Washington tax protester fined $2.6 million for ‘egregious’ campaign finance violations
(The Center Square) — A Thurston County judge on Wednesday deemed Tim Eyman, a well-know Washington state tax protester, guilty on charges of campaign finance violations.
The charges date back to 2015 when the state’s Public Disclosure Commission launched an investigation into Eyman for campaign finance violations from 2012 which included failure to report political donations and pocketing up to $1 million in campaign money to pay for personal expenses.
The PDC referred the case to Attorney General Bob Ferguson, who pursued criminal charges against Eyman soon thereafter. According to court documents, Eyman was approximately 2,975 days late in filing the campaign disclosures in question.
In that time, Eyman has filed for bankruptcy and racked up $300,000 in fines for failing to produce subpoenaed records and answering questions from authorities. He also landed legal representation by Richard Sanders, a former Washington state Supreme Court justice.
Eyman has vehemently denied the charges against him, which he has described as a political smear campaign by big government.
“While the AG has had unlimited resources to assign teams of taxpayer-financed lawyers to bury me and my attorneys in an endless maze of motions and procedures, my legal costs have had to be funded privately (from my family’s limited resources and from financial support from folks like you),” Eyman wrote on his website in 2018. “I was doing the best I could to keep up.”
On Wednesday, Thurston County Judge James ruled that Eyman had committed “numerous and particularly egregious” campaign finance violations which first made their way to his courtroom back in November 2020.
Under Dixon’s 32-page ruling released on Wednesday, Eyman is banned from heading any campaign finance committees and must pay a $2.6 million fine.
“Mr. Eyman’s violations had a significant and material impact on the public,” Dixon wrote. “Mr. Eyman has personally benefited economically from these allegations.”
Eyman, a former Washington gubernatorial candidate, has sponsored dozens of state tax reform measures over the past 20 years which have also landed him in court.
Ferguson, who represented Eyman in court last fall in defense of an overturned car tab measure, hailed Dixon’s ruling on Wednesday as long overdue.
“This will not prevent Eyman from conceiving, drafting and promoting initiatives,” Ferguson said. “It will, however, stop his practice of directing financial kickbacks into his personal bank account.”
Eyman’s voter-approved and overturned car tab relief measure did inspire the Seattle City Council late last year to cut car tab fees from $80 to $20. Members now continues to debate how to better spend the reduced transportation revenue for the city.
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