Skip to comments.

Posted on 09/25/2002 7:36:19 AM PDT by SheLion

TALLAHASSEE -- Groups trying to get constitutional amendments onto the November ballot have paid out-of-state companies more than $3.2 million to gather voter signatures, state records show.

Four companies dominate the signature collecting business:

Arno Political Consultants,
Rancho Cordova, Calif.;
Paid by May 30: $1,263,616;
Initiatives: Class Size; State University Board; Allow Smoking

National Voter Outreach,
Location: Carson City, Nev.;
Paid by May 30: $1,140,285;
Initiatives: Pregnant Pigs; Ban Workplace Smoking

Progressive Campaigns,
Location: El Segundo, Calif.;
Paid by May 30: $446,850;
Initiatives: State University Board


National Petition Management,
Location: Roseville, Calif.;
Paid by May 30: $385,733;
Initiative: Voluntary Pre-K Schooling

BUYING NAMES:
Here's what initiatives report spending as May 30 for signatures:

Ban Workplace Smoking: $943,505
Limit Class Size: $889,931
Voluntary Pre-K: $385,733
Drug Offender Treatment: $278,250
Ban Confinement of Pregnant Pigs: $196,780
Create State University Board: $409,077
Allow Smoking Areas*: $133,107
Non-partisan redistricting*: $5,350

*These initiatives are dormant.

--SOURCE: Florida Secretary of State, Division of Elections

While industry experts say the average cost is about $1 per name, the biggest buyer in Florida so far,

Smoke-Free for Health, has paid more than that in order to push its constitutional amendment to prohibit smoking in the workplace.

According to the most recent campaign finance records, the organization had paid $943,500 to a Nevada company by May 30 to collect 580,000 signatures.

So much for grass-roots campaigning.

In the modern business of ballot initiatives, a handful of California and Nevada firms efficiently gather tens of thousands of signatures for constitutional amendments that, in this election, would forever reduce class sizes in public schools, resurrect the university Board of Regents and even improve conditions for pregnant pigs.

The process allows special interests to more easily manipulate state law, political observers say. The "citizens" initiatives rely on professional signature-collectors who move from state to state.

Not one of the five currently active citizen initiatives is collecting names without paying someone to do it for them.

"It's made our constitution for sale," complained Rep. Bob Allen, R-Merritt Island.

Other ballot-initiative campaigns will soon surpass Smoke-Free in spending, said Edie Ousley, paid spokesperson for the Smoke-Free campaign. "When all is said and done, we will either be average or below average on our per-signature cost," she said.

Citizen initiatives for constitutional amendments today need 488,722 valid voter signatures. More than that must be collected because as many as one-quarter of all signatures are rejected by the state for one reason or another. The deadline for certifying those names to the Secretary of State is Aug. 6

"It's not exactly the populist instrument people thought it would be," said Florida State University President Sandy D'Alemberte. "The people who fashioned this really didn't think it through very well."

He would know.

As a legislator in the 1970s, D'Alemberte wrote language to liberalize the state's constitutional amendment process, and in 1977 presided as chairman of the state Constitutional Revision Commission.

These days, D'Alemberte is struck by the ease with which special interest groups can change the state constitution. He said he would prefer that citizen initiatives amend not the constitution, but current statute. That would make it easier for legislators to go back later and change things.

"At some point, you have to believe in representative government," D'Alemberte said.

Even self-professed paupers are buying names.

Floridians for Humane Farms Inc. -- seeking a constitutional amendment to ban the confinement of pregnant pigs -- contended the usual 10-cents-per-name fee that county elections supervisors charge to verify petition signatures would put an undue burden on its bank accounts.

In January, the Secretary of State's office waived the verification charge.

Less than one month later, the animal protection organization supplemented its volunteer forces by paying National Voters Outreach of Carson City, Nev., to gather signatures. As of May 30, the organization had spent almost $200,000 on signatures.

National Voter Outreach is one of a handful of signature-collecting companies, three in California and one in Nevada, that work petition drives in the 24 states that allow them.

The business boasts efficiency.

Arno Political Consulting says it has collected more than 75 million signatures for petitions since it's founding in 1979. The California company touts it collected 700,000 signatures in 17 days once in California, and once got the signatures of 1 million Floridians in 70 days.

This year, Arno has delivered more than 680,000 signatures for Sen. Kendrick Meek's initiative to reduce class sizes in public schools, and it is working alongside another California company, Progressive Campaigns, to collect signatures for U.S. Sen. Bob Graham's initiative to create a statewide university governance board.

Both will make the Aug. 6 deadline to certify signatures to the Secretary of State's office, said company president Michael Arno. In fact, he said, in 23 years of business, Arno has failed to gather enough signatures to get on the ballot only once.

Like other signature-collection companies, Arno hires regional subcontractors who in turn use professional collectors, often paid by piece-work -- per name collected. When the work in Florida is finished, as it almost is now, the collectors travel to other ballot states.

Many Florida signature collectors are working in Ohio this week, Arno said.

He warns that raising the bar on citizen initiatives -- such as requiring more signatures, or limiting the time in which to collect the names -- merely increases the cost of those campaigns, making them affordable only to well-heeled interests.

"But when we look at the political process, we're not neophytes. There is money in the political process," Arno said.

Nevertheless, he said, "I don't think it's appropriate to say you can buy your way onto the ballot. It's not really buying your way onto the ballot. It's a First Amendment right to free speech."

Ironically, the losers in the high-priced market for constitutional amendments include a grassroots voter rights group, Florida Common Cause.

The organization has all but given up on its ballot initiative to keep political parties out of the redistricting process, director Ben Wilcox said.

After getting 99,000 names, the volunteers were worn out, he said.

"The reality is, you have to have money to pay people to gather signatures," Wilcox said.

PUFF The Magic Dragon.....

Puff the Magic Dragon.....

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.