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Tim Eyman (born 22 December 1965) is a conservative political activist in the U.S. state of Washington. He advocates for a more efficient state government, through lowering state taxes and fees. He has written 15 initiatives and one referendum.

Initiatives

Eyman has been a proponent of many successful initiatives in the State of Washington. His work on Initiative 695 in 2000 ($30 Car Tabs) was recognized by the Conservative Political Action Conference with its Ronald Reagan Award. Recent initiatives submitted by Mr. Eyman are discussed below by ballot year.

2006

On January 30, Eyman filed an initiative and a referendum, both intended to repeal a measure which added sexual orientation to the list of categories against which discrimination in housing, lending, and employment is banned in the state of Washington. Supporters of the initiative argued the law it was attempting to repeal did nothing more than give preferential treatment to certain groups. In addition to seeking to remove "sexual orientation" from the law, Eyman pushed an initiative that would prohibit state government from requiring quotas or other preferential treatment for any person or group "based on sexual orientation or sexual preference. Eyman had announced he would be turning in the signatures for the gay-rights referendum on June 5. Instead, he showed up at the State Capitol dressed as Darth Vader and then announced he would turn in petitions the next day, at the deadline. He reportedly wasn't carrying any of the signatures, but instead was carrying signed petitions for another car-tab measure unrelated to the referendum. The next day, June 6, Eyman announced he had fallen more than 7,000 signatures short of the 112,440 required to get the measure placed on the November ballot. The state law that he had attempted to put to a public vote took effect on the same day.

On January 9, Eyman filed an initiative to cap motor vehicle registration charges at $30 per year and repeal taxes and fees exceeding the $30 limit. On June 29, Eyman submitted 14,270 pages of signatures for this initiative to the Secretary of State's office. On July 7, Eyman submitted an additional 2,716 pages. While at the front desk, and prior to the counting of any signatures, Eyman requested that the receptionist date stamp a piece of note pad with the number 300,353 on it.

On July 23 Eyman charged the Secretary of State's office with "... gross incompetence, purposeful sabotage, or blatant dishonesty" for the discrepancy of 34,347 signatures. Along with the "receipt" with the number 300,353, Eyman claimed to have kept weekly logs of the number of signatures collected, and wrote the weight (although not the number of pages or signatures) of each box of petitions on the boxes themselves. The Secretary of State's office could not provide the boxes, as they were recycled upon the cataloging of the signatures. It also denied the credibility of Eyman's receipt, noting that official counting had not even begun at that point, and calling attention to their own official receipts. Eyman has been completely unable to substantiate his claim of submitting 300,353 signatures, as he claims to have not made copies of the petitions. On July 28, the Secretary of State's office announced that it had conducted a random sample test of 4% of the signatures, finding an invalidation rate of 17.96%. Based upon this number, the initiative failed to make the ballot. A full check of all signatures collected confirmed this conclusion.

2007

In 2007, Eyman spearheaded Initiative 960, intending to make it harder for the Legislature to raise taxes and fees.

2008

In 2008, Eyman sponsored I-985, which attempted to reduce traffic congestion through various means including:

• Opening HOV/carpool lanes to all vehicles during non-peak hours, where "non-peak" is defined as any time outside of 6-9am and 3-6pm on Mondays through Fridays.
• Requiring local governments to synchronize traffic lights on heavily-traveled arterials and streets.
• Clearing out accidents faster with expanded emergency roadside assistance, which would be funded by vehicle sales tax revenues.
• Restricting toll usage such that they can only be used on the freeway or bridge being tolled, with any surplus revenue to be redirected to other congestion relief efforts in the state.

Eyman submitted approximately 290,000 signatures to get the initiative on the ballot for the 2008 general election. The initiative claims to follow the recommendations of a congestion study by state auditor Brian Sonntag, but former state transportation secretary Doug MacDonald stated that there is "no connection" between the study's findings and the initiative's goals. Auditor Sonntag himself directly refuted the claim that I-985 implements the recommendations of the state congestion audit.

Critics argued that opening HOV lanes to more cars would not reduce congestion, and in fact would likely cause worse congestion since rush-hour traffic typically lasts longer than 3 hours each morning and night during weekdays. I-985 would also have stalled funding for the replacement of the Evergreen Point Floating Bridge, since the bridge's construction is currently dependent on tolls that will come from both the current bridge and the I-90 floating bridge. Since both bridges cross Lake Washington, requiring tolls on only one bridge would serve only to push traffic to the other. The initiative also directed no funding toward mass transit, counteracting the desired goals of the revised Proposition 1, which sought funding for expansion of light rail, commuter trains, and bus service in the Puget Sound region. Proponents of I-985 pointed out that highways I-405 and SR 167 have opened their HOV lanes during non peak hours without any noticeable problems.

The initiative was defeated 60% to 40% with only one of the state's 39 counties approving the initiative.

2009

In 2009, Eyman sponsored I-1033, which would apply a cap on revenue tied to the consumer price index and population. The bill is similar to TABOR which was enacted in 1992, and then placed on a 5 year timeout in 2005 by referendum, in Colorado. The initiative was rejected by voters.

Salary Controversy

In February 2002 the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported that Eyman paid himself $165,000 from campaign donations, while claiming to be working for free. Eyman initially denied receiving payments, but later admitted wrongdoing. The Washington State Public Disclosure Commission, the state equivalent of the Federal Elections Commission charged Eyman with diverting $233,000 from his initiative campaigns. and Eyman eventually settled with the Washington State Attorney General's office, paying $50,000 and accepting a lifetime ban on involvement in any political committee's financial accounts. Since the settlement, Eyman's co-sponsors and chairmen in his Permanent Offense political committee became more actively involved; Monte Benham of Kennewick became the head of Permanent Offense, though Eyman remained involved politically.

Notes

1. "Oversize ego that made Eyman a star also set up his fall". The News Tribune. 2002-02-10. {{cite news}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); Unknown parameter |auhtor= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
2. Seattle Times Article
3. Roesler, Richard (2006-06-06). "Judge tosses out Eyman property tax initiative". Spokane Spokesman Review. Retrieved 2008-04-12.
4. Washington Secretary of State website
5. http://www.komonews.com/news/archive/4192401.html
6. "Official receipt given to Mr Eyman for his I917 petitions" (pdf). Retrieved 2008-04-12.
7. "News Release: Office of Secretary of State to conduct a full signature check on Initiative 917" (Press release). 2006-07-28. Retrieved 2008-04-12.
8. Taxes? Fees? I-960 rattles Olympia (accessed: 30 Jun 2008)
10. "I-985 often shuns traffic audit." The Olympian. August 24, 2008.
11. "Auditor Brian Sonntag is neutral on I-985, congestion measure." The Tacoma News Tribune. October 9, 2008.
12. ^ "ACEC Washington Endorses Proposition 1 and Opposes Initiative 985." American Council of Engineering Companies of Washington. September 17, 2008.
13. "Stop I-985…before It Stops You!" Sierra Club, Cascade Chapter. August 14, 2008.
14. "Eyman says he'll be back next year with new initiative." Seattle Times. November 6, 2008.
15. "Washington Initiative 1033 (2009)". Ballotpedia.
16. Seattle P-I Article Feb 1, 2002 http://www.seattlepi.com/local/56707_eyman01.shtml
17. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A0DEFD7103DF936A35751C0A9649C8B63
18. Seattle P-I Article April 6, 2002 http://www.seattlepi.com/local/65555_eyman06.shtml
19. http://www.atg.wa.gov/pressrelease.aspx?&id=5798
20. Seattle P-I Article August 14, 2002 http://www.seattlepi.com/opinion/82474_eymaned.shtml

External links

• Voters Want More Choices - an organization partially directed by Eyman
• Permanent Defense, an Eyman opposition group
• The Battles of Tim Eyman - A documentary film about Tim Eyman

References

Template:Persondata

• Articles with specifically marked weasel-worded phrases from April 2009
• 1966 births
• Living people
• Taxation in the United States
• American activists
• People from Yakima, Washington
• Direct democracy activists