OLYMPIA – Tim Eyman and his initiative partners will share a salary fund of more than $173,000 for their 2006 labors, even though they failed to qualify for the ballot last year.
Eyman said Wednesday that he and Jack and Mike Fagan, a father-son duo from Spokane who help run the conservative-leaning initiative factory, will split the money that contributors mailed to a compensation fund.
Eyman, the frontman and ubiquitous media personality who also runs a business from his Mukilteo home, will get $86,734. The Fagans will each get $43,372.
Eyman, who once got in trouble for secretly creating a salary fund from regular donations without telling backers, now keeps the salary fund separate from the campaign treasury. The three draw no pay during the signature-gathering phase, but later send out a solicitation letter for retroactive compensation.
Last year, coming off a successful 2005 campaign to require performance audits of state and local programs and agencies, they divided $209,000 in salaries.
Recently, Eyman has had a bumpy ride. In 2006, he failed to collect enough signatures to earn a public vote on a new gay-rights law or on a perennial proposal to roll back the tax on vehicle registrations to $30 a year.
This week, he introduced an initiative to make it harder to raise taxes and to require much more public information about revenue proposals. It’s called the Taxpayer Protection Initiative. The campaign has until July to collect about 225,000 valid voter signatures and secure a place on the November statewide ballot.
This is Eyman’s 10th year pushing initiatives, stretching back to measures dealing with affirmative action, rollback of the car-tab tax to $30, and limits on property tax increases. Of the 14 measures he has pushed, nine got on the ballot and seven were approved by voters. Some were later thrown out by the courts.
Eyman said the continuing support is gratifying. Backers likely were grateful for the previous initiatives, the new 2007 campaign and the prospect of more ballot measures in the future, he said.
Over time, the initiatives have saved taxpayers more than $7 billion and given voters a voice on taxes, performance audits, affirmative action and other issues, he said. He said he’s more enthused than ever about “direct democracy” of initiatives.
“This is clearly my focus,” he said. “This is what I love. This is my calling.”
David Goldstein, a persistent critic, said Eyman is drying up as a political factor and survives with the backing from a single big benefactor, Mike Dunmire, an investment banker from Woodinville. Eyman has proven that he can’t get initiatives on the ballot with volunteers and has to buy signatures, Goldstein said.
As for the salary fund, Goldstein said, “Nobody ever said people won’t throw good money after bad.”
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