Nice write up online for the Willamette Week here about how liability insurance rates for Oregon physicians fell. The study from the State of Oregon Department of Consumer and Business Services dispels a major political myth.

While it’s hard to remember, Oregon voters rejected a cap on damages in medical malpractice cases several years ago. The initiative, Measure 35, was sold as necessary due to a crisis. Check out the linked power ponit to see how badly proponents of Measure 35 overstated their position.

Oregon voters saw through the rhetoric and chose the wise course. Today’s study simply confirms the wisdom of that choice.

It should be interesting to see whether this objective information stifles the recurring urge by some to put limits on damages. The absence of any crisis makes it pretty difficult to argue for caps on damages.

David Sugerman

Welcome news here that Oregon Secretary of State Kate Brown is leading the charge to reform Oregon’s initiative system.  By means of legislation introduced in the Oregon House, HB 2005, Brown is fulfilling a campaign promise to clean up Oregon’s initiative system.

It takes little reflection to give this effort two thumbs up. Oregon’s initiative system needs reform.  It’s become the playground of out-of-state monied interests who seek to push bizarre agendas here. Most infamously, the abuses of the initiative system have been well chronicled in the case of Bill Sizemore, racketeer.

Secretary of State Brown’s reform proposals provide a modest set of changes that allow better monitoring. The initiative system needs to be transparent, and it needs to be clean.  Otherwise, it should be scrapped, even though that radical change would require amendment of the Oregon constitution.  At bottom, Oregonians are tired of being played the fools by the likes of Messrs. Sizemore and Parks. So if we’re to maintain the initiative system, modest proposals–like those made by Sec. of State Brown–are essential.

David Sugerman

So it should be no surprise that Bill Sizemore, Racketeer gets lots of money, but  according to this, his funding comes from Loren Parks, an out-of-state donor who has pumped $8 million into Oregon initiatives.  The Oregonian article does a fairly decent job of tracking the money, as Mr. Parks finances Bill Sizemore, Racketeer and Kevin Mannix. In the mix, also, is Russ Walker who is connected to the Washington, DC anti-tax, anti-lawyer group, FreedomWorks.

The Oregonian missed background on Mr. Parks. He’s an…uh…interesting–yeah, that’s the ticket–character. While he is not a licensed physician or mental health therapist, Mr. Parks provides services to women including sexual therapy. I haven’t gone into the links here, but it appears that Mr. Parks purports to provide some form of hypnotherapy to women suffering from sexual problems.

Seems like this stuff could only come from Hollywood. Sad to say that it’s not fiction. Sadder still,these are the people who have hijacked Oregon’s cherished initiative system.  I think we should all demand better.

David Sugerman

I’m not a Bill Sizemore fan. My view is that he has taken Oregon’s treasured initiative system and turned it into a mockery for his personal aggrandizement and financial gain. So I was amused to read this account of how Judge Janice Wilson found him in contempt of court yesteday.

As most people know, “contempt” is actually a techical legal term.  So Judge Wilson’s findings ocurred after a hearing on the merits. It’s probably just coincidence that many people held Mr. Sizemore in contempt well before the news report.

The backstory is that an Oregon jury found Mr. Sizemore’s Taxpayers United PAC responsible for damages due to his illegal campaign practices (racketeering, forging signatures, falsifying campaign expenditure reports). The court entered a judgment against Mr. Sizemore’s organization. Mr. Sizemore appealed, and he lost.  It’s a long opinion, but here’s a copy from the Oregon Court of Appeals that affirmed the bulk of the trial judge’s rulings. That case is apparently on appeal to the Oregon Supreme Court.

Mr. Sizemore apparently decided that he could play a shell game with his money so that unions and the state could not collect on its judgment. And that’s where he ran into trouble in Judge Wilson’s courtroom.

Those of us who know Judge Wilson will tell you that she is smart and tough. She doesn’t suffer fools lightly, and she really dislikes game playing. Bad draw for Mr. Sizemore, I imagine.  In the article, Mr. Sizemore complained that Judge Wilson upheld “a blatantly unconstitutional ruling” by another judge. The answer to that is an appeal. So far, Mr. Sizemore has lost that argument, though who knows what will happen at the Oregon Supreme Court.

David Sugerman