At least 37,824 names registered to testify against the bill in House and Senate hearings were duplicates, some appearing more than 100 times. And at least 100 people told Invest in Washington Now that they’d been impersonated. by Nathalie Graham “98,000 CON CLIMBING” read an email blast from anti-tax activist Tim Eyman this afternoon. Supposedly 98,000 people have signed up to speak against the millionaires’ tax since its introduction in the Senate.  Sounds impressive the day before its first hearing in the House, Tim, but here’s the thing: nearly 38,000 of those signatures ( climbing?) may be fraudulent, according to progressive advocacy group Invest in Washington Now. At least 37,824 names registered to testify against the bill in House and Senate hearings were duplicates, some appearing more than 100 times. And at least 100 people told the group they’d been impersonated.  They included teachers, union leaders, and Democrats like Sen. Victoria Hunt (D-Issaquah) who co-sponsored the bill. “I'm not sure who is doing this,” Hunt said at Monday’s press conference, “Somebody had signed in without my permission on my behalf…. I don't know why a senator would sign into a house hearing. In any event, that was not me.”  Adam Glickman, Secretary Treasurer of SEIU 775, a strong supporter of the tax, found himself on the “con” list. Apparently, someone put his name on the official testimony record at 4:32 a.m. Thursday while he was “home fast asleep.” The same thing happened to Larry Delaney, president of the Washington Education Association. Either Sen. Hunt is a turncoat, Glickman is a unique kind of sleepwalker, and teachers suddenly don’t need our tax money, or something fishy is going on. Heather Weiner, a political consultant with PowerHouse Strategic who spoke on behalf of Invest in Washington Now, says the activity is suspicious. In some cases, names were entered in rapid succession and late at night. “If it walks like a bot and quacks like a bot…,” Weiner said. Weiner believed names were scraped from the internet. “This is not just inflating and padding the numbers,” Weiner said, “but it's misleading lawmakers and trying to influence the way that they vote on the millionaire's tax.” It’s also illegal, both criminally and civilly. Invest in Washington Now along with the Washington Education Association and SEIU 775 sent a letter to Attorney General Nick Brown and Bernard Dean, the chief clerk of the House of Representatives, to investigate what the hell is going on and who the fuck is pulling the strings. A spokesperson for the attorney general said they received the letter but had not reviewed it yet.  The millionaire’s tax would put a 9.9 percent tax on an individual’s income earned over $1 million. It could bring in $3.5 billion each year. According to public polling, 61 percent of Washington supports it. But not Brian Heywood, the millionaire hedge fund manager who has also testified against the bill and will likely leverage a referendum campaign against it as he is wont to do. He told the Stranger that he doesn’t believe in the alleged fraud, or the 100 people who say they were impersonated.  “Even with their wildest claims, this is still the most unpopular bill in history,” Heywood said in a statement. “These attempts to minimize the concerns of voters don't change the outcome, it just emphasizes how desperate they are to downplay the clear and historic rejection.”  Had Eyman heard about these claims? Did it change his mind, or his talking points?  “Denial — not just a river in Egypt 🙄,” Eyman emailed in response. He included the link to his testimony against the bill in the Senate Ways and Means committee where he called it “the jealousy bill, the envy bill, the covet bill” because it “takes money away from people who earned it and gives it to people who didn't earn it.”  He is wearing six anti-income tax stickers on his person. That we can see.  Will the clones attack the House Finance Committee hearing at 8 a.m. tomorrow morning? We’ll have to wait and see.   ...read more read less