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Published September 2002
Eyman:
Fifth Horseman
of Apocalypse?
Political
activist and initiative promoter Tim Eyman of Mukilteo might be described
by some critics as the Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse, a frightening,
wild-eyed rider galloping over the countryside with his equally fearsome
companions — Famine, Pestilence, War and Death.
This new rider — named Arrogance — can be just as devastating as the others, though Arrogance takes longer to achieve the same damaging effects on people’s lives, jobs and economic stability.
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Eyman’s all about Eyman In e-mails to news media and his press conference exuberance, Tim Eyman doesn’t hesitate to describe his passion for politics, power and promotion, especially self-promotion: “Despite my past mistakes and past stupidness, does this light my fire, fighting the good cause ... getting down into the snake pit of politics? The answer has been booming in my head: absolutely. “To me, it is the most interesting, fascinating, vibrant process imaginable. There are no holds barred, just unbridled passion. You get the forces of good and evil clashing — and both sides think they’re the good ones. Ultimately, it’s all up to the voter. It is so magnetic to me. I am enormously drawn to the process. “This is full-bore, vintage Tim Eyman, not the bawling boob they saw in February. This is Tim Eyman, swinging the bat, the guy who shakes up the status quo.” Associated Press political writer David Ammons wrote that Eyman’s decision to become a long-term fixture as a professional initiative promoter “gladdens the heart of tax critics who see him as a last line of defense against Big Government and depresses those who think he is dangerously undermining basic services and representative government itself.” Eyman’s success isn’t really dependent on himself, but rather on “the Eymanistas who pay for the campaigns with their $10 and $20 checks and with the voters who judge his ideas,” Ammons wrote. “Bottom line: If he fails to qualify measures for the ballot or the voters start turning them down one after another, he’s toast.” |
Musing over the major negative events that have impacted our state and Snohomish County in the past year, I think of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the airlines’ financial woes, deep cuts in Boeing employment, a weakened economy, debilitating traffic congestion, the state’s often hostile business environment — and Tim Eyman’s initiative campaigns.
Instead of his image as a grass-roots folk hero battling evil government to save money for the ‘little guy,” Eyman should be seen as a prime example of the perils of running government by initiatives rather than by elected representatives, and the dangers of trying to solve complex problems with simplistic solutions. Many people are seeing Eyman and his tactics for what they really represent — the wrong way to solve multifaceted issues:
- In a recent letter to The Herald, Snohomish County Economic Development Council Chair Reid Shockey wonders when the public is going to finally realize “that Mr. Eyman cares little and knows little about the topics of his initiatives ... (he) will continue to crank out initiatives no matter who gets hurt, as long as it produces the dollars and the lifestyle to which he has become accustomed. Washington voters have created a monster and have yet to suffer the inevitable consequences.”
- Glenn Pascall, regional economist at the Evans School of Public Affairs at the University of Washington, has called Eyman “one of the system’s bottom feeders. ... Politics abhors a vacuum, and if elected officials don’t set the agenda, someone else will. ... State and elected officials, shell-shocked by Eyman’s ‘permanent offense,’ retreat into ever more timid behavior that provides ever more running room to the ballot initiative industry propped up by paid signature gatherers. ... With unerring instinct, Eyman homes in on the system’s weakest link and when it has been demolished, he shifts focus to the next target.”
- Peter Thein of the state Transit Association calls Eyman’s proposal a “simple minded” idea that would lead to a roads-only approach that would delay a comprehensive fix to traffic problems.
Eyman makes his new initiative — 265 — sound like an attractive alternative to R-51, the Legislature’s decadelong $7.7 billion highway and mass-transit funding package based on a 9-cent-a-gallon gasoline tax increase, a 1 percent surtax on car sales and a 30 percent increase in trucking fees.
Voters’ frustrations tempt them to embrace 265’s simplistic solution, requiring all vehicle sales taxes to be used for road construction and maintenance, even though it would shift $7.5 billion from present funding for schools, prisons, health care and other critical programs.
Isn’t it ironic that Eyman’s initiative is meant to block R-51, the Legislature’s detailed solution to traffic congestion, project by project, developed by the politicians Eyman has called unresponsive to people’s needs?
The news media cannot and should not ignore Tim Eyman’s right to air his views and promote his initiatives. But the media should do better at showing the public the folly of his thoughts and the arrogance that blinds any possibility of clear thinking, arrogance that is also damaging the credibility of this state’s prized initiative process.
© The Daily Herald Co., Everett, WA
