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January 23, 2007

Dig a Little Harder

I had to chuckle when I read Dave Hogan's article about Sizemore's new ballot measures and new home in Klamath Falls. First, it was funny that Patty Wentz did such a better job at uncovering what's up lately with Sizemore than one of The Oregonian's top reporters. Plus, I've been doing some digging of my own. It's not that difficult to do.

So the big news Dave Hogan reported was that Sizemore has moved his family to Klamath Falls because "his wife wanted to try living east of the mountains," and Sizemore earns enough money to pay for his 3,000 square foot, $600,000 home by selling real estate in the Southern Oregon and Portland area. Wrong and wrong again. As Patty found out, Sizemore moved to Klamath Falls because Jeld-Wen owner and gazillionaire Dick Wendt is almost certainly paying him to advance Wendt's own conservative and self-interested political agenda. Moreover, the real estate market has cooled significantly, so that I doubt Sizemore, a newbie in real estate, could actually afford the lease on the $750,000 home (not $600,000) he is currently occupying.

Hogan also reported on Sizemore's new corporation – the Oregon Homeowners Association, Inc. – and his new LLC – The Oregon Homeowner. Sizemore says he has not decided what he will do with those entities. Can you believe that? He sets up a company but doesn't know what it's going to do. Right.

I don't know what Sizemore's plans are, but I do know that he is tucking himself nicely into bed with Dick Wendt and his good buddies Ted Abram and John Courtney. Back in the day when I was working with Sizemore, I heard these names quite frequently, so this relationship has been a long time in the making. But what is really interesting to me is the Howard Rich-like web of entities surrounding this bunch.

Sizemore's Oregon Homeowners Association is registered at 2636 Biehn St. in Klamath Falls. So is Dick Wendt's American Institute for Full Employment (AIFE), a non-profit headed up by Ted Abram and focused on welfare reform. So, too, are Transition Wear, a thrift store that is tied in with AIFE, and Jeld-Wen Public Affairs, both of which list John Courtney as the contact person.

Wendt has some friends in common with Sizemore. For one thing, his AIFE is listed on Grover Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform state groups page – a list of like-minded astroturf groups around the country. And Ted Abram serves alongside Dick Armey and Steve Forbes on the FreedomWorks Foundation Board. FreedomWorks and Wendt – and, of course, Abram - share a few legislative priorities: privatization of Social Security, loosening environmental regulations, and welfare reform.

In case you've forgotten, FreedomWorks in Oregon is headed up by Russ Walker, a party loyalist who teamed up with Sizemore on two ballot measures in the 2006 general election - using funding from ATR and FreedomWorks. Coincidentally, before FreedomWorks and Citizens for a Sound Economy merged and before Russ Walker became the brown noser for the boys back east, Cathy Epley, who had worked on Sizemore's gubernatorial campaign, which was funded by a good chunk of Wendt money, headed up the organization.

To give you some perspective on who this Abram character is, he was an advisory board member of Brainstorm Magazine, a conservative news magazine in Oregon, for a long time. And he is a Senior Advisor to the Center for Global Economic Growth, which works to push the free market limited government philosophy all over the world and works closely with groups like the Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute, the Cato Institute, Americans for Tax Reform, and many others.

So back to the interconnected entities. Sourcewatch puts it like this:

Boundaries between Jeld-Wen, JOBS Plus and AIFE are very blurry. Jeld-Wen executive Hobbs, a former Reagan Administration official, described AIFE as a "not-for-profit subsidiary of Jeld-Wen." Phone calls to the AIFE phone number are sometimes answered "JOBS Plus." Anita Moore, a Jeld-Wen employee, works full time recruiting businesses to JOBS Plus. Jeld-Wen executive Bob Kingzett also has a voicemail box at AIFE. When AIFE staffers lobby in Salem, they speak as Jeld-Wen employees. Bill Early, executive vice president of Jeld-Wen, has served as chair of the state JOBS Plus advisory board from the beginning, and Richard Wendt himself sits on the Klamath County JOBS Plus advisory board.

Other examples include:

Allan Craigmiles posts a message claiming to be a Fellow with the American Institute for Full Employment and provides his email address at Jeld-Wen.

Craigmiles had a different email address when he responded to a survey for the Manhattan Institute in 2005 as a representative of AIFE. This time his email address was at Hire Calling. More on that entity in a minute.

Both Craigmiles and John Courtney, attorney for Jeld-Wen, serve as contact people for AIFE and list their Jeld-Wen email addresses for events at which AIFE is hosting the author of "Release of Street Saints: Renewing America’s Cities And Equipping the Saints: A Guide to Giving to Faith-Based Organizations."

John Courtney – Jeld-Wen Attorney – also serves as the contact person for Hire Calling Public Affairs – which incidentally is also at 2636 Biehn St – the same location as Sizemore's new business. Hire Calling (a double-entendre with religious overtones) is a placement agency for temporary low-wage workers. Other related entities include Hire Calling Staffing Solutions and Hire Calling Inc., both located at 3815 S 6th St. in Klamath Falls, and Calling Inc. and Hire Calling Holding Co. and Hire Calling Staff Solutions, both at 720 E Jackson St. in Medford.

Allan Craigmiles is a retired bank president who writes about why we need to privatize Social Secuirty. He is also the head of a non-profit called Good Soil Ministries Inc. at 5009 Bryant Ave. in Klamath Falls. His wife, Jane, is vice president of Oil of Grace, located at the same address. Oil of Grace sells anointing oils "with fragrances that come directly from the Word of God" and, when accompanied by a special "designer vessel," make an "excellent gift to your pastor or church." Another company, J and J Creative Associates, is also located at 5009 Bryant Ave. in Klamath Falls. It appears to sell fragrances.

Craigmiles brings to Wendt access to the national Christian movement. He is the National Facilitator of City and Community Ministries and National Resources for the Mission America Coalition.

The Coalition is developing effective regional and local leadership toward the goal of identifying and equipping key leaders in each of the 2,600 cities of over 10,000 people in population. As leaders are identified, they are networked with other leaders for encouragement, collaborative projects and the exchange of ideas.

Mission America Coalition partners and staff are strengthening grassroots efforts by offering monthly communiqués to these city leaders (550 local pastors and leaders of citywide ministries). Over 75 of these leaders have consistently participated in monthly conference calls offering training and equipping opportunities. In addition, city/community leaders receive regular email updates.

National Coalition initiatives are impacting local areas by generating enthusiasm, providing resources and launching citywide efforts. Key collaborative efforts include Coalition partners bringing churches together in 29 cities to distribute over six million Scripture portions with an invitation to local Easter Services and equipping seminars in 151 cities for church leaders committed to strategic partnerships in prayer and evangelism. Under the name City Impact Roundtable, a learning community of national and local ministry leaders has formed to seek sustained spiritual, moral and socio-economic transformation in American cities.

It's fairly easy to see why Sizemore wants to tap into a group with connections to FreedomWorks, Americans for Tax Reform, and the Mission America Coalition. Obviously, Wendt has lots of money, and Sizemore loves other people's money. But there's also something else. Sizemore, who earned a degree in Theology at Portland Bible College, considers himself a deeply committed Christian (part of that cognitive dissonance thing) and loves to be around other believers. It makes him feel better about himself. All of the players in this group are also overtly Christian – Russ Walker, included. Even Dick Wendt is a gung-ho Christian. He and his wife gave a very substantial endowment to the University of Dubuque to create the Wendt Character Initiative (to help instill a good Judeo-Christian character in young people). But why would Wendt want to bring Sizemore on board?

Sadly, things have gone very wrong at Dubuque since Wendt donated all that money and some at the university have become disillusioned as to the sincerity of Mr. Wendt's Christian belief. This may be part of why the What Wendt Wrong blog was established.

It seems that Richard Wendt, multi-millionaire and benefactor of UD's Wendt Initiative, has been involved in many other sorts of initiatives, many of which seem to be quite opposed to the Christian social justice mission.

In 1999, the Northwest Labor Press (NLP) reported that Wendt was intimately involved in passing the so-called "JOBS Plus" measure in Oregon: "[T]he measure, as written, was to abolish unemployment benefits, food stamps, and welfare benefits, and use the money to put the former recipients to work in subsidized or unsubsidized jobs at 10 percent less than the minimum wage. Wendt gave over $180,000 in cash and in-kind contributions to the campaign for the measure" (emphasis added). The measure was "[b]ased on an idea Wendt had been mulling over for 20 years [...]."

The arguably immoral and economically dubious plan was slightly modified after Barbara Roberts was elected governor. "Under the terms of the compromise," NLP reports, "unemployment, welfare and food stamps would not be abolished. Instead, a portion of their funding would be diverted to fund a subsidy for employers who would hire from the unemployment and welfare rolls."

One such employer was JELD-WEN, Inc., the company founded by Richard Wendt in the 1960s, and the source of his wealth. According to NLP's 1999 report, "Since the statewide JOBS Plus program began in July 1996, 130 workers have been placed in 13 Jeld-Wen companies. That amounts to between $600,000 and $800,000 in welfare, food stamp and unemployment benefits converted to a wage subsidy for the largest privately-owned company in Oregon. Just under half of the JOBS Plus placements were hired permanently by the Jeld-Wen companies at the expiration of their subsidized term; most of the remainder have found jobs elsewhere."

It certainly seems that Dick Wendt recouped his $180,000 investment in the measure.
It is striking that this shrewd business move was the brainchild of the man who is effectively bankrolling the University's "ethics across the curriculum" initiative. Would our UD business professors, who are to incorporate ethical teaching in their class sessions, recommend such a cunning and profitable maneuver? We certainly hope not.

Now I think it becomes more clear why Wendt would be interested in bringing Sizemore on board - particularly in light of Patty's article. A pattern has emerged – one that involves multiple entities, some of which are designed to convince people that Wendt's effort is moral and good, and some of which are designed to capitalize on the efforts once they have been successful. Sizemore fits in between, taking Wendt's ideas and converting them to legislation. And Sizemore's a man with conveniently flexible personal principles. It's probably a lot less expensive to buy Sizemore and set him up in a mansion than to have to lobby a lot of politicians to write those "common sense" laws that the voters are so much more likely to approve. With all that money behind him, Sizemore might very well be right when he says 2008 will be "the most interesting initiative year in the last 20 years."

Posted by Becky at January 23, 2007 03:18 PM