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June 19, 2006

My Forging of Signatures on Petitions

I have kept my mouth shut for four years now about Bill Sizemore's false implications regarding my forging of signatures on petitions, but recent discussions have made me realize that his characterization of what occurred is facilitating his smoke and mirrors effort to worm his way back into the core of the Republican apple.

First some background. While Sizemore was running for governor, we discovered that OTU's bookkeeper, Kelli Highley, had forged whole sheets of petition signatures on a campaign in Newberg. The investigation took a couple of years, during which time she also forged whole sheets of signatures on petitions to file several initiatives. What she did was attach people's names to issues they may not have supported by copying their signatures on petitions they had never seen.

Sizemore is telling everyone I sought immunity in the OTU racketeering lawsuit because I, too, had forged signatures on petitions. His implication is that I did the same thing Kelli Highly did. That is false. Now what I did was illegal and wrong, and I am ashamed of it, but it was nowhere near what Sizemore is leading people to believe.

Petition sheets have a section for signatures of those who support the petition and a space at the bottom where the person circulating the petition is supposed to sign stating they personally witnessed the collection of the signatures. OTU sent out a set of petitions, during the time Sizemore was running for governor, to its membership list and many people signed and returned them. Unfortunately, a few people didn't follow the instructions. An individual, being the only person to sign the petition, would often not realize they had to also sign as a witness to their own signature and would leave that portion blank.

What I did was on a few of these – probably a dozen, though I don't recall precisely – I copied the signature of the lone individual who had signed the petition into the space where they were to sign as a witness to their own signature. Every one of these petitions had been mailed to us by a contributing member of the organization in an envelope with their own return address and was obviously a matter of improper completion of a form for an issue the individual supported. Yes, what I did was illegal. But it isn't fair to say that I "forged signatures on petitions."

It's time for Republican activists to wake up to a very important reality. I had to spill my guts and provide evidence to federal investigators BEFORE I was given immunity. I was taking a very big risk. If I had been the only lawbreaker at OTU, they would have been idiots to give me an immunity deal. That is why I again ask the question: why was the federal investigation called off? The only answer that makes sense to me is that to prosecute Sizemore would have meant they would have had to prosecute Grover Norquist, a very powerful and well-connected man who certainly doesn't give a rat's ass about little activists in Oregon except as he can use them to accomplish his own purposes.

Posted by Becky at June 19, 2006 08:28 AM