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Is Bill Sizemore above the law?

Bill Sizemore is back with many more initiatives for 2008 and, once again, he’s showing his blatant contempt for both the law and the integrity of Oregon’s initiative system.


HERE'S WHERE THINGS STAND:

Supreme Court: Enough already

In July, the Oregon Supreme Court unanimously upheld a 2002 Multnomah County jury decision that confirmed Sizemore’s engagement in forging signatures and falsifying financial records in the process of gathering signatures to qualify initiatives for the 2000 ballot. The racketeering suit was filed against two political action committees of Sizemore’s now-defunct Oregon Taxpayers United, and resulted in an order to pay $2.5 million in damages plus nearly $1 million in attorneys’ fees to the plaintiffs: the Oregon Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers-Oregon. At that time, the court found that “Bill Sizemore ran a sham charity” and that he “illegally used large tax-deductible donations” to fund a PAC. [Oregonian, July 4, 2008]

Sizemore in contempt

Just a few weeks before the Supreme Court decision, Multnomah County Judge Janice Wilson held Sizemore in contempt of court for willfully violating a court injunction against playing shell games with political money. That injunction prohibits Sizemore from putting money into any of his initiative efforts until the $2.5 million is paid in full. But Sizemore has been using another “charity,” the Nevada-based American Tax Research Foundation, to funnel money for his own personal and political use, according to court filings. [Oregonian, May 27, 2008]

Same old song and dance:
Secretary of State investigates new forgery charges

Voters’ pamphlets are being printed and distributed, and voters will be forced to consider five bad measures from Sizemore, three of which have already been defeated in previous elections. And as it turns out, they’re not just bad ideas, they’re bad ideas that appear to have made it to the ballot using some shady means. Again.

The Secretary of State’s office is investigating evidence showing that Sizemore’s signature gatherers forged or fraudulently obtained signatures to qualify measures for this November’s ballot. That evidence, collected by initiative watchdog group Our Oregon, could be passed on to the Department of Justice for prosecution.

The complaint included evidence that both voter and circulator information was duplicated onto multiple petitions with carbon paper, and there were patterns of suspicious signatures.

"It kind of looks like my signature, but it was probably traced," Clay said in an interview. "I think my signature was simply copied over from another sheet."

Clay said she signed some petitions proffered by the circulator, but not an initiative sponsored by Bill Sizemore to link teacher pay and seniority rights to classroom performance. She said her family has several teachers, with whom the initiative (and Sizemore himself) are not popular.

"The circulator asked me about that one and I clearly remember saying no," Clay said.

Statesman Journal, July 19, 2008
Click here to read the full story

One of the petition circulators named in the complaint--Justin Schoenleber--explained to Northwest Labor Press one way that Oregonians' signatures could end up on petition sheets they say they didn't sign.

He would start with the most popular initiative, and ask the signer to print their name and write out their address next to their signature. Then he would ask them to sign other sheets, onto which he would copy the other information. [That practice was legal until January 2008, when a new law aimed at initiative abuse took effect.]

“Typically I’ll say, ‘there’s a couple more items that require your signature,’” Schoenleber said, “and the constituents may not even ask what they are signing." [Northwest Labor Press, August 1, 2008]



The evidence is not surprising; this is the same “calculated course of criminal conduct” that Sizemore’s operations have already been held liable for. And here’s Sizemore himself explaining how to forge signatures and not get caught:

"There’s simply no way the local elections office can carefully check the signatures on hundreds of thousands of ballots in a short period of time. If the signatures were traced, they probably wouldn’t catch the forgeries anyway, even if they looked carefully at each one." —Bill Sizemore

Click here to read full article

 

 

 

 

 

 

DEFEND OREGON | 2027 Lloyd Center, Portland, OR 97232, Tel: 503-288-5918
Bill Sizemore photo by Northwest Labor Press

 


"No More Sizemoronic Ballot Measures""