I have been following a social issue and legal case recently. This case strikes me on a very fundamental level as being one of national importance. In this particular case, we have seen state officials use and abuse their power to destroy the rights of citizens, “interpret” the law ex post facto to preserve their power and wealth, whilst imposing tyranny upon those who legally and within all bounds of legal precedent sought to change it. Injustice, summarized
This is hardly the only cite I could give, but none of them differ in any substantial way and I cannot even find any defense of the state’s actions.
I will say nothing more than to say that is TREASON! Until now, I didn’t ebven think it was possible for state officials to commit treason in this manner. This monstronsity canot be allwoed to stand, and I am right drawn to Jefferson’s famous declaration that the “Tree of Liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood fo Tyrants and Martyrs.”
I’m so mad I can’t even type properly. I’ve got to just post this and leave. I’ll be back later when I calmed down.
Can you take two minutes to summarize what’s going on? The page is more reminiscent of conspiracy-wracked perpetual motion inventors. Not saying it is, just that it comes across as rambley.
I hope you have had time to cool off. I live in Tulsa, Oklahoma, have my entire life, and I think the law is a good one. I don’t want people coming in from other states to change our state government for us. I was presented the petition three times, once at my door, and twice in some mall parking lots. I refused to sign it all three times. Mainly because the petitioners were vague in explaining what it was supposed to do. I tried to read it, but found it vague also. A lot of my friends also refused to sign it for similar reasons. Overspending? How much spending is overspending, the people of Oklahoma already have to vote on large spending issues.
The link you provided reminds me of the sixty’s, everybody shouting things that any reasonable person knows is false. While I probably wouldn’t put them in jail for ten years, I would send them packing.
Oklahoma citizens can and do control our government with our votes, we don’t need them.
I can’t tell what the debate is, either. ::: mystified :: :
To the OP: You’re saying that the officials who arrested Paul Jacobs are guilty of treason, or that Paul Jacobs is guilty of treason, or that the Big Money Fat Cats who are all conspiring in smoke-filled back rooms to keep him in jail are guilty of treason?
Looks to me like the whole issue is going to be one of those legal affairs that makes lawyers scream with joy and bores everyone else to tears: What the legal definition of “residency” is in the state of Oklahoma.
So this guy got caught between two differing legal opinions. Sucks to be him, I guess, but I still don’t see how anybody’s committing treason anywhere along the way.
And I have to say that, personally, if it were left up to me, people who owned and operated “petition management firms” would be on the ship with the telephone sanitizers.
Well, from looking at the link, I think it explains what’s going on. Of course, I can’t speak to the accuracy of the account, but it seems pretty clear.
Oklahoma has an initiative process, whereby people can circulate petitions to propose new laws. If the petitions get enough signatures, the proposed law goes on the ballot, whereupon it’s voted on, and if it passes, it becomes law.
Oklahoma has a law that says that only Oklahoma residents may circulate a petition.
In an earlier Oklahoma Supreme Court case, regarding an initiative to ban cock fighting, “residency” was determined by someone’s intention to become a resident.
An Oklahoman political group tried to circulate two petitions, one to further regulate the government’s eminent domain power, and the second to limit government spending.
Because government employee unions, who were opposed to the petitions, actively tried to prevent the petitioners from gathering names, the petition organizers decided they needed more manpower.
The petition organizers found sympatico people from out of state, who moved to Oklahoma, declared residency, and started gathering names.
Both the petitions got enough signatures to appear on the ballot.
The government, helped by the corporate powers that be, who were opposed to the petitions, sued to throw out the petitions.
The Oklahoma Supreme Court, in deciding the case, changed its position on what defines residency, saying now that you were a resident if you had a “permanent home” in Oklahoma. They therefore disqualified the signatures gathered by the out of state people who had moved to Oklahoma, which got rid of enough signatures so that the spending cap measure wouldn’t appear on the ballot.
The Attorney General of Oklahoma then indicted Susan Johnson, Rick Carpenter, and Paul Jacob, three of the organizers of the petition drive, claiming that their actions in bringing in out of state people to circulate petitions was conspiracy to commit fraud against Oklahoma by bringing in people to circulate petitions that they knew weren’t eligable.
Paul Jacob, one of the indicted individuals and the author of the article believes that the indictment is politically motivated by the state. He argues that these petitions would reduce state power and the size of the state government, and that the indictment is retaliation against the petition organizers, as well as an attempt to intimidate future groups that might want to decrease the size of the government.
And just to add spice to the pot, one of the indicted individuals runs a signature-gathering service, and apparently gets paid so much per signature. Direct Democracy
If I lived in Oklahoma, I’d be pissed that someone who wanted to change the state government hired a mercenary from out of state to garner signatures on petitions in order to get his proposal on the ballot, rather than honestly canvassing and obtaining a consensus from his fellow voters.
Why does it matter HOW the signatures were collected? (I assume that there is a validation process of some type where the collected signatures are confirmed as belonging to actual residents and not dead people.)
So long as the signatures are valid (by however that is defined in their state) that would indicate there were enough people interested in the issue to get it on the ballot.
Assuming the signatures themselves are from Oklahomans, he is “obtaining a consensus from his fellow voters”, regardless of who distributes the petitions.
Because the way the signature-collecting services work is, they walk around at, say, the mall, and buttonhole people walking by and ask them, “Are you a registered voter? Then, would you sign this?” And 9 times out of 10, the person says, “Sure” to both questions, and signs the petition without thinking about it, because that’s how you are when you’re at the Mall. You’re thinking about shopping, not thorny civic issues of the day, and if someone interrupts your trek to ask you to sign something vaguely to do with getting something on a referendum, as long as it’s not some egregiously unacceptable document such as legalizing kiddie porn, you’ll probably sign it. If you’re the sort of person who stops whenever some obvious salesperson accosts you at the Mall, then you’re the sort of person who is anxious to please and will sign practically anything you’re asked to.
I don’t consider that to be gathering a consensus of the electorate such that a measure deserves to be put on a ballot. I consider that to be gathering a consensus that various marketing professionals are very good at their job.
Not if they didn’t think about what they were signing, as most people do when they walk past a table set up at the mall with vaguely official-looking documents on it, and some perky blonde–who is being paid for every signature she collects–leaps out at them with a big smile, thrusts a document under their nose, and asks them sweetly to sign her petition to get Prop 42 on the ballot. It’s, “Sure, honey!”, and the few times it’s “Um, I don’t think so”, they get followed by the perky blonde and “worked on” with every kilowatt of salesmanship she has.
Because if they don’t sign, she doesn’t get paid.
I don’t call that gathering a consensus of the voters. I call that Selling It.