Washington initiative would expand gambling

Rebecca Cook

Monday, June 28, 2004 | 8:50 a.m.

SEATTLE -- Anti-tax activist Tim Eyman will head to the secretary of state's office triumphantly this morning, with about 235,000 signatures for his Initiative 892.

The measure, sure to be one of the hardest-fought campaigns this fall, would expand gambling and use the tax revenue to lower property taxes.

It takes about 198,000 valid voter signatures to get an initiative on the ballot. Initiative sponsors usually try to get at least 260,000 to be safe, in case there are illegible names or signatures from people who aren't registered voters.

Eyman said he will continue gathering signatures for I-892 until the Friday 5 p.m. deadline.

"Having 230,000 citizens voluntarily sign on to this tax-cutting initiative is very exciting. Voters recognize that our initiatives are their only opportunity to limit their tremendous tax burden because politicians never will," Eyman told the Associated Press on Sunday.

He added that he's hoping supporters will give the initiative "one more big push" to get it on the ballot. Eyman, who has sponsored several successful tax-cutting initiatives in recent years, usually turns in his signatures in batches over several days, in part to garner more publicity for his measures.

Supporters of I-892 had raised more than $300,000 by the end of May, the latest public reporting period, making it one of the richest initiative campaigns. Non-tribal gambling businesses have supported the initiative, while tribal gambling interests oppose it.

"We've always assumed he was going to be able to buy his way onto the ballot," said Rollin Fatland, spokesman for the No on I-892 committee.

Opponents of I-892 had raised nearly $175,000 by the end of May.

"This initiative represents the most massive expansion of gambling in the history of Washington state," Fatland said. "It will transform communities and change the quality of life. Once people understand that, they will overwhelmingly vote against it."

But Eyman said the response to the signature-gathering campaign shows that people support his idea.

"It always boils down to the citizens choosing to support these initiatives or not," he said. "There's a finite number of people who choose to gamble. All this is doing is giving those people more than one place to go ... This idea that suddenly you're going to create more gamblers is just stupid."