Tim Eyman: Astroturf “Grass Roots” Front for Rightwing Millionaires

About forty-eight years ago, Howard Jarvis fucked Grover Norquist and they named their hideous love child Tim Eyman.  If you don’t live in or near Washington State, you probably haven’t heard of this guy.  But every state probably has its own anti-tax folk hero — somebody to give a populist voice to the joy and pain of being a plutocrat:

“I’m mad as hell at the unwashed masses and I’m not going to take it any more!”

Since the late 1990s Tim Eyman has been determined to bankrupt the State of Washington with one anti-tax initiative after another.  Some of his initiatives have been passed by voters; some have been defeated.  And some of the ones that passed were later overturned by the courts.

Tim Eyman’s newest initiative — not on the ballot yet — would require all new tax increases to automatically expire after one year.  And it would require all state voter pamphlets to list each legislator’s voting record on all tax measures.  (I personally would be more interested in who contributed to each candidate’s re-election campaign; but that’s just me.)

Joel Connelly of the Seattle PI has Tim Eyman dialed.  Nailed.  He articulates exactly how and why Tim Eyman is such a phony bloodsucking piece of shit.  And he does it without any cursing or name-calling.  (I wish I could do that.)

From Joel Connelly’s column:

“He has turned into the favorite populist of local plutocrats and corporations wary of having loopholes closed or taxes raised.  The state’s major oil refiners put in $350,000 to fuel  Eyman’s 2011 super-majority measure onto the state ballot.  The Legislature in 2010 came close to passing a small per-barrel cleanup fee.  The Beer Institute topped that with $400,000.

“Bellevue developer Kemper Freeman Jr. put more than $1 million into an Eyman initiative that sought to block Sound Transit from crossing Lake Washington with a rail line extending to Bellevue and Redmond.  Financier Michael Dunmire has underwritten campaigns on issues ranging from taxes to traffic cameras.”

Ah, the voice of the people.

Andrew Villeneuve, of the Northwest Progressive Institute, also has some kind words for Tim Eyman:

“Eyman wants to clog up our ballots with nonbinding advisory votes that amount to nothing more than useless opinion research conducted at taxpayer expense.  If Eyman’s wealthy benefactors want to pay for one-sided poll questions intended to reinforce their talking points, that’s fine.  But the rest of us shouldn’t be forced to.”

As one of the commenters at the end of the linked article said:

“If Eyman had some 'nads, he would run for office and try to get things passed the way things were intended.”