There was a letter in the Tacoma News Tribune the other day that put the whole Tim Eyman controversy about as succinctly as I’ve seen yet.

“I am so sick of hearing the phrase, ‘horse’s ass,’ and wonder quite frankly about the man who wishes to put it on an initiative,” wrote Wanda Jones of Tacoma. “He thinks the name applies to Tim Eyman, but every time that phrase is quoted, it demeans Washington voters. Does he not realize those initiatives were passed because of the majority vote?”

“I do not consider myself a ‘horse’s ass; but a person of common sense who must labor diligently over the household budget. I am a senior citizen on a fixed income and must live very conservatively. By the way, I will again support a future anti-tax measure regardless of who is responsible for the initiative. Or, as Eyman puts it, you don’t have to like the farmer to eat the vegetables.”

“The initiative process is public policy at its finest,” he said. “Yet there are 14 bills now in the Legislature that severely restrict or obliterate the initiative process in the State of Washington. With all the problems they face in the state, the $2.4 billion shortfall, the transportation mess, health care prices, their top priority seems to be let’s end citizen participation in the political process.”

“The problem is they are not solving the problems, which is what’s causing citizens to get more and more involved. Instead of politicians taking the tack that to keep from being criticized, they need to shut down the First Amendment, their best response should be, ‘OK, lesson learned, let’s take the bull by the horns and aggressively solve problems.’”

Eyman wasn’t the least down in the dumps over the clouds on his horizon tossing out of his voter-approved Initiative 776 as unconstitutional, the initiative effort by David Goldstein to have the voters declare Eyman a horse’s ass or its equivalent, and suggestions, if not accusations that he deliberately writes flawed initiatives so their passage and then rejection by the courts generates hatred by the people for government.

He and his wife are looking forward to the arrival in their household of their third adopted baby. Good for them. I know he’s an involved father because just about every time I’m talking with him, on the telephone — and an average conversation with Tim Eyman is at least 45 minutes — he’s holding one of his kids or having to get something for him. He’s patient when they cry or fuss.

People can call him whatever they want to, he said, it isn’t working to try to kill the messenger.

“Over the last few years,” he said, “we have lowered vehicle license fees and put strict limits on property tax increases. The agenda we laid out is that taxes ought to be reasonable. If they are to be raised, it ought to be with the taxpayers’ permission. Those principles are captured in every initiative we’ve done.”

It isn’t just in Washington that the war on initiatives is being waged, says the Wall Street Journal. Twenty four states have them, irking state legislators, who resent voters’ ability to go around them, imposing such things as term limits and reductions in taxes and spending.

In Florida, the WSJ says, “Al Gore’s friends on the Supreme Court already throw out most initiatives by claiming they violate the state’s single subject rule. In Massachusetts, when voters signed petitions calling for a ballot measure against same sex marriage, the legislature promptly adjourned without a vote, thereby keeping it off the ballot.”

Legislative tampering with citizen initiative powers may be the third rail in this state. An effort to require a 60 percent majority to pass was hastily withdrawn when the citizenry growled.

I favor cost estimates for initiatives and referendums. I don’t recall that any of the newspapers now for skipping initiative-mandated teacher COLAs, explored the cost of doing that when it was on the ballot. Yet we are constantly warned of the damage we’ll do if we dare to cut taxes.

(Adele Ferguson can be reached at P.O. Box 69, Hansville, WA. 98340.).