Opponents to I-1053 Supermajority Initiative Try Slimy Tactics

Misrepresentations during initiative campaigns are common as ants at a summer picnic. Yet I've not seen much to compare with the desperate efforts of groups opposing I-1053 to tie the initiative to the oil industry. Erik Smith does a great job of reporting on the issue in Washington State Wire. Read the whole thing, but I want to quote from it here.

This might seem a little strange to anyone who has been paying attention to Washington politics over the last 20 years or so, but a ballot measure that aims to make it harder to raise taxes turns out to be a wicked new scheme to bail out big oil companies.

Well? That’s what they’ve been saying on activist websites for the last couple of weeks, anyway. Lately the message has been picked up and repeated by sympathetic media outlets.

The facts say something else.

Although the campaign got a big chunk of change from the oil industry, it accounted for only about a fifth of the $1 million that was raised. That’s nothing by comparison with the other five initiatives heading toward the ballot this year. Of all the initiatives, I-1053 has the grassiest roots of the bunch.

Give AWB's top lobbyist Gary Chandler the last quote.

Chandler said business decided to back I-1053 after this year’s session was over, and Eyman’s campaign was already well-established in the field. The stakes are too big for business to ignore, he said.

Next year the Legislature will face a $3 billion shortfall, and if this year was any indication, lawmakers will turn almost immediately to tax increases, rather than spending cuts. They faced an enormous shortfall this year, too. They raised taxes, he said, but they couldn’t bring themselves to junk the state liquor stores or the state printer.

“All of us in our businesses have had to take a look at our spending,” he said. “We don’t have as much money coming in. And how do we keep our people employed? We’re looking at our core values. I don’t know that government has done that yet.”

To get all the facts on I-1053 and why it's necessary to pass it this year, visit YesOn1053.com