January 29, 2010 05:23 AM UTC

Do NOT email me or call me again, EVER

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• by: ThillyWabbit

(Anything about Doug Bruce, ANYTHING, gets a promote from me. – promoted by Middle of the Road)

So says Doug Bruce to the Gazette‘s Eileen Welsome.

Welsome put two and two together, conducting a nationwide search to find out who the petition circulators were for the fiscal suicide initiatives tied yesterday to Bruce.

Her findings are interesting:

When organizers of three Colorado initiatives targeting government spending launched a petition drive to get on the November ballot last year, they didn’t rely solely on amateurs, according to an analysis of data from the Colorado Secretary of State and the Washington D.C.-based Ballot Initiative Strategy Center.

The initiative backers used experienced circulators to help gather nearly half a million signatures – almost double the number required – to get Amendments 60 and 61 and Proposition 101 on the ballot, the data show.

And those circulators were no strangers to such efforts.

At issue is the fact that these people most certainly got paid, but those expenditures were never reported to the Secretary of State as required under the Colorado Constitution. Nor did they register as paid signature gatherers as required.

Petition circulators can earn $50,000 to $100,000 a year, and often move as a crew from state to state, he said. “Their primary purpose is to make as much money as they can,” Foster said.

“They tend to live together and travel together,” Foster said. “Signature gathering firms will call them when they need them to work on campaigns.”

Opponents fighting Amendments 60 and  61 and Proposition 101 allege in campaign finance complaints that the backers of the three initiatives have not disclosed their contributions or expenditures. The complaints also accuse the initiative backers of failing to comply with a new state law requiring petition-gathering companies to register with the Secretary of State’s Office. Bruce is not named in the complaints.

My advice to investigators if Doug Bruce ends up doing the perp walk: wear kneepads.