Chicago Daily Observer: Oklahoma 3 story underreported

Sunday, January 13, 2008

An actual local Civil Rights activist was arrested and brought in chains before an Oklahoma court charged with circulating petitions as non residents of the state. Paul Jacob, a fellow at Chicago’s Sam Adams Alliance faces 10 years in prison for practicing the 1st amendment, in a prominent case in the eyes of the Wall Street Journal and Forbes Magazine, yet totally ignored by the Chicago Media (and Oklahoma Media).

Sen. Randy Brogdon Questions Edmondson's TABOR Motives

Oklahoma State Senator Randy Brogdon (Owasso, R-34) questioned Oklahoma AG Drew Edmondson’s motives in his effort to prosecute three participants in the 2005 Taxpayer Bill of Rights petition drive.

Sen. Brogdon noted that when asked by reporters whether his prosecution was politically-motivated, Edmondson stated that the indictment of the petition workers did not come from his office, but was the work of a multi-county grand jury. The Attorney General recently filed a motion to dismiss the multi-county grand jury’s indictment against the three petition activists, making a statement that a new indictment would be issued directly from the office of the Attorney General.

Brogdon also pointed to recent negative news coverage of the Attorney General’s prosecution against the “Oklahoma 3”. Editorials in The Wall Street Journal and Forbes magazine compared Oklahoma’s justice system to that of Pakistan and North Korea, respectively.

“Drew Edmondson and this outrageous prosecution are an embarrassment to the state,” Brogdon said. “His politically motivated decision to prosecute three innocent people has cast the state in a negative light and has been criticized by publications read throughout the nation and world.”

“Amazingly, there was no news coverage when the Attorney General quietly dismissed his once trumpeted indictment,” said Sen. Brogdon, “Attorney General Edmondson needs to come clean. Is there something so wrong with his grand jury process or with the indictments themselves that he has to re-issue the indictments from his office after dismissing them from the grand jury?"

Calling the actions of the Edmondson an embarrassment to the state, Sen. Brogdon urged the AGn to end his “politically motivated” prosecution.

“This is a good time of the year for our Attorney General to reflect on what is at stake and end the persecution of three innocent people,” Brogdon stated. “This politically motivated prosecution sends a chilling message to our citizens to never buck the political system.”

The “Oklahoma 3” are Rick Carpenter of Tulsa, Paul Jacob of Virginia and Susan Carpenter of Michigan, president of National Voter Outreach, a petition management company. The three worked to gather signatures for a Taxpayer Bill of Rights initiative in 2005.

The state appears to be inconsistent on its Oklahomans-only rule

Published October 17, 2007 05:55 pm

Initiative fairness

Oklahoma cockfighters — former cockfighters, that is — bring up an excellent point about recent state indictments of out-of-state petitioners.

Attorney General Drew Edmondson defended the indictments of three petitioners seeking to put a taxpayer bill of rights on the ballot in Oklahoma.

"... we expect the laws to be followed and we will take action when they are violated," Edmondson said in a state story last Sunday.

The week before, a Virginia man, a Michigan woman, and the Tulsa head of a citizen advocacy group were charged with conspiracy to defraud the state by using petition circulators for the TABOR proposal who were not state residents.

Cockfighters are contending the same standard was not applied leading up to the 2002 petition initiative vote that made cockfighting a felony in Oklahoma. They say out-of-state organizers and circulators were used in that initiative drive.

In fact, according to stories published on the Humane Society of the United States' Web site, the organization and one other one were involved in organizing the Oklahoma initiative petition against cockfighting.

"The Oklahoma Coalition Against Cockfighting, an alliance of local and national animal protection, law enforcement and civic organizations, including The Humane Society of the United States and The Fund for Animals, submitted 99,750 signatures in December 1999, in support of a petition to make cockfighting illegal," a Nov. 13, 2001 HSUS story reads.

Muskogee resident Tony Villalobos claims that circulators were relocated here by the HSUS to collect signatures, and in fact, a Supreme Court referee invalidated thousands of those signatures.

That same referee, Gregory Albert, ruled on the TABOR initiative, invalidating nearly 57,000 signatures that involved out-of-state circulators. The difference in the two initiatives is that the Supreme Court overruled Albert's disqualification of signatures, which placed the cockfighting ban on the state ballot.

We are not encouraging a revisit of the 2002 state vote, but the state appears to be inconsistent on its Oklahomans-only rule. That's not good for Oklahomans just as it's not good for outsiders to dictate what happens in Oklahoma.

http://www.muskogeephoenix.com/opinion/local_story_290175525.html

Oklahoma's Most Wanted

The latest thing in political felonies: a petition drive.

Monday, November 19, 2007 12:01 a.m. EST

A veteran political activist is facing 10 years in prison and a hefty fine for attempting to petition government for redress of grievances. The latest news from Pakistan? No, this is happening in Oklahoma.

Last month Paul Jacob, the former head of U.S. Term Limits and current head of Citizens in Charge, was led out of an Oklahoma City courtroom in handcuffs after pleading not guilty to charges that he conspired to defraud the state. Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson, who's overseeing this bizarre prosecution, has accused Mr. Jacob and two fellow petition organizers--Rick Carpenter of Oklahomans in Action and Susan Johnson of National Voter Outreach--of bringing out-of-state petition gatherers to Oklahoma to collect signatures.

In 2005 Mr. Carpenter, a Tulsan, launched a signature campaign to get a state-wide vote on a Taxpayer Bill of Rights. Tabor, as it is known, would cap the rate at which state government spending could increase. Mr. Jacob and Ms. Johnson were later brought on board to assist the effort. Not surprisingly, politicians and interest groups that favor big government have developed an intense dislike for Tabor spending limits, even though, like lawmaker term limits, they tend to be popular with voters.

This certainly proved to be the case in Oklahoma. Despite strong opposition from organized labor especially, Tabor petition advocates managed to gather some 300,000 signatures from registered voters, far more than the 219,000 needed to get the measure on the state ballot. Following a court challenge, however, the signatures were invalidated, not because the signers weren't legitimate but because the Oklahoma Supreme Court determined that nonresidents of the state had collected signatures.

Ironically, it is perfectly legal for opponents of a petition to solicit money and manpower from out-of-state. And sure enough, public sector unions opposed to the Tabor initiative recruited people from outfits like the Oregon-based Voter Education Project, an offshoot of the AFL-CIO that specializes in countering signature drives. They also set up Web sites that advertised the location of signature-gathers and urged their members to harass them.

After the Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled, Attorney General Edmondson could have let the matter die. Instead, he decided that the best use of scarce prosecutorial resources was to indict the petition campaigners. There's reason to believe his decision has less to do with enforcing the law and more to do with warning activists to think twice before challenging political elites.

Mr. Jacob says petition organizers consulted with both the board of elections and the secretary of state's office and were told that the residency rule could be met by anyone who moved to the state and declared himself a resident. In any case, that residency requirement is currently being challenged in the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, and Mr. Edmondson might have at least waited for that outcome before pursuing felony counts against three people acting in good faith.

"The response is draconian and intended to scare and intimidate," says Mr. Jacob, who also faces a fine of up to $25,000 if convicted. "To get 10 years in prison for following what you understand to be the rules of the petition drive would send a chilling message, not only throughout Oklahoma but throughout the country. That's not what we want people to be thinking about when they consider whether to join a campaign to reform their government."

The Democratic AG has denied that his actions are politically motivated, telling reporters that "we're charged with enforcing the laws that are on the books." But every prosecutor has to make judgment calls about how to deploy limited manpower. And in other areas, Mr. Edmondson has opted not to act while legal challenges are pending. Upon learning that the Supreme Court had agreed to review a challenge to the death penalty, for example, he recently requested that all executions be halted until the High Court speaks.

Like many other ambitious AGs, Mr. Edmondson has his eye on higher office, and indicting Tabor supporters will win him friends among the unions and liberal interest groups that can sway a fight for the Democratic nomination. With so many other real crimes to deter, his pursuit of citizen petitioners is not the kind of prosecutorial zeal we need.



http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110010882

Reynolds: "Why Is a Liberal, Out-of-State Group Praising Edmondson?”

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Contact: State Rep. Mike Reynolds

Capitol: (405) 557-7337

OKLAHOMA CITY (October 26, 2007) – Although the Washington, DC-based Ballot Initiative Strategy Center (BISC) claims to be a "progressive 'think-and-do' tank" eager to "reinvigorate the initiative process among state and national progressive organizations...." it’s actions undercut that claims, state Rep. Mike Reynolds said today.

BISC statements imply that it upholds the values of democracy and citizen initiative rights, and is a friend of the rule of law.

"But it seems this is only true when BISC wants to advance its own political agenda through initiatives," said Reynolds, R-Oklahoma City, responding to a recent statement issued by the Center. "BISC is apparently all in favor of hauling supporters off to prison if they work for initiatives BISC doesn't like."

An October 22 press release issued by the organization applies its BISC-quicked logic to the case of Paul Jacob, Susan Johnson, and Rick Carpenter, leaders in a recent Oklahoma initiative to limit state spending often referred to as a Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TABOR). If convicted of participating in democracy they could go to prison for up to 10 years.

According to BISC, the Oklahoma three are "crooks [who] have worked in this arena long enough to know the laws. They just thought they could get away with ignoring them. In fact, we have found that most right-wing ballot initiative players operate with complete disregard for state laws meant to ensure an open and honest process of putting issues on the ballot."

BISC's blanket characterization of "right-wing ballot initiative players" immediately suggests an ideological bias, Reynolds said.

But worse, said Reynolds, "BISC is dishonest to claim that the Oklahoma Three 'thought they could get away with ignoring' Oklahoma's law that petition circulators be residents. BISC links to Paul Jacob's statement of self-defense but ignores his explanation of how the state changed the rules, after the fact, on what constitutes residency. At freepauljacob.com, Mister Jacob reports in detail on the effort he and others made to ensure that they were complying with the law, a law that contrary to BISC's assertions does not in fact do anything to ensure an open and honest ballot process.

"If BISC thinks Jacob is wrong on the facts, why don't they answer him?" Reynolds asked. "Why don't they refute him? Their attack is clearly not about facts or objective law. It's sad that political activists who make use of the initiative process themselves refuse to see the glaring injustice and unconstitutionality here, which could be extended to them too one day. And it is an Orwellian inversion to imply that abetting the exercise by Oklahoma citizens of their constitutionally guaranteed citizen initiative rights is in and of itself a form of sabotage of those rights."

BISC Executive Director Kristina Wilfore has even gone so far as to submit a letter of praise to Attorney General Edmondson stressing that the TABOR campaign was funded and enjoining Edmondson to look into the "network of funders" that has supported this and other petition drives.

“BISC is not a credible source of information,” said Reynolds. “It’s on the extreme left, supported by donations from the National Abortion Rights Action League and billionaire George Soros's Open Society Foundation. BISC is about using the initiative process to promote the leftwing agenda of its donors. Contrary to its rhetoric about ‘out of state’ interests, BISC itself provides direct donations to ballot measures in multiple states.

“BISC ideologically opposes TABOR initiatives,” said Reynolds. “In 2006, Nebraska campaign filings show that BISC was paid to train people in blocking a TABOR petition drive. A federal judge issued a temporary restraining order against three Nebraska cities because they violated the 1st Amendment rights of TABOR petitioners."

“BISC should be ashamed enough of its admitted role in campaigns designed to harass petitioners and block voters from deciding issues like TABOR,” Reynolds concluded. “But now we see their desire to help in the AG’s witch-hunt against the initiative process, to actually throw their political opponents in prison. That's a sad commentary on BISC.”

The state representative pointed to BISC’s own statement that their help in the prosecution of these three individuals by the AG is “a continuation of those efforts” to block TABOR from the ballot.

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