Initiative promoter Tim Eyman is flanked by teammates Mike Fagan and Jack Fagan April 24 as he files what became I-1314.
OLYMPIA, May 10.—One of the funniest scenes in state politics this year played out in the lobby of the secretary of state’s office a couple of weeks ago. Tim Eyman was filing his latest ballot measure, a roundabout stab at reinstating the two-thirds-for-taxes rule that has been thrown out by the state Supreme Court. And all the usual critics were saying all the usual things.
Big business was about to stomp the little people again, and Eyman was just doing the dirty work, complained Andrew Villenueve, who blogs under the name of the Northwest Progressive Institute. “Tim Eyman loves corporate lobbyists and corporate lobbyists love Tim Eyman because Tim Eyman does their work,” he declared. “He is out here sounding like the people’s champion, and they are not here. Do you see any corporate lobbyists out here in this lobby? I don’t.”
True enough. There weren’t any lobbyists in sight. Villenueve at least was right about that. But it wasn’t as if they were hiding. The lobbyists weren’t with Eyman because they weren’t with Eyman. They still aren’t. The new campaign from the state’s love-him-or-hate-him initiative promoter is being greeted with a roaring silence from business. After two notable campaigns in which many of the state’s leading business interests raised millions for Eyman and pushed his measures over the finish line, he has found no business-community support for his latest proposal.
It is perhaps the most abstract anti-tax idea Eyman has put forward during his astoundingly successful 15-year career – a 10 for 20 record so far. This one seems to be meeting with indifference from the big-money funders, and even some quiet opposition. Certainly none of those who wrote $25,000 and $50,000 checks last time around show up on his latest campaign-finance report. Some say it is a matter of bad timing; bad idea, say others. There’s also some bad blood.
Eyman this week revealed in public-disclosure filings that he has taken out a $250,000 mortgage against his house for his upcoming signature drive. He calls it seed money. You might call it a distress flare. He did the same thing back in 2010 when his campaign that year was struggling, before business came to the rescue. Though he has placed a $50,000 deposit with his usual signature gathering firm, Citizen Solutions, he says he’s not going to get started unless he lines up the $1 million or so that it takes to put over a signature drive. Because the deadline is looming July 5 and there are 246,000 signatures to gather, and the longer Eyman waits, the more expensive it gets – it is looking like this drive may well be a non-starter.
Aims to Force Constitutional Amendment
Liberal blogger and longtime Eyman foe Andrew Villevueve complains about an alliance that doesn’t exist.
“I think this is a great initiative, and maybe the most impactful one that we will ever do,” says Eyman. “I kind of feel like we have been practicing for the last seven years, with our two-thirds initiatives, and what we are doing here is sort of the natural progression to the next one.”
The latest proposal, Initiative 1314, is an extension of Eyman’s wildly successful two-thirds-for-taxes measures, which had a profound effect on the Legislature until the state Supreme Court finally declared them unconstitutional in February. Three measures in a row — I-960 in 2007, I-1053 in 2010, and I-1185 last year — all required a two-thirds vote of the House and Senate for any tax increase, unless the citizens took a public vote. That squelched any talk of major tax hikes while the initiatives were in effect, because votes from minority Republicans would have been required. The Republicans weren’t about to say yes.
Eyman kept running them because the state constitution allows lawmakers to rewrite or repeal any initiative with a simple majority vote two years after passage. Democrats did exactly that in 2010, suspending I-960, and they promptly passed a multi-billion-dollar tax increase. That’s why a chastened business community lined up behind the campaigns in 2010 and 2012. Fund-raising efforts were coordinated by the Association of Washington Business and financed by interests that almost certainly would have been targeted – oil, realtors, retailers and dozens of others.
Now that the Supreme Court has declared the people can’t impose the two-thirds rule by initiative, Eyman can’t go that route again. His new plan aims to convince the Legislature to place a constitutional amendment on the ballot. The basic idea is that no court can declare a constitutional amendment to be unconstitutional. An amendment certainly seems a sure bet for passage if voters ever get a say – they approved the last two measures by enormous margins, 64 and 65 percent. But convincing an unwilling Legislature to cooperate? That’s kind of a problem. To refer a measure to the ballot, it takes a two-thirds vote of the House and Senate. So an overwhelming majority of lawmakers would have to vote to place the handcuffs on themselves, not something they are likely to do without extreme pressure.
Requires Advisory Vote
Eyman’s initiative presents about the most roundabout process imaginable. First thing, he would require an annual advisory vote on whether the people of the state wish to vote on a constitutional amendment. The way it would be phrased leads one to think the answer would be pretty obvious. Voters could check either, “support letting the people vote,” or “oppose letting the people vote.”
The initiative also would stipulate that no tax increase passed by the Legislature alone could remain in effect for more than a year, starting with any taxes passed by the 2013 Legislature. Only with a public vote could a tax increase be imposed for a longer term. And if a legislator dares to vote for a tax increase, or a governor signs one, at election time there would have to be a lengthy explainer paragraph in the official voters’ pamphlet below that candidate’s photo. Eyman calls it his “scarlet letter.” All of that goes away the moment the Legislature decides to send a constitutional amendment to the voters.
Says Eyman, “We really can’t force these guys to put it on the ballot, but we do believe this combination of policies give them a tremendously strong incentive to finally say jeez, if we don’t do it this year, we’re going to have to face the voters in November, we’re gonna lose a bunch of seats, and then we’re going to have to do it again in 2015, and we’re going to have to do it again in 2016 – at a certain point I think this thing is going to work, and it is just a matter of getting the resources necessary to put it before voters.”
Steps on Third Rail
But that’s the thing. No one is stepping up to write the checks. And for all the thundering from the left about an unholy alliance between Eyman and the dark and powerful forces of business — there isn’t one. In fact, there is a decided silence about the entire matter. The Association of Washington Business, which just completed its annual spring meeting in Spokane, did not offer an early endorsement, as it did on the last two campaigns. That means there won’t be an AWB fund-raising drive for a signature campaign. The next time the state’s largest business organization gets together to make endorsements is at its annual policy summit in September, long after the signature deadline has passed.
The measure also tromps on the toes of the state’s influential transportation lobby, which hopes to pass a transportation tax plan in this year’s Legislature to stimulate new road construction projects. Chances appear dicey that such a proposal would survive a public vote. And whatever lawmakers think of passing a tax increase on their own, it is clear that the initiative would stop that from happening. How on earth could you issue bonds? “You can’t do a mega-project on one-year financing,” observes Senate Majority Leader Rodney Tom, D-Medina.
Jerry VanderWood of the Associated General Contractors said the organization hasn’t taken a position, but “a concern we would certainly discuss is its impact on transportation construction projects that obviously require a long-term funding proposition.”
A Great Big Shrug
That’s just the beginning. Washington State Wire spoke with a number of players in the campaigns of prior years and got an earful. Here’s what we heard:
Bad Timing: Right now the Legislature is about to return for a special session. Smart money is that the session will run at least into early June and lawmakers may not even finish until the state has to have a new budget on June 30. There is a reluctance to open checkbooks until anyone sees what the Legislature does. The fastest signature drives of recent times have taken about three weeks, and it is hard to believe there will be enough time after adjournment to gather signatures.
Bad Approach: Some call the initiative weak. Advisory votes don’t specifically force any action. The initiative doesn’t repeal a specific tax, just limits them to a year. Right now there is every chance tax hikes might be defeated in the legislative process. And if they aren’t, a repeal initiative might offer a better bang for the buck.
Bad Blood: There are some who are still livid about what happened on the last campaign. Business backed last year’s signature drive for I-1185, and canvassers also carried petitions for Eyman’s I-517 essentially for free. That measure ran counter to the interests of some in the business coalition. The so-called “initiative on initiatives” expands the rights of signature gatherers to petition at store entrances. It hasn’t been forgotten.
Bad Politics: And there are some of a partisan stripe who argue the Legislature might be better off with no two-thirds requirement at all. That’s because it leaves the Ds free to take all the tough tax votes they want. They might pay for it in the next election.
Will Never Surrender
Eyman says he’s never giving up on the two-thirds rule. He made it his baby and he says it is too popular to let slip; enshrining it in the constitution is the ultimate solution. “We’re not looking at it just in terms of the tax increases that are being imposed today,” he says. “What about the tax increases that are being contemplated two years from now, five years from now, 10 years from now? They are never going to give up coming back for more money. They will never give up. Olympia will never stop.” It is worth noting that Eyman has filed two new versions of the initiative since April 24, I-1315 and I-1316, which tweak the idea in hopes of picking up support. They would repeal taxes on beer and service businesses, just in case this year’s Legislature decides to reimpose them. Eyman could refile the initiative for a later election, but he says 2013 is when voters are likely to be angriest, particularly given Gov. Jay Inslee’s apparent reversal of a no-new-tax campaign promise.
“As long as it takes, this is the initiative that we are going to push for. We are never going to give up on doing this initiative and getting it before voters. I mean, this is our Normandy.”
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