« Clergy Move to Block Out Partisan Politics | Main | Irresponsible? »

July 06, 2006

Will Sizemore Let Another "Friend" Twist in the Wind?

Back in 2004 when a judge decided Bill Sizemore should be personally liable for the judgment leveled against his Oregon Taxpayers United in a civil racketeering lawsuit brought on by teachers' unions, he wrote, "if I had the money to put another measure on the ballot, I would be back in their faces tomorrow."

In that judge's ruling, Sizemore was ordered to refrain from the sort of activity that had facilitated his OTU escapades and his non-profit organization was shut down. Among the prohibitions Sizemore faced was this one:

Any organization in which Sizemore participates is prohibited from any future violations of Oregon laws covering political, charitable or ballot measure activities for five years.

Violating the injunction would, the judge said, land Sizemore in the middle of contempt of court proceedings and possibly jail time and fines. But that did not stop Sizemore from getting back in the unions' faces. In fact, Sizemore managed to raise some money and went right back out and filed a pile of ballot measures.

The interesting thing here is that Sizemore didn't really change his management pattern for the signature drives. Back before the racketeering trial, record-keeping and employment law were ignored, just as they are being ignored now. The structuring of the signature gathering effort has also stayed the same. He had set up a nifty subcontracting scheme (which allowed him to skim off money for himself, while avoiding taxes, and hide political contributions) that shifted Employment Division liabilities to those at the bottom. The Willamette Week described it like this:

The king of petition circulating, Bill Sizemore, steadfastly maintains that the OED rulings are wrong and that he has no intention of paying circulators as employees. … Sizemore has insulated OTU from liability by keeping himself removed from the process. He started a circulating company called I&R Petitions, which in turn subcontracts with a recently created company called Klein Campaigns, run by 27-year-old Saul Klein. If a circulator files an unemployment claim, it will be Klein, not Sizemore, who will be stuck with the bill. But Sizemore says if the OED audits Klein Campaigns, he will fight any sanctions as an attack on free speech.

Of course, when Saul Klein did get in trouble, Sizemore burned him by not only cutting him loose to deal with the problems himself, but also by lying in Court, blaming Klein for not having conducted a survey for which he was supposedly paid $25,000. The survey was never supposed to be done by Klein. Sizemore had asked me to dummy it up, saying, "We know what the public thinks." I never did it, and Klein was never instructed to do it, either. But Sizemore was caught having illegally plugged $25,000 of 501(c)3 money into a petition drive and had to make up the story to cover his own ass – at Klein's expense. Bear in mind that Klein was struggling to support his very young child and Sizemore's actions resulted in Klein spending a good deal of time on the run from the law.

Sizemore is still working his subcontracting scheme with petitioners. For this election season, Sizemore hired Republican activist Tim Trickey's company, Democracy Direct, which then sub-contracted the signature collection to B&P Campaign Management, owned by Brian Platt. Poor Platt did things the way petitioners always have in Oregon – no records, cash transactions, and casual relationships with signature gatherers. When Platt got in trouble for paying signature gatherers by the signature instead of by the hour, Sizemore let him twist in the wind, just as he had with Saul Klein.

Parker Bell, a consultant to B&P, has a long and rocky relationship with Sizemore which included a ton of paperwork problems. He was fined $2500 in 2005 for paying by the signature. Yet none of those involved learned their lesson. And now, Brian Platt is facing a judgment of more than $15,000 for breaking the same election law.

Was Sizemore's involvement with B&P sufficient to trigger punishment under the Judge's order that such violations of election law would amount to contempt of court? Or did he sufficiently separate himself from the petition drive through his clever subcontracting scheme?

Will Sizemore now file (and fund) a lawsuit to protect these poor petitioners from infringements on their free speech rights? Will he file (and fund) a lawsuit to overturn the ballot measure passed by the voters requiring hourly payments for signature gatherers? Or will he leave Brian Platt to deal with the consequences as he has so many others throughout his long history of taking advantage of people and screwing them over?

Sizemore has never mentored the people he hired to collect signatures, even though he supposedly is an expert in the initiative process. Of course, there is no man-made law requiring him to show any sort of regard or responsibility for his fellow man. And anyway, had he properly trained his subcontractors or expected them to follow the law, it would have cost him more money to put measures on the ballot. Leaving them to flail about in a system they don't understand, on the other hand, saves him money and leaves him without liability when things go wrong. And in his mind they're all scum anyway, so why does it matter? It's all for a good cause, right?

Posted by Becky at July 6, 2006 12:23 PM