Permanent Defense Extra! Issue #42
MESSAGE FROM THE CHAIRThe following is a a message I wrote last month - it is reprinted below if you missed its release.
Today and throughout this month, the members of Permanent Defense proudly celebrate five years, or sixty months, of political activism in Washington State, fighting Tim Eyman's senseless initiatives, working to reform the state's tax structure, and promoting the value of public services.
Launched in early February of 2002, Permanent Defense has remained in continuous operation for half a decade. It became a key division of the Northwest Progressive Institute in 2003.
The last twelve months, our fifth year, presented many challenges, but was arguably our most successful ever. The following is a brief recap of our amazing accomplishments:
Throughout the spring of 2006, we monitored right wing signature drives, allowing citizens to report on their experiences with petitioners - many of whom lied or fabricated information in order to get a signature.
We worked with our allies at Washington Won't Discriminate to fight Referendum 65, a right wing effort to legalize discrimination masterminded by Tim Eyman. We won a huge victory in June of 2006 - it never made the ballot, and the amended civil rights law remains in place.
We organized and mobilized to fight Initiative 917, Tim Eyman's attempt to repeal sorely needed transportation funding enacted in 2005 by the state Legislature. When I-917 failed a random sample check of signatures at the end July, we sent representatives to Olympia to observe the full signature check. I-917 ultimately failed to make the ballot a month later and we won another huge victory.
We teamed with broad based coalitions to beat two other right wing initiatives that did make the ballot - Initiatives 920 (repealing education funding) and 933 (pay or waive: land use mayhem). We were victorious again in November of 2006 as both were overwhelmingly defeated.
We renewed our efforts to urge the Legislature to enact initiative process reform in early 2007.
We also witnessed two courts issue rulings which we support - in June of 2006, Initiative 747 was ruled unconstitutional, and in December of 2006, the state Supreme Court ruled Sound Transit may continue to collect its motor vehicle excise tax so it can repay critical bonds.
We met all of our goals and responded to all the challenges laid before us in this last year - successfully. 2006 was nothing short of remarkable.
Despite our victories last year, Tim Eyman isn't going away. We will continue our opposition to his senseless onslaughts on our government, our communities, and our quality of life. We will fight against his "Minority Rules" initiative to cripple representative democracy until it is defeated.
As we pledged last year, Permanent Defense and NPI will continue our work to map out a long term plan for fixing Washington’s tax structure, including the development of a property tax homestead exemption
as well as alternatives to the state sales tax and the obnoxious “business & occupation tax”.
In the coming months, we'll be rolling out numerous improvements and additions to our website as we have in years past.
After our successes last year, we are confident we can overcome any challenges in our path and make Washington State a better place to live, work, and visit.
Thanks for your involvement during the past 365 days - here’s to another year of triumphs and successes!
Andrew Villeneuve
Chair, Permanent Defense
Executive Director, Northwest Progressive Institute
REPORT RIGHT WING SIGNATURE GATHERING ACTIVITY
This is initiative season and several right wing groups or individuals (including, of course, Tim Eyman) have filed initiatives they hope to qualify for the November 2007 ballot.
Paid signature gatherers are out on the streets now soliciting signatures for Tim Eyman's Initiative 960, which wreaks havoc on the legislative process by allowing a minority to defeat any bills that increase revenue (a supermajority vote would be required).
Two other initiatives that petitioners may end up hawking are Bob Baker's anti-immigrant initiative (which does not yet have a number or ballot title) and Ken Hutcherson's initiative to legalize discrimination (I-963).
If you see petitioners collecting signatures for any right wing initiative, please use Permanent Defense's reporting tool to tell us about it so we can more efficiently organize and mobilize.
If you see petitioners collecting signatures for any right wing initiative, please use Permanent Defense's reporting tool to tell us about it so we can more efficiently organize and mobilize.
To report right wing signature gathering activity:
http://www.permanentdefense.org/SignatureGathering.html
LEGISLATIVE UPDATE
The 2007 legislative session has reached the halfway point and we are tracking good legislation that helps reform the initiative process and our tax structure as well as bad legislation that would put back the restrictive revenue caps that were temporarily nullified following last year's court decision finding Initiative 747 unconstitutional. An overview:
We support legislation to reform the initiative process. Earlier in the session I testified before two committees in Olympia in support of reform.
http://www.nwprogressive.org/weblog/2007/02/initiative-process-reform-moves.html
We support legislation to shine some sunlight on tax exemptions and handouts for special interests. We oppose legislation that is based on Tim Eyman's Initiative 747.
http://www.nwprogressive.org/weblog/2007/03/let-house-finance-committee-know-you.html
We support a homestead exemption to make the property tax fairer. There is legislation in the state Senate which would create a homestead exemption, and although we're monitoring the changes to it closely, we're not convinced it's perfect yet. We'll keep you posted on it.
The latest legislative updates are always available from NPI's Official Blog at http://www.nwprogressive.org/weblog
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