Letters to the editor, Dec. 3, 2008Letters to the editor12/-3/08 Feed one I have many favorite quotes. One of them is from Mother Teresa. She said, "If you can't feed a hundred people, then feed just one." I am sharing this quote, hoping it might inspire a hundred or more people to "feed just one." Take something over to the Sequim Food Bank. It will "make you feel good down to your toes," or so my 7-year-old daughter likes to say. Laura MacMurchie Sequim Who's paying Eyman? Jim Guthrie's column (Nov. 26) on Tim Eyman hits the mark every time. Eyman's antics would be comical if his subject matter weren't so serious. Eyman is doing real damage to this state and voters who blithely follow him to the ballot box. Our legislators are conscious of the precious time they have to spend, just sticking their thumbs into Eyman's breached dike instead of dealing with always-cascading issues of genuine import. The Legislature's frequent efforts to block or blunt his nonsense sometimes - but not often - work, and that too costs time. Here are a couple of questions one might add to Mr. Guthrie's excellent analysis: • Early in Eyman's political trajectory some voters asked, "How can Eyman find so many volunteers willing to brave nasty weather and embarrassing questions to gather signatures to his mischievous initiatives?" Answer most surely, then and now: His signature gatherers are paid, their motives almost surely mired in good old lucre. • Next question. "OK, but isn't such signature-gathering-for-hire against the law? And if it isn't, can't the Legislature pull Eyman's teeth by prohibiting such payments? (After all, if an initiative is really of major public concern, shouldn't the mustering of volunteer signature-gatherers be relatively easy?)" Answer: Turns out - thanks to some diligent lawyers - that the state Constitution, sadly, does not prohibit such payments. In other words, any interest group with enough money can fund Eyman's antics. • Last question. "OK, so money often talks politics, which interest groups or wealthy individuals are willing to cough up the big bucks (1) to hire Eyman and a couple of co-mischief-makers to run such phoney campaigns, paying their all-weather hirelings at the going rate to solicit the requisite signatures? and (2) In other words, where does all this money come from and what are its true objectives? Maybe we could do without the initiative process, which too often lets our supposedly representative legislators keep their attention focused on issues of real consequence. But if repealing the Initiative law is too broad and bold an approach, perhaps at least we could shine the light of day on the sources of Eyman's - and maybe others spoilers' - revenues? Money is a more than sufficient motive, of course, but leave room also for an even more ancient one ... the lust for power, and the more unaccountable it is, the more the Eymans of this world like it ... "Hey Ma ... look! I got my pitcher in the paper!" James Huntley Dungeness |
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