MYNORTHWEST NEWS

Court tosses latest Eyman initiative

May 26, 2016, 9:49 AM | Updated: 11:25 am

Tim Eyman...

I-976 sponsor Tim Eyman. (AP)

(AP)

Tim Eyman’s latest voter-approved initiative was tossed by the Washington State Supreme Court Thursday morning.

I-1366 is void in its entirety, according to Daily Herald reporter Jerry Cornfield.

The measure, approved by voters, called for a two-thirds majority in the Legislature to raise taxes. However, it was found that “It is impossible to determine how many people voted for this initiative because they desired adoption of the constitutional amendment at its heart and how many voted for it because they desired the short-term relief of the immediate reduction in sales tax.”

It was the second time I-1366 has gone before the court.

The initiative was criticized by Gov. Jay Inslee in the past.

“If we were all offered a bowl of ice cream for nothing, we would take it,” Inslee said, noting that he has noticed this sort of behavior with Democrats and Republicans. “If we could vote for something that would seem to give us an impression that we could have a bowl of ice cream at zero cost, we probably would take it. But then we would eventually have to figure out how to pay for it.”

Eyman played off the ice cream comment controversy by standing at Inslee’s office, and leaving a bowl of the dessert out for the governor.

“And we had a bowl of ice cream for the governor, and we had a spoon, and we had the whole bit, and we were highlighting the fact that voters voting six times is not a sign that voters are children,” Eyman said. “This is a sign that voters are sick and tired of having politicians like Jay Inslee say he’s going to veto taxes while running for office, but then become the greatest cheerleader for tax increases that our state has ever seen.”

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