3 initiatives get infusion of cash as signature deadline nears

By MIKE DENNISON
Gazette State Bureau - June 15, 2006

Story available at http://www.billingsgazette.net/articles/2006/06/15/news/state/60-initiatives.txt

HELENA -- At least $230,000 has been paid to freelance signature-gatherers in the effort to qualify three initiatives for the November ballot in Montana, including the measure to place a constitutional limit on state spending.

The money has come almost entirely from a recently formed political education group that isn't revealing its donors, drawing criticism from opponents of the spending-limit measure.

"You see how the money is doled out, but you don't know where it came from," said Eric Feaver, president of MEA-MFT, the state's largest employee union. "I think the public ought to know that."

The campaign coordinator for the three proposed ballot measures, Winifred rancher and political activist Trevis Butcher, said Wednesday he's confident the initiatives will get enough signatures to qualify for the ballot this fall.

Signatures on the initiative petitions must be turned in to county election offices a week from Friday.

He also said MEA-MFT and AARP-Montana are part of a nationwide effort to oppose voter-approved government spending limits, so his forces need the help of paid signature-gatherers and consultants.

"We need to bring in (outside groups) to help coordinate our local people," Butcher said. "If we're going to have to go against their national effort to try to block this, we certainly need to be prepared to do what it takes to accomplish our goals and objectives."

As for divulging his financial supporters, Butcher would say only that they are "organizations that believe in citizen-involved legislation and constitutional changes."

The money is flowing through a group called Montanans in Action, which is an "incidental committee." Campaign laws do not require it to reveal its donors. It does have to report its campaign spending.

Butcher is coordinating the campaigns for three proposed ballot measures:

Constitutional Initiative 97, which would limit biennial increases in state spending to the rate of inflation and population growth in the state.
Constitutional Initiative 98, which would allow residents to attempt to recall judges for any reason.
Initiative 154, which prohibits the state from condemning property and then transferring it to a private entity.

As of June 5, Montanans in Action had spent about $310,000 helping the three measures qualify for the November ballot, according to reports filed with the state political practices office.

About 44,600 signatures of registered voters are needed to qualify a constitutional initiative; a regular initiative needs about 22,300 signatures.

At least $230,000 of the money distributed by Montanans in Action has been paid to professional signature-gatherers or signature-gathering companies, most of which are from outside Montana.

Butcher said Wednesday the final tally will be higher, because reports filed last week don't include money paid to signature-gatherers who worked on the June 6 primary election.

Montanans in Action, formed by Butcher and others earlier this year, has financed the entire effort to get CI-98 and I-154 on the ballot and has contributed 97 percent of the money to qualify CI-97.

CI-97 is one of several spending-cap measures being promoted in several states, with assistance from national, conservative-leaning groups.

A Montana group has formed to oppose CI-97, led by MEA-MFT, a union with 17,200 members, most of them public-sector employees, and AARP-Montana, the consumer group whose members are 50 or older. Formerly known as the American Association of Retired Persons, AARP has nearly 150,000 members in Montana.

AARP-Montana and MEA-MFT reported spending nearly $60,000 in cash or in-kind donations of staff or other resources to oppose CI-97, through June 5. Feaver has said his union is prepared to spend whatever it can to defeat the measure or get it disqualified by the courts.

"We aren't anywhere near done," he said Wednesday. "We will seek judicial review of this petition. Just because you vote for it, that doesn't sweep away the constitutional problems."

MEA-MFT and AARP-Montana aren't required to divulge their specific donors, either, but say it's no secret who they are: Dues-paying members from Montana. The union's members are teachers, government workers and a few private-sector health care workers. AARP members are people 50 or older.

"We have nothing to hide," said Claudia Clifford of AARP-Montana. "We're concerned about the impact this will have on government services and property taxes. When the state doesn't adequately fund schools, local property taxes go up."

Clifford confirmed that AARP-Montana sent a mass mailing to its members this spring, warning them not to sign CI-97, and that its cost was not reported as a campaign expense. The mailing is "not a reportable (campaign) expense," she said, because it's a communication with members.

"(Campaign) reporting laws are about communication with the general public," she said.

Feaver also called the signature-gatherers for CI-97 "ballot-issue mercenaries." In fact, one of the signature companies offered to help MEA-MFT in its efforts to get a minimum-wage initiative on the November ballot, he said.

"We turned them down," Feaver said. "I didn't realize these guys operated so cavalierly across the country. They don't care what the initiative is. For a price, they'll collect signatures."

Butcher said he doesn't recall Feaver or AARP-Montana trying to fight ballot measures in 2004 that increased tobacco taxes, and that their opposition to CI-97 is hypocritical.

"(They) are bound and determined not to allow people to vote (on these issues) in Montana," he said.

"If it has anything to do with responsible government, they don't want people to be able to vote and have a say in how fast government grows, and raises their taxes."