Eyman prepares for a showdown

Mukilteo’s Tim Eyman is revved up to launch an initiative to expand gambling statewide and use the revenues to reduce property taxes.

But for weeks, a legal challenge from King County Executive and gubernatorial candidate Ron Sims has throttled Eyman’s signature-gathering machine.

On Friday, the two men will square off in Thurston County Superior Court, and the result should resolve how Initiative 892 will be described on petitions circulated among voters.

"Then the starting gun will be fired," Eyman said Tuesday. "Once the ruling comes down, I can go get copies and go out on the street."

Eyman, with more than $150,000 in campaign money for the measure, said he’s hired Citizen Solutions to begin collecting the 197,734 signatures of registered voters needed to put the initiative on the November ballot. The deadline to submit petitions is July 2.

This is one of five court cases on proposed initiatives and referendums being heard Friday.

Also under debate will be an initiative from the entertainment industry to ban smoking in public places where minors are allowed, an initiative to begin instant run-off voting, and referendums to repeal laws that created charter schools and installed a new primary election system.

In each case, the issue is how the measure is titled and described on the petitions. Judges will decide whether the language prepared by the state Attorney General’s Office accurately describes the measure, needs minor editing and revising, or should be rewritten.

Eyman is pushing two initiatives. Signature gathering for Initiative 864 to cut property taxes by 25 percent began nearly six weeks ago and is unaffected by the hearing.

That one has stirred its own controversy, most notably from public employee unions that phoned homes in Pierce County warning people not to sign because they might become victims of identity thieves.

Eyman filed a complaint with the Public Disclosure Commission charging that organizers of the campaign broke the law by not declaring how much money was raised and spent on the effort.

On Wednesday, commission officials rejected that complaint, noting that campaign disclosure forms had been filed by state-imposed deadlines.

Eyman’s focus this week is on the gaming measure. It would allow licensed gambling establishments from charities to card rooms, bars to bowling alleys to operate the same "electronic scratch ticket machines" as used in tribal casinos.

The state would get 35 percent of the net earnings from each operation, and then be required to funnel nearly all of that into a property tax reduction.

Each year, the amount would fluctuate up or down, depending on the level of gambling at nontribal facilities.

When Eyman first announced this effort, it was Initiative 885. On March 25, Sims sued, saying the title "did not reflect the massive expansion of gambling this initiative proposes, nor does it articulate that cities and counties would be limited in prohibiting these new activities." That same week, Eyman reworked and refiled the initiative, getting a new number, 892.

For those pushing the referendums, Friday’s court hearings are crucial because supporters have less time to complete their tasks. State law dictates they must turn in 98,867 valid signatures by June 9.

Public school educators opposed to charter schools are behind Referendum 55, which would let voters approve or reject the charter school law passed by the state Legislature this session.

Bellevue attorney Richard Pope is pushing referendums 56, 57 and 58, which would let voters act on the primary election bill passed by lawmakers and partially vetoed by Gov. Gary Locke.

Pope opposed Locke’s action to put in place a system in which voters pick a party ballot and the top vote-getter of each party advances to the November general election.

In the meantime, there is also an initiative aimed at overriding Locke’s decision. Initiative 872 pushed by the Washington State Grange would sustain voters’ long-enjoyed ability to pick any candidate of any party in the primary. The top two vote-getters would advance to the general election.

The grange is also trying to derail Locke’s plan in court. Grange leaders plan to file a lawsuit today that challenges the validity of the governor’s veto.