Grex Agora41 Conference

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Grex Agora41 Item 79: Campaign finance reform?
Entered by bdh3 on Thu Apr 11 06:44:50 UTC 2002:

 Masquerade
                      "Citizen lawmaking has long been unpopular
                 with the political class. That's why many state
                 legislatures have made it difficult to get initiatives
                 on the ballot. But unions in Washington state are
                 going beyond even these crass tactics," John Fund
                 writes at the www.opinionjournal.com.
                      "The state labor council tried to cripple an
                 anti-tax initiative by encouraging its members to
                 masquerade as interested volunteers and request
                 stacks of blank petitions, clipboards and signs, all
                 in an effort to drain much-needed resources from
                 initiative supporters in the hopes of preventing
                 the collection of enough signatures to get on the
                 ballot," Mr. Fund said.
                      "The sabotage directed against Initiative 776,
                 which would roll back the car-licensing tax, began
                 with an e-mail to some 100 union leaders from
                 Diane McDaniel, political director of the
                 Washington State Labor Council. 'Your assistance
                 is needed to help slow down & stop the collection
                 of signatures for I-776, the Tim (Lieman) Eyman
                 creation that would further weaken our state's
                 transportation funding,' the e-mail began. It then
                 asked the union leaders to 'request that a Patriot
                 Packet (campaign kit) be mailed to you' and that
                 they 'forward this request to family members,
                 co-workers, etc. and ask them to do the same.' 
                      "Ms. McDaniel wasn't shy in explaining her
                 motives. She said that, because the I-776 sponsors
                 lacked the financial means to hire a paid
                 signature-gathering firm, mailing 'hundreds (and
                 perhaps thousands) of packets out' will 'cost them
                 valuable campaign resources' and 'help use up
                 their supply of petitions.' She helpfully added:
                 'Don't use your union's mailing address. Too
                 many requests to send to union halls will tip our
                 hand.' Her closing included another appeal to
                 'help us slow down and kill I-776.'"

6 responses total.

#1 of 6 by other on Thu Apr 11 11:15:44 2002:

Hmm.  Is that a legal tactic?  Sounds like it.  Resourcefully 
underhanded, though.

#2 of 6 by jp2 on Thu Apr 11 12:41:02 2002:

This response has been erased.

#3 of 6 by polygon on Thu Apr 11 13:12:48 2002:

Another tactic which has been used effectively against petition drives
is to harass the petitioners.  Engage them in argument wherever they
show up in public, and it becomes impossible for them to gather the
required number of signatures in the (often quite limited) time allowed.
As I recall, a Dearborn-area state legislator successfully foiled a recall
drive this way in the 1980s.

This can also happen "passively", with no organized campaign.  If as
little as 5% of the population becomes argumentative when presented with a
particular petition, it will become nearly impossible to circulate it.
Completely apart from wasting time, such arguments are highly corrosive to
the morale of volunteers.  Even paid circulators don't stand up to it.
The kind of individual who can blithely shrug it off is rare.

The majority of Michigan voters would vote to bring back the death
penalty.  However, attempts to put it on the ballot have fallen far short,
because critics of the death penalty -- just ordinary passers-by of
locations where signature gathering was attempted -- make it too difficult
to gather enough signatures quickly. 

The seeming exception to this is abortion.  In 1988, both right-to-life
and pro-choice forces gathered enough signatures to put the issue of
Medicaid abortions to a statewide vote.  However, in this case both camps
had protected environments (e.g., Catholic churches and NOW meetings),
where social pressures were strongly on their side, to circulate their
petition without stressful encounters with the "other side".

#4 of 6 by gull on Thu Apr 11 18:29:00 2002:

I'm not a big fan of the initiative process.  It seems to result in a 
lot of short-sighted legislation, and sometimes some really bad 
examples of the tyranny of the majority over some minority.  California 
is sort of the poster child for this.

#5 of 6 by jaklumen on Thu Apr 11 22:32:46 2002:

Hmmm, this is happening in our state?  Sounds vaguely familiar.  
Initiatives do backfire, especially here.  Recent ones caused problems 
with transportation issues.. but then, I live east of the Cascades, 
hee hee.  Western Washington has got it bad there on some freeways.

#6 of 6 by mcnally on Sat Apr 13 01:44:39 2002:

  It's probably worth mentioning that Tim Eyman, Washington state's ballot
  initiative king, was recently found to be siphoning money from the
  foundations he established to promote his initiative drives and is in a
  heap of trouble..

  I don't think it at all unlikely that his political opponents in the state
  government did everything they could to sabotage his efforts and to smear
  him personally but in the end he handed things to them on a silver platter.

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