Timothy Donald Eyman (born December 22, 1965) is an American anti-tax activist.
Since 1997, Eyman has become the most prolific sponsor of Washington ballot measures in its history, having qualified seventeen statewide initiatives. Eleven initiatives were passed by voters, though most of these in turn were later partially or wholly overturned by courts as unconstitutional. His first and most notable success was an initiative preventing affirmative action in Washington State.
Eyman's most prominent ballot measures are part of an unsuccessful "20 year tug-of-war" with the state over lowering motor vehicle excise taxes, or "car tabs" to defund Sound Transit, under the slogan "$30 Tabs", of which 2019's Initiative 976 is the most recent. It was ruled unconstitutional in 2020.
In February 2021, Eyman was convicted for violations of campaign finance law, fined $2.6 million, and barred from "managing, controlling, negotiating, or directing financial transactions" for any kind of political committee. In April 2021, he was ordered to pay an additional $2.9 million to reimburse the Washington State Attorney General's legal costs in pursuing civil penalties against him. He is currently bankrupt, and in December 2021 a court ordered sale of assets to meet $5.4m in legal liabilities to the State of Washington.Tim Eyman in default, assets to be sold to satisfy $5.4 million debt, Seattle Times
Early life and education Timothy Donald Eyman was born in Yakima, Washington and adopted shortly after birth. He graduated from Yakima's West Valley High School and went on to attend Washington State University (WSU) on an academic scholarship.
At WSU, he was initiated into Delta Tau Delta and competed on the university's intercollegiate wrestling team, finishing third in the Pacific-10 Conference. He received a bachelor's degree in 1988 in business management.
Career Mail order business After graduating from WSU, Eyman began a mail order business out of his home selling engraved wristwatches to members of Greek Letter Organizations.
Entry into politics In 1995, while living in Seattle's Green Lake neighborhood, a King County tax proposal before voters sought to raise $250 million for a new Seattle Mariners stadium. Eyman attended a public meeting where a Seattle radio host, Dave Ross, was speaking. There Eyman decided to help gather signatures at Green Lake while holding a cardboard sign reading, “Let the voters decide”, and gathered 100 signatures on his first day.
Voters ended up rejecting the tax package. Mariners' owner Nintendo of America insisted the city provide the $250 million funding, or the team would be sold. In an emergency session, Governor Mike Lowry and the legislature authorized King County to levy stadium bond taxes, which ended up being placed on restaurants and car rentals. Despite opposition from voters, the stadium now called T-Mobile Park was built and new taxes were imposed.
This experience drew Eyman into politics, and he often describes it as his “baptism of fire.” As he saw it, “They overruled what the voters did.” In 1997, Eyman sponsored his first ballot measure, Initiative 200, a Washington spin-off of California’s Proposition 209, which passed in 1996. Ward Connerly, an African-American businessman and Proposition 209's sponsor, would become Eyman’s hero and inspiration for his own initiative activism. Initiative 200 was approved by voters in 1998, winning 58.2% of the vote.
Initiative 695 and $30 Car Tabs origin Inspired by the 1998 "No Car Tax" campaign slogan of Virginia's then future governor, Jim Gilmore, Eyman sponsored Initiative 695 in 1999. It was an Initiative to the People to lower the fee for "car tabs" (the common name in Washington for car taxes, or motor vehicle excise taxes / MVET) in the state of Washington to a flat fee of $30.
Eyman's effort to circulate petitions and gather signatures resulted in 514,141 signatures total. Despite a broad institutional consensus in opposition – including "politicians, governments, the media, business big and small, environmentalists, civic groups, and labor" – voters approved the initiative with 56.16% of the vote, garnering nearly one million votes. Prior to the passage of Initiative 695, car tab fees were 2.2% of the value of the vehicle.
Initiative 695 not only cut car tabs to $30, but also required voter approval of all proposed taxes at the state or local level. After its passage, the initiative was immediately challenged by opponents, citing its effect on government budgets and its violation of a single-subject rule for initiatives. The Washington Supreme Court struck the provision for voter approval of taxes, but allowed the car tab cuts to remain.
While the court considered the constitutionality of the main provision, Democratic governor Gary Locke called a special session of the legislature to pass the $30 car tab flat fee provision into law, lay out budget cuts to account for the tax reduction, and Attorney General Gregoire defended it before the court. Despite "Microsoft, Boeing, Weyerhaeuser, labor, and virtually every editorial page in the state opposing I-695", and more than $2.1 million spent in the campaign against it, the $30 car tab fee was formally signed into law on March 30 after a positive ruling by the courts.
A January 2001 assessment by the conservative Washington Policy Center of the measure's effect claimed a net savings of $750 million in the first year, and twenty-one predictions made by opponents had not materialized. Eyman's work on Initiative 695 in 2000 ($30 Car Tabs) was recognized by the Conservative Political Action Conference with its Ronald Reagan Award.
Permanent Offense Following the success of that measure, Eyman established a political action committee called Permanent Offense to campaign for other anti-tax initiatives. In 2000 he began taking a salary as head of Permanent Offense, receiving $45,000 that year. According to Eyman, his decision to begin paying himself was due to the time he had invested into campaigning that had resulted in a loss of income from his watch business. He has since been described as a "professional initiative filer".
Eyman has been the primary sponsor of ballot initiatives concerning taxes and transportation almost every year since the passage of Initiative 695. Of seventeen initiatives that qualified for the ballot, eleven were passed by vote, however, a majority of those were subsequently overturned or partially invalidated in subsequent court action.
Political views Eyman has previously described himself as an "independent Republican", also noting that he is an admirer of Ralph Nader and Rob McKenna. He has been variously described by others as a "populist" and a "libertarian". Knute Berger once called him "a political player on a par with Governor Christine Gregoire and House Speaker Frank Chopp" and "the most influential conservative in the state".
In a 2006 interview with the Seattle Weekly, Eyman said "...there are Democrats and Republicans that really respect the initiative process. It’s those particular elected officials I admire the most, because they realize that they don’t have all the answers". As of 2019, according to Eyman, he had no formal party affiliation and was "equally frustrated by Republicans and Democrats at times". Writing in 2005, David S. Broder described Eyman as "a personable young man who has made a cottage industry of organizing tax-limitation initiatives".
Political activities after 1999
2000 After the implementation of the I-695 tax cuts by the legislature, many local governments raised taxes and fees in 1999 to cover the shortfall. Stating local governments largely raised property taxes to cover deficits and the legislature's use of the state budget surplus to cover shortfalls negated the need for tax increases a, Eyman sponsored Initiative 722 to reverse negate new property tax increases by capping yearly increases at 2%. Other taxes increases, like school levies, were not subject to I-722's tax increase limits. The measure won 55.89% voter approval.
2001 Citing Washington as being the "5th highest taxed state in the nation," with property taxes that "double every 7 to 9 years" from "decades" of yearly increases as high as 6%, Eyman filed Initiative 747 to limit property taxes in Washington. This measure sought to impose a 1% cap on annual property tax increases. It won with 57.6% voter approval. In 2007, after the initiative was declared unconstitutional by the Washington State Supreme Court, Governor Christine Gregoire called a special session of the legislature to restore the 1% property tax increase limit. It passed 39–9 in the Senate, and 86–8 in the House.
2002 With Governor Locke's $30 car tab law expiring, Eyman sponsored Initiative 776. It was a re-boot of Initiative 695 and continued the theme of $30 Car Tabs. It passed with 51.47%, gaining just over 900,000 votes.
2005 Frustrated by the passage of tax increases from Governor Gregoire despite promises not to raise them, Eyman introduced Initiative 900 to increase the power of the Washington state auditor to conduct performance audits. The initiative was approved by the voters by 56.4%, receiving nearly one million votes.
A 2009 report found a mixed reception by local officials to the performance audits. In December 2013, Democratic Washington state auditor Brian Sonntag said his office had identified almost $1.3 billion in potential five-year savings and increased revenue, after doing more than fifty performance audits and reviews.
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. 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.