“It completely takes me by surprise,” he said. “There is no partnership here.”

Martin’s group and related industry associations had suggested last week that they might consider running an initiative. Martin, a Pepsi bottler from Elma, said the first step is for his association to meet and settle on a strategy. The bottlers have never drafted an initiative before, he said. “We’re young upstarts,” he said.

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