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

Catching up some more…can one blogger ever go on vacation?! Here’s a neat piece from the Oregon Supreme Court on Bill Sizemore, racketeer.  It’s a court opinion, so a lot of it is in legalese. But there are sections worth lifting from Justice Balmer’s opinion for the unanimous court:

“A jury found that defendants–a political action committee and a nonprofit corporation controlled by the same individuals–engaged with others in a pattern of racketeering activity, as defined in ORICO, by forging signatures to qualify two ballot measures for the 2000 general election and by filing false statements with the state from 1998 through 2000 concerning their expenditures and contributions. The jury also found that defendants’ illegal conduct injured plaintiffs–two labor organizations–that spent substantial amounts of money opposing the ballot measures. The jury determined that plaintiffs had suffered damages of approximately $840,000….”

The Court goes on to explain that a jury found that an enterprise that included Bill Sizemore engaged in racketeering. Mr. Sizemore–for those who don’t know–makes a living submitting poorly written and confusing initiatives to Oregon voters.  Turns out he does this by way of fraud and forgery.

As the Court explained, Sizemore’s group, Oregon Taxpayers United and the rest of the defendants, did not, “challenge the jury’s findings that they did, in fact, forge sponsorship and petition signatures or that OTU-EF submitted false reports to the Attorney General regarding its charitable activities.” Instead, the defendants made a number of technical arguments that the Oregon Supreme Court rejected.

So maybe now Bill Sizemore, Racketeer, becomes the name rightfully attached to all these horrible-idea initiatives. For years, I’ve had a sense that some people were using the Oregon initative process in inappropriate ways. But it’s only as a result of this case that I’ve come to understand that Oregonians are being played by a bunch of corrupt racketeers who are intent on hijacking our initiative system.  There ought to be a law.

Kudos to the people who pursued this case and shined a light on Bill Sizemore, Racketeer. The legal team handling the challenge includes a number of friends who should be proud of their great work for Oregonians. Two of the lawyers, Mike Morris and Gene Mechanic, are old friends who do top-flight work.  It’s particularly gratifying to see that they nailed Bill Sizemore, Racketeer. Maybe this is a lesson to Bill Sizemore, Racketeer that his days of pushing his corrupt agenda on us are coming to a close.

You can be a part of saying no more to Bill Sizemore, Racketeer.  Next time you see a petitioner circulating one of those initiative petitions, be sure to ask whether Bill Sizemore, Racketeer is involved.  And if he is, tell them that we don’t do business with Bill Sizemore, Racketeer.  And then don’t sign. Because I imagine that you agree that there’s no place in Oregon for Bill Sizemore, Racketeer.

David Sugerman

Here’s some good news in what is something of a sleeper. Measure 51, a one-sided and unnecessary ballot measure that would limit consumers rights failed to qualify for the November ballot.  The measure would have limited attorney fees to 10 percent in most contingent fee cases.

Contingent fees are those paid as a percentage of what a lawyer recovers for an injured person.  They are an equalizer. While the wealthy and big businesses can afford to pay lawyers by the hour, the rest of us don’t have the means to do so. The contingent fee system levels the playing field, allowing middle income Oregonians and small businesses the ability to hire skilled lawyers who will work for a percentage of what they obtain for the client.

The measure limited only contingent fees; it didn’t limit what those who afford to pay by the hour could pay. Had it passed, the measure would have limited consumers’ access to the best legal talent by artificially limiting fees.

My son–a somewhat sardonic 18 year old–saw through it immediately. “Wouldn’t limiting fees actually encourage lawyers to file more frivolous lawsuits?” (He’s  smarter than his dad; I never thought of that…thanks kiddo, you’re doing the old gray fart proud.)

Here’s the thing. At bottom the one-sided measure would favor insurance companies, HMOs, and manufacturers of dangerous products. They don’t want consumers to have access to the courts. They know that the best way to close the courthouse doors is to make sure that injured consumers can’t afford to hire lawyers. This, by the way, is part of the Bush/Cheney/Rove agenda. And as with many other things they failed.

Thankfully, Oregon consumers knew better. We’ve come to realize that the initiative process is one that is used by special interests to advance a radical agenda. It’s getting harder to qualify measures, and Oregonians are getting more skeptical about the unintended consequences of poorly drafted initiatives.

That’s great news.

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