Washington’s Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the state’s most prominent anti-tax activist cannot put a 2021 cap-and-trade law to a non-binding statewide public ballot. 

The justices ruled 7-1 that Tim Eyman filed his challenge to the state’s cap-and-trade program one year too late.  

Eyman has been a controversial anti-tax activist and fundraiser in Washington for the past 30 years. He is currently facing $5.4 million in fines and other penalties for numerous irregularities in his fundraising and campaign finances. Most of his anti-tax public ballot initiatives have failed or were disqualified because their language violated state laws. 

Eyman filed for bankruptcy in 2018 and a superior court judge ruled last year that he must liquidate his assets to pay the $5.4 million. 

Washington’s legislature passed a law creating the nation’s second cap-and-trade program in the spring of 2021. (See Wash. Becomes 2nd State to Adopt Cap-and-trade.) Eyman argued that the new program represents a tax, which state law requires to be put to a public non-binding advisory vote in the first election after the bill is passed. That would have translated to a November 2021 public ballot. 

But neither Eyman nor anyone else called for a public ballot on the bill in 2021, when opponents of the program still had legal standing, the Supreme Court’s ruling said. 

Eyman earlier this year filed suit calling for a public ballot on the cap-and-trade law to be held in November. A Thurston County Superior Court judge provided a temporary restraining order preventing the state from printing its voters’ pamphlets for the upcoming election, pending resolution of the litigation. The state immediately appealed to the Supreme Court to get a quick resolution.