Central Oregonian

Legislators target fraud in state initiative process

Recent laws require additional criteria for signature gatherers

Jason Chaney

June 25, 2010

The Oregon initiative process has served for years as a method for individual citizens to enact changes to Oregon Revised Statutes and the state constitution.

Any Oregon resident, acting as a chief petitioner, can sponsor an initiative to be included on the ballot and voted on by the people. All they need is the required number of signatures.

While the system has served as a vehicle for government change, concerns of fraud have led to recent reform efforts, particularly in the past year. The impact of those efforts will be known in the near future.

“This is the first year we have been able to observe the full impact of reform,” said Secretary of State Director of Communications, Don Hamilton. He went on to add that the deadline for collecting signatures for initiatives for the November ballot is July 2, and afterward the impact of reforms will become more apparent.

The Oregon Legislature spearheaded several of the changes to the initiative process.

“There was a series of reforms made in the 2009 Legislative session,” Hamilton said.

These reforms, all a part of House Bill 2005, give the Secretary of State the tools to prohibit someone from registering as a paid signature gatherer if they have been convicted of fraud, forgery, or identity theft. It further allows the Secretary of State to conduct background and criminal history checks of prospective signature gatherers, and requires petitioners to provide original signature sheets once a month.

“There were a lot of concerns about the stability of the system,” Hamilton stated. “(The reforms) were designed to really make sure that measures that reach the ballot get there legally and honestly.”

The 2009 bill was not the first to take on initiative reform. In 2007, the Oregon Legislature passed House Bill 2082. This bill required paid signature gatherers to register with the state and complete a short course of instruction in the law. In addition, it required chief petitioners to produce payroll records to establish that signature gatherers are not being paid per signature.

However, this bill came under fire, when two individuals claimed the laws restricted their Constitutional free speech rights. Head of the Oregon FreedomWorks chapter Russ Walker and frequent chief petitioner Glenn Pelikan fought the bill in federal court, but U.S. District Judge Michael Hogan sided in favor of the bill.

“Those lesser burdens are justified by Oregon’s interests in administrative efficiency and ensuring compliance with the Oregon Constitution’s prohibition against payment of petition circulators on a per signature basis,” Hogan said. “State interests in maintaining the integrity of the petition process are significant and outweigh the burden of these statutory requirements to keep and submit detailed accounts place on chief petitioners.”

According to Hamilton, the March 2010 federal court decision has not been appealed.

Throughout the past few years, the Secretary of State Office and the Oregon Legislature have focused primarily on reform of the petition process, although voters determine the outcome of whatever measure is presented. While Hamilton acknowledges that voters determine what measures pass and don’t pass, he maintains that the petition process is still critical, and therefore, signature validity is important.

“Measures have to establish some amount of public support before it can go on the ballot,” he explained. “This ensures that issues are thought through and reviewed by more than just a few voters.”

Whether the impact of these reforms is favorable or not, the initiative process will still likely undergo further changes as time goes on.

“In all elections, we’re looking for ways to improve the system,” Hamilton said. “It’s a system that’s always under evaluation.”

Aside of reforming the petition process, Healthy Democracy Oregon (HDO), a non-profit, non-partisan group dedicated to initiative process reform, is taking on potentially biased ballot measure advertising.

According to HDO member Michael Beard, media advertising for or against a specific ballot measure can distort the truth about a ballot measure and misinform the voting public.

“Those catchy sound bites are primarily to influence rather than inform,” Beard said.

To help provide voters with an unbiased and more informative alternative, HDO is in the process of developing two ballot measure review panels.

“These (panelists) are Oregon voters selected at random and balanced geographically,” Beard explained. “We sent 10,000 letters out and we have had hundreds of replies already.” The group of responders will be whittled down to two 24-person panels. “It’s a really rigorous process,” Beard said. Panelists will be screened by age, political party, geographic region, and more.

Once the panels are determined, panelists will work toward crafting unbiased, informative statements on two ballot measures of their choosing. Those statements will be included in the voters’ pamphlets.

“What we’re hoping is it can be a very trustworthy way (to get informed),” Beard said.

At this time, the HDO has no plans to take on potential fraud in the petition process. Then again, Beard did not rule it out completely.

“This (misleading advertising) is our primary focus,” he said. “That’s not to say, in the future, we won’t be expanding to other arenas."