OPINION Who's Your Daddy? Bill Sizemore is proposing but not disclosing. It's only February, but it's already clear that, come November, the ballot will be as clogged as Portland gutters are right now. More than 155 initiatives have been filed with the secretary of state's office. Only a fraction of those will find their way to the ballot, but even so the fall Voters' Pamphlet is sure to be hernia-inducing. No group is more active on this front than Oregon Taxpayers United, Bill Sizemore's initiative factory. OTU is working to qualify seven measures that seek to limit taxes, restrict the political activity of labor organizations, alter land-use policy and change the way teachers are paid, among other things. Disagree if you will with the man's politics, but it's hard not to be struck by his effort to reshape our state. That said, we'd sure like to know who his sugar daddies are. Two years ago, when Bill Sizemore ran for governor, it turned out that his candidacy was propped up by large contributions from a few individuals. (In Oregon, there are no caps on political contributions). Aaron Jones, the lumber baron from Eugene, gave him $110,000. Richard Wendt, who runs Jeld-Wen in Southern Oregon and has been a leading proponent of welfare reform, gave him $50,000. Alan James, chairman of Greenbriar, a company that manufactures rail cars, gave him $30,000. Sizemore's current initiative efforts will cost far more than his failed gubernatorial campaign. By our rough estimate, Sizemore already has spent more than $650,000 gathering signatures for the seven initiatives he is seeking to place on the 2000 ballot. (We arrive at that number by multiplying $1--the average cost of securing a signature--by the number of signatures we estimate he has acquired since filing his initiatives with the secretary of state's office.) So who are the deep pockets behind Sizemore's efforts to accomplish through the initiative process what he didn't get to try as governor? Sizemore won't tell us. Worse, Oregon law allows him to keep mum about the special interests supporting him until the end of July, long after the deadline for measures to qualify for the ballot. That's way too late. Knowing who finances political campaigns is the best way to determine who stands to gain from an initiative's passage. Knowing this information before voters are asked to sign a petition would likely lead to fewer signatures and fewer initiatives on the ballot. Had voters known, for example, that the initiative that created the state lottery in 1984 was almost singlehandedly financed by this country's largest manufacturer of lottery tickets, the initiative might never have made it to the ballot, let alone passed. Instead, a very special interest purchased its own constitutional amendment and began this state's addiction to gambling. There was a stab at a solution to this problem in 1998. That year, voters overwhelmingly approved Measure 62, the Open and Fair Elections Act. Among other things, the act required that a contribution of $500 or more would have to be reported to the secretary of state's office within seven days of its receipt. Not long after the measure passed, it was challenged, rendering the provisions moot until Oregon courts decide later this year. The challenger? Bill Sizemore. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Willamette Week | originally published February 16, 2000