December 11, 2009 09:08 PM UTC

"Dr. Evil" Initiative Petition Gathering Process Questioned

• 2 Comments
• by: Colorado Pols

UDPATE: Time for these petition-checkers to sharpen their pencils: the third of three “Dr. Evil” Initiatives, Amendment 61 (previously known as Initiative #21) has qualified for the ballot according to the Secretary of State’s office this afternoon.

As the Grand Junction Sentinel reports:

Opponents of two measures that have been approved for the 2010 ballot are looking to see if the people backing them violated signature-gathering requirements.

Critics of the two citizens’ initiatives – one would lower property taxes; the other would roll back vehicle registration fees and income taxes – are questioning whether supporters used paid petition circulators to gather thousands of signatures without registering first with the Secretary of State’s Office.

If such a challenge succeeded, the more than 280,000 signatures the two efforts collected could be in question.

“It appears that the proponents of these measures have not filed any kind of reports or done anything to that effect,” said Tyler Chafee, whose Protect Colorado’s Communities is one of the major opposition groups to the measures. “We are looking very closely at the petitions … and the practices of the people trying to push these measures. We have some sense that they may not have followed the law.”

Supporters of the two ballot questions, Proposition 101 and Amendment 60, said they did not pay circulators to gather signatures, and they signed letters to the Secretary of State’s Office attesting to that…

“I have never used a paid person in my life, and I’ve done three constitutional amendments,” said Freda Poundstone, a former lobbyist who filed the initial paperwork to get the proposition onto the ballot. “I have passed three constitutional amendments. I’m the only person in the state that has, and I have never used anybody except people who stand for the same principles that I do.”

But Rich Jones, director of policy and research for the Bell Policy Center, a Denver think tank that opposes the measures, said preliminary research into how the petitions were gathered indicate two signature-gathering companies may have been hired.

“What we understood was they did use two paid firms,” he said. “They started out with mostly volunteers, and added the paid firms. We also understand that (the paid circulators) were carrying two of the petitions under their paid provisions, and a third they were carrying as volunteers.”

It’s widely believed that a large number of signatures for these proposals were collected at “Tea Party” and other conservative political protests held this year. Backer Freda Poundstone is one of the headline speakers at tomorrow’s “Tea Party” at the Capitol. That would certainly account for some of the concerns (lots of like-minded voters signing up for free), but we can also imagine proponents doing some for-pay signature gathering to get them over the top.

We agree with opponents that it’s very unlikely this six-month petition gathering effort proceeded with nothing happening at any point requiring documentation–don’t forget that the laws on petition gathering in Colorado have tightened considerably since the last election, for example restricting paid-by-the-signature gathering, and requiring all paid gatherers to be licensed in advance. What a shame it would be for Ms. Poundstone to go through all this trouble, only to learn that ignorance of the law does not excuse you from compliance?