Okay, even if the initiative to declare it a fact was ruled off the ballot in March, Tim Eyman is in fact a horse's ass. Not only has the man openly admitted to misusing "campaign" funding for personal expenses, but he's batting a measly .250 in creating constitutional intiatives (.200 if you include the latest of his endeavors - but I'm being nice, since he was just an "advisor" on this latest SNAFU).
For those of you who don't know (if you're not from WA, there's no reason for you to know), Tim Eyman is the rat-bastard former watch salesman that has been single-handedly decapitating Washington's budget for the past four or five years, abusing the state's initiative process to push his own agenda of "populist" politics. All he's gotten for his efforts is massive media coverage, which I'm quite sure is perfectly to his liking.
Let's be realistic - if the man actually were interested in changing the political climate, wouldn't he have learned his lesson when his first initiative was ruled unconstitutional, for including more than one topic within the initiative itself (I-695)? No - in fact, his next initiative (I-722, drafted after the first ruling) suffered from the very same fate. Granted, he may have been in denial over the lower court's initial I-695 ruling, given his delusions of grandeur, but rule #1 of the legal system is that you don't count your chickens before they hatch (or in this case, before the Supreme Court rules against you).
Yet, undaunted by the press coverage of his own inacccuracies and falsehoods, he continues to press forward, this past week accusing the state (after finally coming through with a budget that fit both House and Senate requirements) of a "4 Billion-Dollar Lie".
What Mr. Eyman and many of his supporters continually fail to grasp is that the money that they pay in taxes is going to support the society around them, a society that they have supported by electing representatives that make policy decisions for them. This is not a direct democracy, never has been and never will be. If you want to change politics, vote the bastards out of office. But don't handicap our police, fire, jails, teachers, and transportation systems just to "make a statement" to the Legislature.
Eyman, if you're really interested in driving change, do it the way the Founding Fathers of this state intended you to do it - run for office. If you're actually elected, then maybe I'll listen to your opinions of the system. Until then, keep coming up with half-assed, unconstitutional initiatives. We'll keep laughing you out of court on them. Hope you like your 15 minutes of fame, 'cause God knows this isn't "for the people" anymore.
