Oklahoma 3 Indicted for Soliciting Our Government
October 2 was a sad day for liberty. In fact, the events of October 2 were more than sad-they were just plain outrageous.
If you haven’t already heard, October 2 was the day three citizens-Paul Jacob (Citizens in Charge President and Sam Adams Alliance Senior Advisor), Susan Johnson (National Voter Outreach President), and Rick Carpenter (of Oklahomans in Action)-were indicted in a dirty political ploy directed by Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson.
On paper, the charges are “conspiracy to defraud the state” because of a baseless claim that they-the “Oklahoma Three”-violated an Oklahoma statute requiring petition circulators to be residents while they were working on a Taxpayer Bill of Rights petition during the summer of 2006. (Carpenter was also charged with filing a false, fraudulent, felonious, and fictitious initiative petition.)
On paper, that is. But this outrageous and baseless indictment is really about the fact that the Oklahoma Three dared to use their First Amendment right to petition the government. The indictment is about suppressing the citizen initiative process-at least when the people in charge don’t like the politics of the initiatives.
Let’s back up to discuss the so-called charges.
In 2005, Oklahomans in Action launched a campaign to put a Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TABOR) measure on the November 2006 ballot. The measure would have put a cap on state spending increases, giving voters and taxpayers-instead of politicians-the power to override the cap.
Paul Jacob, as an advisor to the campaign, helped Oklahomans In Action find a petition company-National Voter Outreach, which had conducted many successful petition drives in Oklahoma in the past-and monitored the campaign’s progress.
It turned out that opposition groups would go to great lengths to prevent taxpayers from having a say in the spending of their own tax dollars-including paying thugs to block voters from signing petitions. These “blockers” even lied to grocery store managers, saying that the petitioners had cursed them out or treated them rudely, in order to get petitioners removed from the areas where they were circulating petitions
Needless to say, this made the petitioners’ jobs incredibly difficult, and it was hard to recruit enough petitioners to continue the campaign.
However, the petition company learned that under Oklahoma’s residency statute, people could move to Oklahoma, immediately declare residency, and thus qualify to begin circulating a petition. National Voter Outreach confirmed this information with officials on both the State Election Board and in the Secretary of State’s office. This information was also consistent with the Oklahoma Supreme Court’s ruling in a previous case challenging a 2001 petition drive on the basis of residency.
Therefore, National Voter Outreach acted on this information, based on confirmation from state officials, and more than enough signatures were collected to put the TABOR measure on the ballot.
But, of course, the opposition wasn’t finished yet.
The measure was challenged on signatures and constitutionality, and was eventually thrown off the ballot. The Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled that those moving to Oklahoma to gather signatures were not residents, and charged that there was fraud involved in the signature collecting because of these “out-of-state” petitioners, despite the fact that this practice was approved by state officials themselves.
And now, more than a year later, the Okalahoma Attorney General has gone even further by bringing felony indictments against Jacob, Johnson, and Carpenter, who could serve 10 years or more in prison if found guilty.
“The highest legal office in the state of Oklahoma seems bent on silencing citizens through harassment and intimidation, threats and coercion. The goal is to silence me, and to frighten you, from petitioning our government,” Jacob said in a statement. “Those who attempt to put citizens in charge of government spending decisions, through initiatives like the Taxpayer Bill of Rights, or any other issue that rankles the powerful political forces of a state, can expect to face an onslaught by the full powers of the government. This is yet another round in the age-old attempt to stop ideas by force, by harassment, by imprisonment, by anything except a better idea.”
The good news is that the Oklahoma Three aren’t taking this lying down. They are fighting it, and spreading the word widely-because, as Tim at FreePaulJacob.com writes, “when Americans are indicted, put in hand-cuffs and leg-irons, and face ten years in prison for exercising their right to petition the government, everyone should hear about it.”
Even better news: bloggers, Facebookers, and others are lining up to express their support for these three. We hope you will, too.
“We the People will not be intimidated,” Jacob said. “We will keep fighting to turn out-of-control government into government that is under citizen control. We will defeat this vicious attempt to criminalize honest political activity. And in the end, we will win.”
The Sam Adams Alliance connects and supports citizen leaders throughout the country who are working to advance the causes of government accountability and transparency. Paul Jacob is a senior fellow at the organization, and authors the radio and Internet commentary program Common Sense with Paul Jacob.
This article is misleading. Not only did the State Supreme Court see evidence of intentional fraud, so did a grand jury. These folks knew the professional petition solicitors brought into the state never intended to be Oklahoma citizens and were even blatent about it. Now they are crying “First Amendment rights” as a diversion.
http://www.preemptivekarma.com/archives/2006/08/scandal_in_okla.html
A federal appeals court has already ruled that Oklahoma’s petition requirements do not violate the First Amendment. We’ll just have to see what the Supreme Court says.
This is simply outrageous. Any link to a site where a Paypal donation can be made to their legal defense?
Also, fighting this type of govt abuse should be non-partisan, but I was curious as to the political party of the Oklahoma AG. Democrat.
It seems obvious to me that their intent, as described here, was to defraud the people of Oklahoma.
To become a resident requires more than just a physical presence, it requires an intent to actually reside there. This report does not indicate how so many people changed their lives and committed to changing where they lived.
If people simply traveled to the state with no more intent than to effect throw an election, then they’re wrong, wrong, wrong.
Perhaps the law in Oklahoma allows registering to vote after only one day in the state, but there is surely still a requirement that there be an intent and some actions to permanently reside there.
This report is poorly written and accepts the story of those charged with no scrutiny. I seriously doubt that a government would ever condone fraud as they claim.
MikeH,
Your link isn’t working. Please give a new one.
Or is your link even real?
MikeH obsseses about trivialities in writing:
These folks knew the professional petition solicitors brought into the state never intended to be Oklahoma citizens and were even blatent about it.
If the government of Oklahoma said what they were doing was legal, then there can have been no fraud. End of story.
Other posters are obsessing about an “intent” component. Unless you can show that the alleged fraudsters were aware of a requirement to reside in Oklahoma for some period of time they did not intend to, then there can have been no fraud. In particular, if they asked a blanket question of the relevant state officials as to “what are the residency requirements in Oklahoma?” and the government officials involved reported every least requirement, and you can show the alleged fraudsters had no intention at the time of meeting them, any conviction for fraud would be a gross injustice.
And if you can show such a requirement, why didn’t you bring it up right away? I suspect you neither you nor the government of OK can show any such fraud happened.
Yours, TDP, ml, msl, & pfpp
Sheesh. Should I have to play “Name that Party” here at PJM too?
Just to let the readers know – all is not as advertised. Oklahoma is a very conservative state with a populist constitution. Many things are often accomplished by initiative petition. Because of this the petition process gets a lot of pro and con attention. We have had Acorn, with their cheats and liars, and the national unions with their thugs, trying to impose their wills on the people of Oklahoma by joining in the initiative petition process. Normally, Oklahomans take care of this at the polls, as is their wont. There are often several questions on the statewide ballots.
It is up to the pros and cons to keep the other side as honest as possible, and every signature gets checked and counted or discarded. These petitions often wend their way through the court system, so getting the courts involved is normal. Doing this is the AG’s job. Mr. Drew Edmonson (D) is one of the best States’ Attourney Generals and reasonably non-partisan. He is not trying to muzzle anyone. He is trying to ensure the election laws are followed. So, a note to the proponents in the main post: If you don’t understand our laws and constitution, why do you try to bamboozle the Oklahomans to make your changes. If you want to know about our laws, ask the AG, not some election board clerk; everyone else does. If they (the Oklahomans) want to change their constitution, they will, without your help.
Perhaps they should have asked the AJ rather than an election official on the law, but is a felony indictment and a possible 10-year prison term the proper remedy?
Some of the comments above metion “intent” in regards to the out-of-state petitioners moving into the state, but “criminal intent” on the part of the defendents is also one of the requirements for a criminal indictment. That the defendents had asked state officials on the legal requirements shows that there was no intent to defraud the people of Oklahoma.
The initiative had already been thrown off the ballot. Perhaps a civil fine would be justified. A criminal indictment, however, appears terribly excessive.
This is typical of how governments act when threatened. Acorn and the unions are notorious for intimidation, fraud and for busing people all over the country to promote their totalitarian agendas. This is the leftist playbook written by small men such as Saul Alinsky and passed down to even smaller men and women who look up to him. Nothing will be done to punish these thugs.
But when the other side tries to stand up to them then they are predictably persecuted for ginned up “offenses” which pale in comparison. That there are people who think this is a good idea says all you need to know about the morality of those in power and their supporters and about how far we have strayed from the principles upon which the country was founded.
Drew Edmundson has just made himself the Mike Nifong of attorney generals with his purblind, partisan and tone deaf interpretation of the law and his pursuit of his own self-interest above all else. We can all rationalize our misdeeds. Fortunately, few of us possess the genius for it that the Edmonson’s, Alinsky’s and Nifongs seem to have.
MikeH Your link should have been this . I am troubled that someone could be put in jail for gathering in state signatures that must be verified by county and state personnel for a potetential law that still must be voted on by the state’s residents. To this outsider it appears that some officials in Oklahoma have personal vendettas they are trying to settle.
Nick, Orwell, ss: I admire your passion and your arguements. I am looking forward to your participation in the next constitutional convention where we don’t need grand juries, courts or supreme courts. All we need is bloggers with good, knowledgable opinions of the facts of the case. I don’t know what evidence was presented or how stupid or bought off was the jury, as I infer from your posts. However, my distrust of things judicial has not progressed to the point where automatically impute nefarious (or nifongious) motives to their efforts to uphold laws. I suspect there was enough evidence to convince juries and judges that there was intent to defraud. The SAA lost the war, and now they are using this blog to get public opinion to nullify court upheld court decisions. In Oklahoma, if we don’t like enough of judge’s decisions, we get rid of the judge.
Orwell, since you want to lower the tone of the discussion, I was a conservative and
(r)epublican when you were still getting lunch offa momma. I live in the second district (in which lives(ed) Inhoff, Coburn, Edmundson the elder). I know some think there are a lot of nuts over here, but can’t we have a discussion without you getting insulting about Mr. Edmundson.
In addition, the whole group of posts seem to imply that voter fraud is a minor offense, like shoplifting or lying to a grand jury about sex. In fact, this seems to be the platform or a major political group. I submit that voter and petition fraud should be right up there,just under sedition, because those that commit it are trying to subvert our freedoms.
The Oklahoma AG should be prosecuted at a federal level for civil fights violation. What he has done is a criminal offense.
Mike H, Skyler, et al.
Don’t forget that the original signature gatherers, legal residents of OK all, were intimidated and chased off by thugs (or so the allegation goes). That in itself is a 1st Amendment violation. Hence, there should be some federal investigation.
For those who object because they claim the petition workers were not bona fide residents of OK: what is your view on illegal immigration from Mexico (or anywhere else)?
To Jim C:
Although they are illegal, I guess some folks think they are ok since they do “intend to reside” in the state…
I’m fairly sure that if those collecting the signatures had moved there to collect signatures to establish the tulip as the state flower and then tried to claim they were NOT residents and tried to avoid paying state taxes, the state Department of Revenue would have seen it differently….
If ol country boy was really from Oklahoma, he wouldn’t have said, “Many things are often accomplished by initiative petition” in Oklahoma. Nope.
Since 1998 there’s been exactly one citizen initiative on the Oklahome ballot. Fewer citizen initiatives get on the ballot here than anywhere else and it’s obvious why that is.
The one initiative that did get on the ballot was to ban cockfighting. This was sponsored by the out of state agitators at a national animal rights group. They brought in out of state petitioners. Their opponents complained to AG Edmondson who did nothing.