Calls traced to Eyman foes (Police union's phone calls designed to scare inititiave signers)

R. August Pommerening of Tacoma received a phone call Thursday that sounded like a courtesy notice from his local police department, warning him of the risk of identity theft.

The official-sounding recording said the potential culprits might approach him posing as paid signature gatherers for initiative campaigns.

Pommerening wondered if he should be worried about it. So he called the Tacoma Police Department and City Hall, but couldn't find out where the call came from.

In fact, Pommerening was one of many registered voters in Pierce County who received the recorded call Thursday and Friday from an official with the Washington State Council of Police and Sheriffs - an organization that lobbies for rank-and-file cops.

Officials with the police group and a public employee union that bankrolled the two-day campaign said the call was not meant to deceive people or scare them away from signing petitions. But they also admitted that the campaign was partially targeted at Tim Eyman, the professional initiative promoter who's pushing two measures for the November ballot that would cut property taxes.

Bill Hanson, executive director of the police group, was the official-sounding voice in the phone call.

"We don't particularly care for Eyman," he said. "But we wouldn't go so far as to tell people not to sign petitions."

Eyman's proposals separately target the state and local portions of the property tax. The local measure would cut the tax by 25 percent.

The phone campaign was the brainchild of the Washington State Council of County and City Employees, which represents more than 14,000 public employees. Chris Dugovich, president and executive director of the union, said his group spent about $12,000 on the effort, which targeted Pierce County.

One-third of the petition signatures for Initiative 747, which capped property tax increases two years ago, came from Pierce County, Dugovich said.

"This is absolutely appalling. Rich irony here is that they are now using law enforcement in breaking the law, preventing people from exercising their rights to political process," Eyman said.

"These people would actually do anything. It's a pretty frightening thing. And they are trying to hide it from the public this time."

Pat Thompson, deputy director of the public employees union, said some initiative campaigns pay $1 to $3 per name for signature gatherers.

"I think we need to make people understand that their signatures now are commodity," he said.

Asked why the organization approached the police organization to address it, he said, "It's a law enforcement issue."

Unlike Hanson and Dugovich, Thompson denied the phone campaign was against any specific initiative efforts, and said the union won't file the expense with the state Public Disclosure Commission. When contacted Friday, a spokeswoman for Secretary of State Sam Reed declined to comment, saying Reed was not aware of the phone campaign.

"Hello, this is Bill Hanson with the Washington State Council of Police and Sheriffs calling with an important message. You may soon be approached by anonymous signature gatherers asking you to sign their petitions.

"Law enforcement has learned that in the past many individuals who are paid as signature gatherers have been convicted of forgery and other crimes. Please protect yourself from identity theft. Please think before you ink. Thank you."

There was a bill in the last session that placed limits on who could legally collect signatures on an initiative. In essence, not only signatures collected by those in the "prohibited" category (ex-felons and more, as I recall) could be discounted, but (as I recall) the initiative sponsor would be subject to civil penalties by those whose signatures were gathered by the "forbidden" gatherers. (The bill died.)

This is nothing more but a continuance of the effort to kill the initiative process in Washington State. For example, if I were opposed to a "minimum-wage increase" initiative, I'd hire a bunch of the "forbidden" category of collectors and send them out with petitions FOR the initiative (with a few friends set up to sign), then have some friendly "signers" sue the initiative's sponsors for the violations.

You can guess who's behind this...

these sort of scare tactics are just about par for the course with the leftist tax dogs.

They very definately left people with the impression that the initiative signature drive was a fake and a fraud and it would be dangerous to sign the initiative.... Warned of Identity theft!

These are two emails I got this week from my dad about this:

From: [Hair's Dad]
Sent: Friday, April 09, 2004 1:17 PM
Subject: Strange
Just answered the phone to what was an obvious recorded call. Was beginning to hang up so had the phone partly away from my ear, so missed who it was that was calling, but then put it back to my ear to make sure it was a recording. And it was. What was interesting though was the message. The message said someone is soliciting initiative signatures representing it as a police organization initiative, however no law enforcement agency is soliciting initiative signatures. So be warned not to give your name, address and signature to whoever is doing this. The closing line said why: "think before you ink, stop identity theft". Now isn't that interesting, an efficient and effective way to get names, addresses - and signature specimens! Wow. Now THAT IS creative...
My reply:

Wow.... that is creative....
Or.... it is a creative tactic by those ~against~ the initiative! ;~D
Who can ya trust....
[Hair]

His last reply:
Subject: Mystery Call Solved
You will recall my note about a recorded phone call from some law enforcement sounding outfit, warning of someone circulating initiative petitions under guise of law enforcement sponsorship, and advising that no law enforcement agency is collecting any initiative signatures, and that people need to beware of signing initiatives because of risk of identity theft.
Well! Up jumps the devil: the phone message was paid for by the Washington State Council of County and City Employee's - county and city unions - of behalf of their fellow association member, the Washington Council of Police and Sheriffs. It wasn't a public service effort at all, it was a bald-faced deception, including outright lie's, directed at scaring people from signing initiative peititions. To wit: Eyman's property tax initiative. For Shame!!!

I think this is worth a state ping! That call may have fooled people!

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