Petitioners gather support without a trace

• Company readies nine initiatives for ballot, leaving its nemesis wondering how it did it

By Steve Law

The Portland Tribune, Jan 22, 2008, Updated Oct 30, 2009 (45 Reader comments)

Tim Trickey should be proud.

Petitioners for his conservative-oriented signature-gathering operation have largely qualified nine initiatives for Oregon’s November ballot, after racing to gather 1.3 million signatures months ahead of deadline — and before a stricter initiative reform took effect this month.

But now Trickey’s nemesis, a union-funded arm that focuses on ballot measures, is casting a cloud over his work, saying there’s no way all those signatures could have been gathered properly because petitioners vanished from normal Portland petitioning locales.

“There’s no physical evidence of them out there,” or at least “nothing at all commensurate with the number of signatures turned in,” said Kevin Looper, executive director of Portland-based Our Oregon.

Trickey, whose Clackamas-based Democracy Direct gathers signatures for conservatives Bill Sizemore, Kevin Mannix and Russ Walker, dismissed that notion.

His signature gatherers are purposely staying “under the radar” to avoid detection and confrontations with Our Oregon representatives, Trickey said. His petitioners also concentrated in different areas, he said, such as Southern Oregon.

Our Oregon, largely funded by public employee unions, has been locked in an ongoing war with conservate ballot-measure sponsors, who lately have dominated Oregon’s initiative system.

Our Oregon keeps a close watch on the activities and locations of petitioners, relying on tips and observations from union members and other supporters.

Trickey and other conservatives accuse Our Oregon volunteers of harassing legitimate signature gatherers.

But Our Oregon’s dogged pursuit of initiative abuse often has borne fruit. Allegations, research and lawsuits by the group and its union backers have led to fines and court rulings, including a multimillion-dollar fine against Sizemore’s operation that is still under appeal.

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