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Eyman Takes the Initiative

By John P. Krudy 

It’s not often that an activist group uses a government report to take on the government. But that’s exactly what Tim Eyman is doing right now.

He is proposing that the Washington legislature adopt recommendations made by the government’s own State Auditor, which they’ve rejected.            

“In our state, the government benefits from traffic congestion,” said Eyman, a Washington state activist who has been working since 1995 to reduce the size of government with the use of voter initiative petitions. “When we have problems with congestion, the politicians come to us and say, ‘give us more money to fix it.’ And we do, and they spend it on everything but traffic problems.”       

That’s the most remarkable thing about Eyman: his ability to scrape away political rhetoric and bureaucratic fluff to show Washington citizens the issue at hand. But his dedication to truth and limited government is not a mere talking point. Since the inception of Eyman’s group, Voters Want More Choices (VWMC), he has proposed 15 initiatives to the people of Washington, and 10 went on the ballot. Eight have passed.     

“We just let the voters do it,” Eyman said. “We knew that if we made some gains, and just tried to defend them, our opponents would eventually chew them away. So we just keep working—we’re on permanent offense.”

VWMC victories include I-747, which cut state and local property taxes; I-960, which requires a two-thirds majority in the Washington legislature for it to raise taxes or fees; and I-776, which cut motor vehicle excise taxes.        

“He is very good at drawing down the wrath of Olympia,” said Amber Gunn of the Evergreen Freedom Foundation, a libertarian think-tank in Washington. In her capacity as Evergreen’s Director of Economic Policy, Gunn regularly corresponds with Eyman and is concerned with the same legislative workings.         

“His supporters are pro-keep-my-own-money, and his group is all about government accountability. Those are things that [Evergreen] supports as well,” Gunn said.         

Eyman worked on his first ballot initiative in 1995, when he collected 100 signatures to force a public vote on a sports stadium. The initiative made it to the ballot, and the voters voted “no” on the stadium.       

What happened next is representative of Eyman’s struggles with government.         

“The legislature met, declared the stadium funding was an emergency, and so were able to pass it over the objections of the voters,” said Eyman, still annoyed after 13 years. “In that initiative process, I was just a cog in the machine, but that’s the seminal event that got me going.”         

One unique part of Eyman’s work is his use of initiatives, rather than lobbying politicians.         

“The initiative process, it’s an objective process,” he said. “You need a certain amount of signatures, you follow the rules, and you aim for the ballot.” Eyman said it’s far superior to trying to sway politicians.

“Each legislator is motivated by 18 different things, like money or special interest groups, and somewhere in there are the merits of the bill,” Eyman went on. “Whoever has the dollars wins, and we don’t have the dollars.”         

Eyman has humbling advice for those who want to fight encroaching government.         

“We like to get opponents to attack us, and not attack the bill on its merits,” he said. He discussed a 2004 effort to shrink the King County Council from 13 members to nine members. He said his group’s brochures discussed the initiative’s merits, while groups that opposed the bill told voters to withhold their support because Eyman was from another county and his involvement wasn’t fair.         

“I don’t care if voters think we’re obnoxious jerks,” Eyman said. “We want them to vote on the initiative.”         

Gunn said Eyman’s persistent work ethic has made his work successful.         

“People try hard to get things pushed through, but Tim just comes in and does it,” Gunn said. She said his persistence was essential in pushing through I-900, which allows the government to audit itself, and “that’s one of the best things that’s happened to Washington in years.”        

Government audits, which the Washington legislature had banned for four decades, are at the heart of this year’s effort to reduce congestion. Eyman said state auditor Brian Sonntag had conducted eight audits of the Department of Transportation, and had made 434 recommendations that would have saved citizens $3.2 billion, if adopted. The legislature did nothing. Now Eyman wants the government to quit ignoring the recommendations made by the government.         

“The legislature asks us, ‘Who are you to propose these changes?” said Eyman. “And we can say, ‘it ain’t our idea!”         

Eyman’s plucky attitude and devotion to principle are key to his success.        

“[Abraham] Lincoln lost over and over before he won anything,” Eyman said. “We just keep working. You only lose if you quit.”