Washington initiative entrepreneur Tim Eyman (photo, left), fined $2.6 million for lawbreaking in his own state, is taking his medicine show on the road.
Eyman made his name in Washington as an anti-tax crusader. He tapped into a popular issue; nobody likes taxes. He also tapped into campaign funds, which got him in trouble.
He also tapped into a deeply ingrained element of the American psyche. In our deal-making culture, people always want something for nothing. Eyman traded on this mentality for years, by selling the notion to Washington voters that they could get public services without paying taxes for them, and lined his own pockets in the process.
P. T. Barnum had a handle on it when he said, “There’s a sucker born every minute.” And like Barnum, Eyman is a showman. Many of his initiatives passed but the courts struck them down, although his famous $30 car tab tax was subsequently enacted by the legislature by popular demand. It had the effect of starving counties and cities of operating funds.
Now Eyman is hitting the road and shifting gears, hoping to cash in on the GOP’s anti-voting crusade. He’s starting with an initiative in Michigan to override the Democratic governor’s veto of a GOP-sponsored vote-suppression bill. You can read the details here.
According to KUOW, a Seattle radio station, “Eyman said he is taking his initiative expertise to seven other states to help pass what he and other Republican supporters call voting ‘integrity’ laws.” Republican arguments for these laws are couched in terms of “restoring confidence” in elections, after they’ve expended monumental efforts to defame our election systems. What they don’t have is evidence of significant voter fraud, because it doesn’t exist.
What out for this guy. Don’t tell him where you live, or let him see your voter registration. And hold tight to your office chair (go here for why).
