Sunday's Seattle Times carried an editorial endorsing I-960. The paper has not made a habit of endorsing either the initiative process generally or Tim Eyman's approach to government specifically. But with respect to 960,
itiative 960 deserves the people's support. In this decade, the Legislature has raised statewide taxes on cigarettes, liquor, inheritances and gasoline. Initiative 960 makes further tax increases a bit more difficult, but still allows them...
And it goes on to count the ways.
This is not a great solution, but it's about all the people can do by ballot. We think it would have a wake-up effect on legislators.
If that sounds like "send them a message" to you, it does to me, too. A bit of a departure for the Times, which has generally staked out a skeptical-to-hostile approach to the initiative process. But any surprise we feel is compounded by Eyman's shock and delight. In one of his frequent emails to everyone - Subject line: WOWZA - Seattle Times endorses I-960 he writes,
When a dog barks, it's not news; when a cat barks, that's news. The Seattle Times, the crown jewel and flagship newspaper in Washington, has now joined the Everett Herald, the Centralia Chronicle, the Yakima Business Times, and columnists Adele Ferguson, Elizabeth Hovde, and John Carlson in enthusiastically endorsing I-960.
More peculiar is this line from the email.
The Association of Washington Business is staying on the sidelines, officially neutral but tacitly supportive, unlike in the past.
True, AWB has often been on the other side of Eyman's initiatives. We did not take a position for or against I-960. That's not quite the same as neutral, but perhaps not much different, either. What it's not is tacit support. Still, i suspect years of being the outsider have led Tim to figure, "if you're not against me, you're with me." Not a bad philosophy in his position.
