Bozeman News

Measure 37 and its Progeny

Courts Striking Property Rights Initiatives

By Dan Richardson, 9-19-06

Sheesh. The quality of help these days. I mean, you spread around a few million dollars to fuel 20 or 30 political initiatives, you expect your hired help to get the job done right. Then, you have a bunch of the initiatives thrown out because your hired signature-gatherers faked, gamed and defrauded the system.

Man, what a month.

It was only a week or two ago that the machine of libertarian political initiatives was rolling swiftly around the West. We recently wrote about the “Kelo-plus” property rights initiatives funded by a New York real estate developer and longtime Libertarian Party activist, Howard Rich. Rich and his allies have pushed those and also parallel initiatives to limit government spending and institute term limits in states from Oregon to Arizona.

But the hired help has fouled up the works. Courts in Montana, Nevada, Oklahoma, Michigan and Missouri have disqualified part or entire initiatives that otherwise would have gone to voters. The decisions come in reaction to complaints about petition-circulators’ problematic, or illegal, signature-gathering tactics.

Some are said to have tricked people who would sign one of Rich’s petition by into signing others (“we need to get multiple copies, ma’am”) or by misrepresenting the initiatives themselves. The Nevada Supreme Court struck the Tax and Spending Control (or, TASC) measure from the November ballot, for example, when activists there filed one version with the state and sent out another for residents’ signatures.

And because Rich, his front organizations like Americans for Limited Government and U.S. Term Limits, and fellow libertarian activists, shared not just ideas and money, but also nomadic signature-gatherers, some of the same problems hopped from state to state.

So when Montana District Judge Dirk Sandefur struck down three ballot initiatives in Montana, writing, "The court finds that the signature-gathering process was permeated by a pervasive and general pattern and practice of deceit, fraud and procedural non-compliance," — well, that’s not good news for similar initiatives, fielded by the same people hiring the same signature-gathering firms, around the West. That faint dripping sound you hear is lawyers salivating.

Sandefur noted that 43 or more of the signature-gatherers in Montana (who were paid at least $675,000) listed false or fake addresses on their sworn affidavits turned in with the signatures. The initiatives they’d gathered signatures for would have limited state spending growth, allowed wider latitude for citizen recall of judges, and allowed property owners to claim damages from government land-use regulations.

Likewise, in late August, the Oklahoma Supreme Court unanimously threw out a spending limits initiative, writing that “The evidence supports substantial illegal participation of out-of-state circulators.”


In Michigan, spending-limit activists turned in more than 500,000 signatures. They needed 317,757 valid signatures. They failed. State officials say there were vast numbers of duplicate signatures and names of people not registered to vote in Michigan.

The swift reversal of fortune, though partial, also shows that the libertarian initiative campaign may have populist rhetoric, popular antigovernment ideas and money in its corner, but that it faces two serious problems. One, its paid signature-gatherers are, gosh, motivated by profit, and can’t seem to resist forging names, signing up dead people and listing false addresses on their petition sheets. And, two, there is a muscular counter-campaign.

At least one writer, ahem, warned the Richies about mixing ideas in their property rights measures, saying that a shell game that pushes a bad idea under the cover of a good one could sour voters on both. That was only half the reality; the front groups, out-of-state funding and half-hidden alliances has aroused an angry opposition from the political left. Lining up in opposition to the Rich measures are environmental groups fearful of pro-development measures, unions opposed to limiting government spending, and the Democratic governors of Oregon and Montana.

Earlier this month, Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski (running for re-election), challenged Rich to come debate him on Measure 48, Oregon’s spending limits initiative, fronted by longtime anti-tax activist Don McIntire. Rich refused (“I'm happy that I could help out the local group in Oregon — they've faced a real uphill climb against public employee unions and special interests.”); offered a counter-idea for the guv to debate McIntire; the guv refused (Rich “purchased this ballot measure for Oregon, and he ought to be willing to defend what he bought”) ; now, McIntire gets to bash Gov. Kulongoski and challenge “the real leader of the government class in Oregon – Tim Nesbitt, recent President of the Oregon AFL-CIO.”

As if reading from the same play book, Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer, within a day or two, also challenged Rich to a debate — with the same outcome. (The chief Montana activist pushing initiatives there is Winifred rancher Trevis Butcher.)

Another measure of the increasingly energetic, or at least well-heeled, opposition is the contest around Washington’s Initiative 933, one of the half-dozen pay-or-waive property rights measures around the West. Bankrolled by Rich’s Americans for Limited Government, and by the state Farm Bureau, the I-933 “Property Fairness” effort made a strong initial showing, and collecting more than 317,000 signatures. However, galvanized by Oregon’s Measure 37 — a pay-or-waive initiative that voters approved in 2004 — opposition to I-933 was quick in organizing, backed by union and environmental dollars. As of the Sept. 11 reporting date, the property rights activists had raised $693,000, about half of it from Americans for Limited Government, according to documents filed with the Washington Public Disclosure Commission. The opposition (“Citizens for Community Protection”) has raised nearly three times as much ($1.6 million), most of it from a handful of wealthy Washington residents, several of whom gave $100,000 to the campaign.

So, Howie Rich isn’t the only rich guy willing to write checks for political initiatives. (Ironically, Rich and company’s money-shuffling secrecy — fund a campaign here, have it send money to another group there — has gained them much more publicity than any of the out-in-the-open wealthy donors opposed to the initiatives.)

Ballot wars complete with point-man activists and big-money backers are nothing new in states with citizen initiatives and referenda. In my own state, Oregon, for example, McIntire is one of the chief organizers of anti-tax and tax reform legislation; groups like his Taxpayer Association of Oregon and Bill Sizemore’s Oregon Taxpayers United have placed anti-tax initiatives on the ballot, and fought other, Legislature-referred tax proposals, for years. They have been funded, in part, by national groups like Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform.

This year alone, Rich-affiliated organizations have donated $2.8 million for Oregon ballot initiatives.

The political left in Oregon has a parallel system of activists and front groups backed by labor unions. There are activists like Patty Wentz, a former Willamette Week reporter, who now works for the union-funded Our Oregon coalition, which opposes “right-wing ballot measures.” Similarly, the state’s unions — particularly its public employee unions, like the Oregon Education Association and the SEIU/OPEU — fund activist front groups and web sites, like Defend Oregon and the Voter Education Project.

(How much have unions spent to oppose Rich and McIntire? We’ll start finding out in early October, when the opposition groups have to start filing campaign finance reports. One report I’ve seen circulated, though, puts the number in excess of $2 million.)

Union ballot activists were responsible for documenting signature-gathering fraud in years past. In 2003, the OEA won a $2.3-million court judgment against Sizemore’s anti-tax group for violating racketeering laws.

For their part, libertarian and anti-tax activists have blasted unions for bringing in “thugs”to block and harass signature-gatherers. The union-funded Voter Education Project became infamous for its red-shirted “educators” confronting signature-gatherers, for instance.

Oregon’s not alone: Rich-backed activists in Nevada trying to get a spending limit initiative (called TASC) on the ballot have been confronted by union workers and volunteers from “Nevadans for Nevada.” That same group successfully challenged the TASC initiative in court recently.

Looking over from Oregon, Rich’s West-wide ballot initiatives seem less an innovation than a higher-octane version of similar, previous ideas — albeit, a uniquely ambitious multi-pronged effort that has simultaneously tried to change the political landscape while flying under the radar. No, there is nothing new under the sun, just a lot more of it. What the recent court decisions striking down a number of these initiatives suggest is this: Watch for judges to strike down additional proposed ballot measures, citing fraudulent, deceptive or improper signature-gathering.

Watch for union activists with wide smiles with each new court decision; and libertarian activists smiling on election day.

And watch for the campaign finance reports filed on both sides in the coming months. Note who the big spenders are, both Rich and the others. We’ll be hearing from their hirelings again.

Like this story? Get more! Sign up for our free newsletters.