Eyman plans next ballot measure

taxes: He wants to see what’s done in 2010

BRAD SHANNON; The Olympian | • Published November 08, 2009

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Professional initiative promoter Tim Eyman says he’ll be back next year with another ballot measure, and how state lawmakers handle taxes in January will have a lot to do with what he proposes.

One key lawmaker, House Majority Leader Lynn Kessler, said Friday that tax increases are not a certainty as lawmakers try to bridge a budget gap of $1.2 billion to $1.7 billion in January. The Hoquiam Democrat also discounted the effect that Eyman’s various initiatives are having on legislative deliberations.

“This economy isn’t even going up yet. ... We have to be very, very careful what we do now, and I think we are all very aware of it,” Kessler said.

Even if Democrats do agree that they need tax increases next year, they might put the request on the ballot anyway, Kessler added.

She made her comments in a telephone interview about the voters’ rejection of Eyman’s Initiative 1033 on Tuesday.

I-1033 was Eyman’s most far-reaching effort yet to limit government spending. It would have capped yearly increases in general-fund revenue for the state, cities and counties, shifting $5.9 billion into property-tax relief by 2015 at the state level alone.

Eyman said this week that despite his initiative’s double-digit defeat at the polls, he thinks his initiative efforts dampened enthusiasm for taxes in the most recent legislative session, and that I-1033 might dampen zeal for them next year, too – in the Legislature and on city councils and county commissions.

“All politics is local. You can talk about statewide numbers all night long (on I-1033). But individual city council members, county council members and legislators are going to look at ‘How did my constituents vote on 1033?’ ” Eyman said, suggesting they’ll decide that in many districts, there is a big voter bloc “that is going to rip my lungs out if I vote for a tax or fee.”

He said he expects House Speaker Frank Chopp and other lawmakers “to sit down and look neighborhood by neighborhood and see, ‘What were the vote totals on 1033?’”

As for next year, Eyman said that his team members, including Mike and Jack Fagan, “are going to try to read the tea leaves, like everybody, from 1033. We’ll do a tax initiative for next year. ... If the Legislature goes hog wild, we could put 1033 on the ballot again and it would likely pass.”

Kessler said lawmakers “don’t discuss Eyman and what he is doing in (making) our decisions. We really don’t. I will say I thought 1033 would be very ominous for our state. It would not work. We think voters got it: This is too much. We are losing services.”

A coalition led by labor raised almost $3.5 million to defeat I-1033, which drew comparisons in television ads to a 1992 Colorado tax-capping measure that voters suspended in 2005.

Eyman’s most recent successful measure, I-960, passed in 2007 and required tax increases to pass by supermajority votes in the Legislature or be sent to voters for approval. But with two years passing, lawmakers can bypass those “handcuffs” by amending or suspending the measure with a simple majority, or 50 percent plus one, vote.

Some activists want to see that happen, and Kessler said lawmakers have that option. But she said even that scenario is “not an easy vote. It would have to be something very unique and special. I’m not even imagining what that could be.”

If the state were to lose a few lawsuits over education funding, it’s possible the state might reach for additional dollars, but even then Kessler thinks “we still might let the people decide. ... I would think we would.”

Eyman said he will to watch carefully to see how an Oregon referendum on tax increases does in January. If voters there reject lawmakers’ votes to increase taxes, it will send a message to Olympia, he said. He also noted that Bremerton voters rejected a car-tabs measure Tuesday.

Some advocates say they think Eyman’s defeat can free up dialogue at the Capitol to include more options than just cutting programs to balance the books.

“I think the fact the public said ‘no’ so resoundingly is a sign the public ... may be willing to consider a modest revenue increase or suspending some tax loopholes,” Tim Welch, spokesman for the Washington Federation of State Employees, said of I-1033. “I think they recognize the harm an Eyman measure could have done in terms of making the problem worse.”

“I think we’ve seen lessons before, during the Depression. Cutting is the wrong thing to do,” Welch added. “I think we’re at a tipping point. If we cut any more, we’ll go into a death spiral. I think we’ll see tragedies occur ... and unfortunately, loved ones are going to die” as health care and other programs are cut.

The federation donated $75,000 to the No on 1033 campaign, which outspent Eyman by about 5-to-1. Welch said he thinks “voters have Tim Eyman fatigue,” and that is why his measures lost two years in a row, but he added that “we’ll never get rid of the guy.”

“I just think people think of him as somebody who is lobbing spitballs and isn’t really serious,” Welch said.

Jerry Reilly, an advocate with the Eldercare Alliance, went further.

“The overwhelming defeat of 1033 indicates that the voters understand that too many cuts have already been made in vital state services. The governor needs to do more than “entertain” revenue proposals. She needs to provide LEADERSHIP by including specific tax recommendations as part of her supplemental budget,” he wrote to The Olympian. “With $200 million in new state funds, we can generate an additional $300 million in federal Medicaid matching funds. With this half billion dollars we could recover f rom most of the devastating cuts already crashing through the health and long term care programs for the poor, elderly and disabled.”

State Republican Party chairman Luke Esser said his party is ready to start the fight against tax increases. His party endorsed I-1033 and is taking a no-new-taxes stance going into the 2010 campaign cycle as it tries to win back seats in the House and Senate next year.

Brad Shannon: 360-753-1688

bshannon@theolympian.com

www.theolympian.com/politicsblog