While Referendum 71 is garnering much of the public’s attention, Initiative 1033 is generating much more campaign fundraising to this point.
The initiative is the latest creation of Mukilteo’s Tim Eyman and it takes aim at the growth in revenues of cities, counties and the state.
Without getting too technical, this measure sets an annually adjusted cap on the amount of revenue those governments can collect. Almost anything received above the cap must be returned to residents who pay property taxes.
It doesn’t restrict how the money is spent. As you might imagine most of the money coming into government gets spent on employees who keep government — including social and human service programs – operating.(Don’t forget schools are a piece of this pie because state funds cover a major chunk of teacher salaries.)
Guess who is writing the largest checks against Initiative 1033? Yep, unions representing workers and teachers.
The No on I-1033 Committee has raised $490,328 and spent only a fraction, $66,806, according to the Public Disclosure Commission.
Of that total, $140,000 comes from Service Employees International Union (SEIU) affiliates and $125,000 from the national and state arms of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME). These two unions represent a lot of workers in local and state government.
There’s another $25,000 each from the Washington Education Association and the statewide public school employees union.
Though organized labor is the source of most the money, Washington State Hospital Association, Group Health and Providence Health each donated $25,000 to the cause.
And as far as lawmakers, I noticed Eyman nemesis state Sen. Adam Kline ponied up $50.
Eyman has raised $670,159 and spent most of it, $617,863, on getting enough signatures to qualify the measure for the November ballot. Looking at the PDC Web site, it appears the last donation to Eyman’s campaign came at the end of July.
There are three primary sources of income to the effort. Michael Dunmire, Eyman’s political sugar daddy, provided $300,000 while Eyman himself came up with $250,000 by taking out a loan against his home. The third big donor is Bellevue developer Kemper Freeman who contributed $25,000.
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