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Make initiatives more voter-friendly
Category: Bill Sizemore · State: Oregon · Source: Southern Oregon Mail-Tribune
Some of Oregon's newly elected leaders are making noises about cracking down on ballot initiative fraud and vowing to return control of the initiative and referendum system to the people. While these are high-sounding goals, there is a simpler reform that would help voters and avoid a pitched legal battle.
Oregon Secretary of State-elect Kate Brown and Attorney General-elect John Kroger, both Democrats, say they will vigorously prosecute fraud in signature gathering — as they should. But proven incidents of fraud have been rare.
Of greater concern to some legislative leaders is the growing influence of wealthy political activists such as Nevada millionaire Loren Parks, who gave $2 million this year to back conservative measures sponsored by Kevin Mannix and Bill Sizemore. Oregon House Speaker-elect Dave Hunt says the 2009 Legislature may try to increase the number of signatures required to qualify a measure backed by a campaign that pays signature-gatherers.
"We need to seize control of the citizen initiative process from wealthy interests and give it back to Oregon citizens," Hunt told The Associated Press.
That might please labor unions and other liberal groups who must spend big bucks to fight Sizemore's anti-union, anti-tax initiatives, but it would also invite a battle that could wind up in the courts.
The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld the right of measure sponsors to pay signature-gatherers, although voters did pass an initiative outlawing paying per signature in hopes of discouraging fraud. But passing a law that makes it harder to qualify an initiative if signature-gatherers are paid is treating one class of political speech differently than another — a juicy target for a lawsuit.
We're no fans of Sizemore's cynical attacks on unions, government and responsible taxation, but most Oregon voters haven't been either. All five of Sizemore's measures failed this year, and voters approved another measure overturning the "double-majority" provision Sizemore included in his property tax-limiting Measure 47 in 1996.
Simply put, Sizemore is wearing out his welcome with voters.
But one change in state law would go a long way toward helping voters decide on ballot measures that carry a cost to the state budget, and it doesn't come from Democratic leaders but from the bipartisan Tax Force on Comprehensive Revenue Restructuring.
Among the task force's "short-term recommendations" is to include information about the fiscal consequences of initiatives in the official ballot title.
This year, voters approved Measure 57, which toughens sentencing requirements for some crimes and requires drug and alcohol treatment for offenders. The Legislature proposed it as a less expensive alternative to Kevin Mannix's Measure 61, which could have cost as much as $797 million over five years.
Measure 57 is estimated to cost $411 million over the same period, and it provides no funding mechanism. But the estimated cost did not appear in the ballot title.
If the cost had been more clearly stated, voters still might have passed it, but more of them would have done so knowing how much it would cost.
Oregon ballot measure system under scrutiny
Category: Bill Sizemore · State: Oregon · Source: The Oregonian
It's a cherished Oregon tradition — citizens banding together to gather signatures to place proposed laws on the ballot. Assisted suicide, vote-by-mail elections and property tax limits are just a few of the laws enacted directly by voters over the years.
The century-old initiative and referendum system has been used more widely in Oregon than most other states, but it will be the target of increased scrutiny and possible new constraints in the coming year.
Legislators and some of the state's top elected officials say the initiative system's reputation has been tainted by well-heeled people using the system to promote their own agendas, and by allegations of abuse and fraud.
Among those leading the charge for tougher oversight are Oregon Secretary of State-elect Kate Brown and Oregon Attorney General-elect John Kroger.
"You've got two new sheriffs in town," Brown said. "Working together, we want to send a very strong message that fraud will not be tolerated."
She said, for example, that she might seek authority to have the secretary of state's office — not the 36 county clerks — check signatures to make sure they are valid and were properly collected by petition carriers.
The Oregon initiative and referendum system was created by voters in 1902. It was touted as a way for common citizens to overcome the influence that railroads and mining companies had over the Legislature and to enact or block laws directly.
But the Nov. 4 election, in which Oregonians voted on eight initiative measures, was far from a grass-roots exercise.
Spending on Oregon initiative campaigns hit $20 million, with public employee unions kicking in $14 million to defeat measures sponsored by conservative initiative authors Bill Sizemore and Kevin Mannix.
The largest individual contributor was reclusive Nevada millionaire Loren Parks, who spent $2 million in support of the Sizemore and Mannix proposals.
This year's initiative campaign also was marked by allegations by a union-funded watchdog group that some signatures on initiative petitions circulated by conservative activists were forged. Those allegations are still under a state investigation.
And earlier this month, Sizemore — Oregon's most prolific initiative promoter — was jailed for a night after a judge found him in contempt of a 2003 injunction that blocked him from using charitable organizations to raise money for political purposes.
Some of the state's top political leaders say those developments have tarnished what was once seen as a shining example of Oregon's populist tradition of direct action democracy.
Oregon House Speaker-elect Dave Hunt said the 2009 Legislature will look at various proposals, including one to increase the signature requirements to make it more difficult for well-funded individuals or groups to place proposed laws on the statewide ballot. The signature requirements would stay the same for all volunteer initiative efforts, he said.
"We need to seize control of the citizen initiative process from wealthy interests and give it back to Oregon citizens," Hunt said.
There's no doubt that Oregonians are fond of their initiative system — they have voted on nearly 350 initiative measures since 1902.
Mannix, a former state lawmaker and Republican gubernatorial candidate who had two initiatives on this year's ballot, is suspicious about the motives of Hunt and others who want to tighten laws dealing with initiatives.
"These are political elites who think they know better than the people" and who want to limit citizens' rights to directly enact laws, Mannix said.
"The reality is, there is very limited wrongdoing. And when it is unearthed, it is prosecuted," Mannix said.
Political scientist Bill Lunch said the initiative system has become more dominated by monied special interests mainly because they're the ones who can afford to pay petition gatherers — a practice that's been upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Lunch worries, though, that the initiative system has left the state with expensive and often conflicting policies. In recent years, voters have endorsed measures that have forced the state to spend more money on such things as prison construction without offering a way to pay the costs.
Kroger, who will be sworn in as Oregon's attorney general Jan. 5, said he wants to work with the secretary of state's office to ensure that whatever initiatives end up on the ballot get there with properly collected, valid signatures.
"Oregon's ballot measure system is extraordinarily important because it really determines the direction of Oregon government to a profound degree," Kroger said. "Oregonians need to be 100 percent confident that the law is not being violated."
Sizemore signs tax forms, walks out of county jail
Category: Oregon · State: Oregon · Source: The Oregonian
Bill Sizemore was released from the Multnomah County jail early Tuesday afternoon after he complied with a judge's order to file state and federal tax forms for a Nevada charitable foundation that he controls.
Smiling broadly, the 57-year-old ballot initiative activist embraced his wife, Cindy, and two of their daughters as he emerged from a hallway leading to the jail portion of the Multnomah County Justice Center.
He called his 24-hour detention "political," and his wife described him as "a political prisoner." Sizemore also chided Multnomah County Circuit Judge Janice R. Wilson, who on Monday held Sizemore in contempt of court for a fourth time and ordered him jailed until he signed and filed the tax forms as required by an earlier court injunction.
"I think this was a political move on the part of the judge who wanted to send me a message," Sizemore said. "It was nothing more than that. I resent some of the things she said in her decision."
Sizemore said he was particularly upset by Wilson's statements that he had lied repeatedly under oath during his marathon legal battle with two Oregon teachers unions.
"I've never lied under oath," he said. "I've given lots of information in days and days and days of being under oath. For the judge to say I was lying I think was a cheap shot."
Sizemore also vowed to continue placing initiatives on the Oregon ballot. He said he is already gathering signatures for one in 2010 that would gradually phase out most property taxes for senior citizens.
He said the teachers unions "are using the court system to try to shut down a political enemy. They want to stop me from putting measures on the ballot because they don't want to spend millions of dollars fighting me" in campaigns against his mostly anti-tax, anti-union ballot measures.
Wilson held Sizemore in contempt of court for violating a 2003 court injunction that stemmed from a lawsuit filed by the Oregon Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers-Oregon. The injunction restricted Sizemore's use of tax-exempt organizations to advance his political agenda and required him to file accurate state and federal tax forms.
In the latest proceeding, Wilson found that Sizemore used the American Tax Research Foundation, the Nevada entity he set up in 2006, for work on his 2006 and 2008 ballot measure campaigns, and that he turned the tax-exempt foundation into his "personal piggy bank" by funneling hundreds of thousands of dollars from two wealthy benefactors to himself and his wife.
Sizemore denied misusing the foundation for personal gain and said that charge was "irrelevant" because the injunction did not restrict payments to him from organizations he controlled.
Emerging from jail, the man known as "the initiative king" appeared to be in high spirits. Unshaven and wearing the same gray sweater and black shirt and slacks he wore in Wilson's courtroom Monday, Sizemore spoke with reporters with his arms around his teen daughters while clutching a small plastic bag with a watch, cell phone and other personal items.
Sizemore described his 24 hours in detention as an "experience" and expressed empathy for his fellow inmates.
"I got to sleep on a very rotten bed," he said. "It was very cold and hard. The food is rotten.
"It's a pretty hopeless life that those people are living," he said of his fellow inmates. "I'm actually thankful that I got a chance to meet some of them and see what their life is like. I walked out of here with a sense that there are some lost souls out there that really need some attention and some help that the current system is failing to give them."
Waiting for her husband's release, Cindy Sizemore approached a group of reporters and TV photographers in the lobby of the Justice Center.
"Are you guys here to interview the political prisoner?" she asked. "That's what he is, a political prisoner. We're in the communist town of Portland."
Opinion: The future of affirmative action
Category: Affirmative Action · State: Colorado Nebraska Oregon · Source: Statesman Journal
Did the hot-button issues of affirmative action and racial preferences come up in this election? It depends where you look.
Voters in Nebraska and Colorado weighed in on ballot initiatives to ban racial preferences. Those in Nebraska voted “yes” on the ban, following the lead of California, Washington and Michigan, which had approved similar initiatives. Those in Colorado voted “no,” making it the first state in the country to reject such a measure.
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Even so, the topic of racial preferences didn’t surface much during the main event: the presidential campaign. Nor did the softer concept of affirmative action, which need not be a hard preference of one aspirant over another. It could simply mean government, colleges or industries considering an applicant’s race as one factor among many.
There were a couple of sightings.
During a Democratic debate in April, ABC’s George Stephanopoulos reminded Barack Obama that he had suggested his own daughters shouldn’t benefit from affirmative action since they’re not disadvantaged. Stephanopoulos asked Obama how he would change those policies so that affluent African-Americans aren’t given advantages over less-affluent whites.
Obama said that his priority would be “providing ladders of opportunity” and making sure “every child in America has a decent shot in pursuing their dreams.” He also said that he supported affirmative action as “a means of overcoming both historic and potentially current discrimination.”
In July, during an appearance on ABC’s “This Week,” John McCain was asked by Stephanopoulos if he supported an initiative to end racial preferences that, at the time, appeared headed for the ballot in his home state of Arizona.
McCain fired off a sound bite about how he supported the proposed initiative because he did not “believe in quotas.” Ultimately, his point was moot. Supporters failed to get enough signatures to put the measure to a vote.
But, curiously, it’s only now that the election is over that the topic of affirmative action is taking center stage in a way that is interesting but not helpful. Some Americans suggest that the election of Obama should mean the end of the program.
In fact, CNN’s Wolf Blitzer recently asked Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin if, given Obama’s victory, it was “time to get rid of affirmative action in our country.”
Palin said she believed in “equal opportunity for everyone” but that — as long as every American is treated equally — there are probably “some specific policies that I’m sure ... we can move beyond.” She also said that she was very proud of America for the “progress our nation has made in not allowing race to be ... a prohibitive factor in an election” and that she was happy to see what Obama accomplished not just for himself “but also for our nation (and) for our children.”
Frankly, the answer was much better than the question. This idea that the election of Barack Obama should be the death knell for affirmative action is absurd. One thing has nothing to do with the other. That kind of thinking starts with the epidemic of Americans patting themselves on the back for being enlightened enough to elect an African-American president.
The best argument for affirmative action is that it strengthens institutions by fostering diversity and recruiting people with different experiences. But if you think that Obama’s election justifies ending such policies, you probably think of affirmative action as compensation for past injustices or some necessary evil to be tolerated until we realize Dr. Martin Luther King’s dream of living in a society where people are judged by character and not skin color. But wait, people ask, isn’t that what happened when Obama was elected president?
Yes, that is what happened — for Barack Obama. But this doesn’t mean that, with the election of America’s first
OEA puts $4 million into ballot measure fight
Category: Bill Sizemore · State: Oregon · Source: The Oregonian
If you think you've seen a lot of campaign ads so far, get ready for a lot more. The Oregon Education Association has donated another $2.1 million to the coalition opposing most of the ballot measures on the Nov. 4 statewide ballot. That means the state's largest teachers union has contributed a total of $4.1 million to the coalition this year, far outstripping all other donors for and against this year's measure campaigns. That also means a ton of money for campaign ads, particularly on television. The OEA most recently gave $2.1 million to Defend Oregon, the coalition reported to the state Elections Division on Friday. That comes two months after the union gave $2 million to the coalition on Aug. 8. The OEA has more than 45,000 members, mostly K-12 teachers.
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