...Court case exposed Sizemore’s shenanigans
(From Page 1)
back in ’08.
This year, his causes are education,
land use and tax policy, and judicial
elections. His measures would:
• Allow minor improvements to
property without a building permit;
• Link teacher pay to the test scores
of students (an idea defeated in 2000);
• Allow students to take no more
than two years of English as Second
Language classes;
• Make federal taxes fully de-
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ductible on state income tax return (an
idea defeated in 2000); and
• Ban the labeling of judges as “in-
cumbent” on the ballot.
Several other measures, not yet cir-
culating, are aimed directly at union
political clout or worker rights. One
would ban public employee unions
from making political campaign con-
tributions. Another would ban “card-
check” union recognition for public
employees. A third would allow em-
ployers to deduct cost of employees’
medical and retirement benefits from
the Oregon minimum wage they’re re-
quired to pay. Sizemore also intro-
duced, and then withdrew, a repeal of
the state’s “little Davis-Bacon” re-
quirement that government-funded
construction projects pay the prevail-
ing wage.
But wasn’t he supposed to be out of
business?
In a lawsuit filed by the Oregon Ed-
ucation Association and American
Federation of Teachers-Oregon, a jury
declared in October 2002 that Size-
more’s organizations were guilty of a
pattern of criminal activity that re-
sulted in placing Measures 92 and 96
on the 2000 ballot. Specifically:
• Sizemore had his political action
committee hire his own company, I&R
Petition Services, to “oversee” signa-
ture collection, which was done by
subcontractors. Employees of his sub-
contractors forged signatures, signed
the names of fictitious people, and ille-
gally copied legitimate signatures
from one petition sheet to another;
even the signatures of the petition cir-
culators themselves were sometimes
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forged.
• Sizemore set up Oregon Taxpay-
ers United Education Foundation as a
“sham charity,” to give his supporters
tax-deductibility while using their con-
tributions illegally to fund political
campaigns (by direct cash transfers
and by paying the salaries of all his
political staffers.)
• To get around campaign finance
disclosure laws, Sizemore arranged
phony “stock” purchases that enabled
one supporter to secretly contribute
$170,000 to the campaigns. To evade
disclosure of other supporters’ names,
Sizemore arranged to have them write
their checks to Americans for Tax Re-
form, a Washington, D.C.,-based
group headed by right-wing power-
broker Grover Norquist. Sizemore
would bundle these checks, then have
ATR write a check back to his groups,
or directly to petitioners for the total
amount.
• Sizemore filed false Contribution
and Expenditure reports with the State
of Oregon, omitting cash, overhead,
and in-kind support from his “charita-
ble” foundation, including foundation
checks totaling more than $120,000
written to Sizemore’s company and its
subcontractors. He also signed and
filed false reports to the IRS and the
Oregon Justice Department denying
that donations to his charitable founda-
tion were being used for political pur-
poses.
In May 2003, a Multnomah County
Circuit Court judge ordered damages
of $2.5 million, dissolved Sizemore’s
Oregon Taxpayers United Education
Foundation, and issued an injunction
restricting his political activities for
five years.
But Sizemore sought ways to get
around that judgment, just as he earlier
got around — and crossed over —
laws on signature-gathering and cam-
paign finance reporting. He emptied
his group’s bank accounts. He re-
named his group. And he appealed the
jury verdict.
In October 2006, an appeals court
struck down the third of three counts
of his conviction, on a legal technical-
ity. That reduced his civil liability to
about $300,000. Sizemore was jubi-
lant. Both sides are now appealing to
the Oregon Supreme Court. The
Supreme Court doesn’t have to review
the case, and normally does so only if
it wants to use it to settle a particular
point of law. Lawyers expect to learn
‘I get so sick of
being accused of
being involved in
forgery. I have
never knowingly
broken the law.’
Bill Sizemore
some time in the next six months
whether the Court will look at the
case.
So far, the unions have gotten very
little out of Sizemore. They went after
him personally for collection, and
when he sold some property were able
to get about $16,000 out of him.
But union leaders say they have no
regrets about the suit, despite close to a
$1 million they’ve paid in legal bills.
The suit revealed a great deal of unflat-
tering information about Sizemore’s
operation, and must have made many
Sizemore donors pause, particularly
when it seemed his motive was as
much personal gain as furthering the
cause.
Sizemore was not the first chief pe-
titioner to pay for signatures, but he
may be the first in Oregon to make a
vertically integrated business out of it.
As revealed in the lawsuit, Sizemore
made money at every stage. His 2000
personal tax returns reported $213,000
income that year. In the 2000 election
cycle, Sizemore collected a $65,000
salary from his Oregon Taxpayers
United, but his signature-gathering
company I&R paid Sizemore $50,000
directly and as much as $170,000 indi-
rectly, including: up to $25,000 for
construction work on his property; a
$123,919 loan to Sizemore’s failing
radio station; payments on his automo-
bile, and $20,000 in American Express
bills.
And his operation brought the ini-
tiative process to new levels of law-
lessness.
“Until our suit exposed rampant
abuse, it was like the initiative process
was run on the honor system,” says
Oregon Education Association staff at-
torney Mark Toledo.
(Turn to Page 5)
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PAGE 4
NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
FEBRUARY 16, 2007
