Bill Sizemore

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Bill Sizemore (born June 2, 1951 in Aberdeen, Washington) is a very well-known ballot initiative activist from Oregon. He is a proponent of fiscally conservative ballot measures in Oregon, with occasional forays into other ballot initiative campaigns, usually but not always exhibiting a generally conservative sensibility.

Sizemore's first initiative was Measure 8 in 1994; this measure sought to remove the guaranteed 8% rate of return in the state's PERS (Public Employee Retirement System) account. It passed but was later invalidated by a 4-3 vote of the Oregon Supreme Court.

Sizemore's 2008 initiatives

There will be a total of eight initiatives on the November 4, 2008 ballot in Oregon, and five of them were sponsored by Sizemore.[1]

Type Title Subject Description
CISS Measure 58 Education Requires english immersion for non-english speaking students
CISS Measure 59 Tax reform Makes federal income taxes fully deductible on state return
CISS Measure 60 Education "Teacher compensation must be based on classroom performance"
CISS Measure 63 Property Rights Allows minor improvements To property without building permit
CISS Measure 64 Campaign Finance Reform Prohibits using taxpayer-funded resources to collect political funds


Sizemore initially sponsored ten ballot measures for 2008. In summer 2007, he believed that eight of them would qualify for the 2008 ballot. [2],[3],[4] An October report indicated confidence that voters would be able to say "yes" or "no" to six of the measures.[5]

Ballot Initiatives

In 1993, Sizemore founded Oregon Taxpayers United and became its Executive Director. He is noted as the author and driving force behind a number of ballot initiatives in Oregon. One of the first measures Sizemore was involved in was a referendum which stopped Portland's 3.4 billion Metropolitan Area Express light rail expansion and then a measure that reined in the extravagant PERS system. That measure was later thrown out by a divided Oregon Supreme Court.

Sizemore's most notable success was passing Ballot Measure 47 in 1996. The measure rolled back property taxes to 1995 levels and capped future increases at not more than three percent per year. Measure 47 also mandated a double majority for ballot measures increasing taxes. With Sizemore's assistance, the Oregon Legislative Assembly amended some of the provisions of Measure 47 in 1997,[3] and referred the amendments back to the voters as Ballot Measure 50, which also passed.[4]

In 2000, Sizemore drafted and placed on the ballot Measure 7, which required governments to pay just compensation to property owners when a government-imposed regulation reduced the fair market value of their property. Oregon voters approved Measure 7, but the Oregon Supreme Court later nullified it. The measure was placed back on the ballot as Measure 37 in 2004, and subsequently passed.

Measure 42 in 2006: not anti-tax

In 2006, Sizemore broke with his pattern of anti-tax measures, by filing Measure 42, a consumer-oriented bill that would have denied insurance companies the ability to take credit scores into account when setting insurance premiums. In the most expensive Oregon ballot measure campaign of 2006, nearly $3.7 million was spent—nearly entirely from out-of-state sources—to successfully defeat the measure.[5]

Sizemore's 2008 ballot measures

Sizemore has collected signatures for five measures for the 2008 election and is working on his sixth. The new measures require English Immersion for immigrant students; make federal income taxes fully deductible on state returns; allow homeowners to make $35,000 in improvements per year without a building permit; prohibit the use of the public payroll system to collect political funds; require that teacher pay raises and job security be based on classrom performance, not seniority; and require a three-fourths vote of the House and Senate to declare an emergency. He is also considering a measure to phase out property taxes for senior citizens.[6]

1998 Gubernatorial Election

Sizemore ran for Governor of Oregon as a Republican in 1998. He won his party's primary, easily defeating three other candidates who had little or no name recognition. Sizemore was strongly opposed by The Oregonian, which wrote a series of inflammatory articles detailing his business dealings and opposing his candidacy. Sizemore lost the November general election to incumbent Governor John Kitzhaber, a Democrat. Sizemore won 30% of the vote, to Kitzhaber's 64%.[6] Sizemore raised very little money for his campaign and has since claimed he never expected to win the election, but ran simply because no one else would.

Racketeering case

In July 2000, the Oregon Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers filed a civil racketeering lawsuit against two organizations with which Sizemore was closely associated: Oregon Taxpayers United and the OTU Education Foundation. After three weeks of testimony and a million dollars in union legal fees, the jury found Sizemore's organizations guilty of racketeering, and the organizations were fined approximately $2.5 million.[7],[8] Appeals in the case continue.

Personal liability and 2007 lawsuits

Once the unions had secured this legal victory against OTU and OTUF, they returned to court, filing a lawsuit claiming that Sizemore himself should be held personally responsible for payment of the $2.5 million court-ordered fine against OTU and OTUF. The unions won that lawsuit in 2004.[9] Sizemore appealed the judicial decision holding him personally liable and in December 2006, the Oregon Court of Appeals granted him a win on that question.[10],[11]

On November 29, 2007, the Oregon Education Association and the Oregon chapter of the Americans Federation of Teachers filed a new civil lawsuit against Sizemore.[12] This lawsuit asks that Sizemore be judicially ordered to pay a $125,000 legal bill that the unions incurred earlier in the year when they sought a civil award against Sizemore, claiming that he had violated an injunction restricting the way he conducts his petition drive business.

The Oregon Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers-Oregon allege Bill Sizemore illegally funneled assets using his wife's name. The Oregon Court of Appeals ruled that Sizemore was not personally liable for the judgment but the unions have appealed to the Oregon Supreme Court. Sizemore's lawyer, Gregory Byrne, says he will ask a judge to dismiss the latest lawsuit. "As long as Bill keeps running measures that unions think are going to undermine their power, they're going to keep harassing him," Byrne said.[13]

The editor of The Albany Democrat-Herald, Hasso Herring, wrote an op-ed that said this lawsuit "smacks of revenge".[14]

In the first place, racketeering laws are aimed at the mafia and other forms of organized crime. They should not be applied to wrongdoing in a political context. In the second place, the way to punish wrongdoing in political campaigns is to see if laws were broken and if so, to prosecute the culprits in criminal court. If instead we give private interests the the incentive to file civil suits to fight political opponents, then the parties with the biggest coffers and the sharpest lawyers get to determine political outcomes, and that’s not the way this country is supposed to work.

Secretary of State fines Sizemore

The Oregon Secretary of State fined Sizemore and other initiative activists after the Oregon Elections Division held that B&P Campaign Management were paying employees on a per-signature basis, in violation of the voter-approved Oregon I&R law. Bell and Platt have each been fined $10,900 for work they did on a subcontractor basis on Sizemore's initiatives. [15] Sizemore, Grace Sizemore (his mother), Abner Bobo, Carol Bobo (his long-time secretary), Ross Day, Dave Hunnicutt, and Russ Walker each were cited for failing to ensure sufficient oversight of the signature gathering company.

"It's just an act of intimidation," Sizemore said. "I think the secretary of state is sending us a message that he can fine us if he wants to." Sizemore also noted that he had fired both Bell and Platt "a long time ago."[16]

See also

External links

References

  1. ↑ Eight initiatives make state ballot
  2. ↑ http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/news/118948110846540.xml&coll=7
  3. ↑ http://159.54.226.83/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070911/STATE/709110314/1042
  4. ↑ http://www.oregonlive.com/elections/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/news/1188539746260990.xml&coll=7
  5. ↑ Sizemore Promises More Ballot Action from Klamath Falls
  6. ↑ Sizemore is back at it again
  7. ↑ Sizemore's organizations guilty of racketeering
  8. ↑ Sizemore's Measure Machine
  9. ↑ Sizemore personally liable for fines
  10. ↑ Sizemore faces another lawsuit over initiative finances
  11. ↑ OTU statement on lawsuit
  12. ↑ [1]
  13. ↑ Oregon teacher unions sue Sizemore again, KATU News, Nov. 30, 2007
  14. ↑ Crusade against Sizemore smacks of revenge
  15. ↑ [2]
  16. ↑ Oregon fines Sizemore, others for petition drive violations, Oregon Live, Dec. 5, 2007

Additional reading

Portions of this article have been adapted from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Copyright Notice can be found here.

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