Initiative 933: The Man Behind the Curtain - #15 — Sightline Daily (formerly Tidepool)

Initiative 933: The Man Behind the Curtain - #15

Posted by Eric de Place

07/07/2006 05:35 PM

Are local initiatives bankrolled by wealthy out of staters?

Note: This is part of a series.

Supporters of Initiative 933 in Washington recently submitted signatures--easily enough to qualify for the ballot in November. Coverage here, here, and just about everywhere.

Both Seattle dailies had decent coverage and both pointed out something unusual about I-933. It's financed (and orchestrated) by a shadowy out-of-state group that's pushing its agenda in a dozen states.

Here's the Times:

Americans for Limited Government, a national organization based in Chicago, has given $200,000. The group, whose leaders are associated with the term-limits movement and other conservative causes, is backing property-rights and spending-cap measures in a dozen states this year.
The lion's share of the pro-933 campaign spending — $240,000 through the end of May — has gone to Citizen Solutions, a Lacey paid-signature-gathering firm.

And here's the Post-Intelligencer:

Nearly half the pro-933 cash contributions have come from Americans for Limited Government, a Chicago organization founded by New York landlord Howard Rich, who also advocates for term limits and conservative issues. The group, which has contributed $200,000, is bankrolling ballot measures in 12 states.

In Idaho, the Boise Weekly was canny enough to pick up on the same turn with Idaho's initiative:

Except for $50... the entire budget for This House is My House came from out of state, according to reports from the Idaho Secretary of State. $100,000 came from Montana-based America At Its Best. Another $237,000 came from the New York-based Fund for Democracy, headed by Howard Rich, a libertarian activist and major donor.

I'm not one to believe in smoky backroom conspiracy theories, but this is starting to get a little creepy.

More to come, next week.

UPDATE 7/10/06: Great article in the Helena Independent Record on similar issues with Montana's Initiative 154. Here's a sample:

A Montana-based political group that has spent $1 million on initiative campaigns here and elsewhere is being challenged legally by a Helena attorney, who may try to force disclosure of its financial backers.
Attorney Jonathan Motl, a veteran of many ballot-measure campaigns in Montana, said Friday he believes Montanans in Action may be skirting campaign-finance laws by concealing its donors.

He said the group “appears to have no existence other than as a conduit for ballot committee money,’’ and therefore should reveal the source of its money.

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Comments

Posted by JB 07/08/2006 09:44 AM

I am a bit curious about you folks and what your true agenda is? I am a bit of a tree hugger myself, but also believe in property rights as do all of my left voting property owner friends that were in favor of I 933 and signed locally without the help of signature gathers as you suggest were the lynch pins of the movement, It just isn't so. I distributed a couple petitions to stores of folks I know in the Seattle area and they were filled within hrs, no paid signature gathering there and few if any rural landowners.

Land ownership and limited government is the foundation of freedom in this country. Just maybe folks that don't even own land are starting to understand that too much government usually causes a country to collapse in time, just open a history book.

Also don't forget that funding on both sides of the discussion often come from some deep pockets, actually much deeper pockets on the left, George Soros and others, so that should not even be an issue. No One is forced to sign a petition at gunpoint!

Funding for the No Cao referendum was done locally, no paid signature gatherers, no deep pockets and there were no shortage of signatures there. It was a non partisan issue and folks worked together on that one. The issue still remains in the Supreme Court and will be ruled on soon, tabled by a technicality, some obscure case law.

Lets just keep an open honest dialog about the issues remembering and understanding that we live in a constitutional republic which gives us the ability to have this discussion.

Posted by Eric de Place 07/10/2006 02:27 PM

JB-
I'll have much more on this subject later -- I hope you stay tuned. For the moment, I'd just like to second your call for "an open honest dialogue." It worries me when groups or individuals won't reveal their identity or motives. Voters deserve to know who's paying for and designing the arguments they're listening to.

Posted by Dan 07/11/2006 11:05 AM

I, too, call for an open honest dialogue: therefore, 933 backers should cease and desist linking Kelo to 933.

Why would anyone have to be dishonest about their intentions if their ideas stand on their own?

DS

Posted by Patrick 07/11/2006 12:09 PM

Teensy technical nitpick - the relative href target in the first link breaks in the RSS feed of the Daily Score. Could you use absolute/full URLs? Feel free to delete this comment later, either way - thanks.

Posted by Eric de Place 07/12/2006 04:13 PM

Patrick,
Thanks for the heads up. I think I've figured out what the problem is. It shouldn't happen again with future posts, but please let me know if it does.

(I'm not going to take time to correct the links in past posts--at least not right now--because they seem to work fine in normal web viewing.)

Cheers,

Eric