Tax foe Tim Eyman’s latest effort to limit taxes is looking up

Opponents immediately said they would challenge the constitutionality of 1366 in the courts.

In early returns, Initiative 1366 was passing with 54 percent of the vote. “When, in any state’s history, have the voters supported a policy enough that they were willing to qualify and pass the same policies so many times?”

By a wide margin, Washington voters have enacted a state law banning the trade in elephant ivory, rhino horns and certain other endangered wildlife parts.

Tim Eyman’s latest tax-reducing intitiative, I-1366, passed handily in Tuesday’s election. Right now, lawmakers can raise taxes with a simple majority vote.

An attorney for a group that had sought to keep the measure off the ballot says it is assessing its options if the current electoral numbers hold.

“Thank you, Washington voters”, said Barbara Bennett, Vulcan president and chief operating officer, to Tuesday night’s crowd.

In August, King County Superior Court Judge Dean Lum said the initiative appears to violate the normal process for constitutional amendments, but he allowed I-1366 to appear on the November ballot anyway. But opponents have vowed to fight the measure in the courts.

“Obviously, this is something that needs to be decided as quickly as possible, ideally before the legislative session starts”, he said.

That decrease in the state sales tax would result in an estimated $8 billion loss of revenue over six years.

“It’s time for a vote on a 2/3-for-taxes constitutional amendment to permanently protect taxpayers from Olympia’s insatiable tax appetite”, he wrote.

What voters are apparently approving is a new demand for all tax increases to require a 2/3rd’s vote of the Legislature.

Republicans control the Senate but don’t have the votes required to pass such a measure. Democrats have a slim majority in the House.

“Tonight’s victory is a step forward in the race against extinction”, said a statement from Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist Paul Allen, who bankrolled the initiative with $2 million. “I don’t know how the Legislature is going to react to that”.

Now, in an ironic twist, before Ferguson begins prosecuting Eyman for any past electoral hanky-panky, he could be defending the legitimacy of the initiative entrepreneur’s latest undertaking.