Jason Glodt appears to agree that association with the fake 18% rate cap petition is toxic to any reputable ballot initiative drive. The SDGOP operative responds to allegations that his “Marsy’s Law” petition is being used as bait for the payday lenders’ fake 18% rate cap petition by admitting that he has hired the same Nevada petition-circulating company but insisting that his petition is not a front for the fakers:
Jason Glodt, sponsor of the crime victim rights petition called Marsy’s Law, said Wednesday that a small number of circulators wearing Marsy’s Law T-shirts and asking for signatures for that petition also circulated the 18-percent cap petition.
“We’re flat out not affiliated with them,” Glodt said of South Dakotans for Fair Lending. “I’m a little upset that we’re getting drug into this … There are allegations that we’re a decoy, that we’re not a real campaign and that’s absolutely untrue.”
The petitions are not related, but both campaigns used Nevada-based firm Silver Bullet to contract circulators, Glodt said.
The use of firms like Silver Bullet is not uncommon, and circulating more than one petition is not against the state’s election laws, but Glodt said he has asked circulators obtaining signatures for both the Marsy’s Law petition and the 18-percent cap petition not to wear the signature purple Marsy’s law shirts [Dana Ferguson, “Payday Loan Critic: Group Collecting Invalid Signatures,” that Sioux Falls paper, 2015.09.16].
If I were Glodt, I’d run away from the fake 18-percenters as well. The ringleader of the fake 18-percenters, Lisa Furlong, won’t even talk to the press about what her circulators are doing.
But you know, Jason, if you really want to avoid that negative association hurting your ballot measure, maybe you need to talk to your hired circulators and tell them that if they are working for you, they carry your petition exclusively. Or at least you might want to scrutinize their time cards. If they are standing outside the courthouse for eight hours a day and carrying both petitions, you should make sure you only pay them for half of their time and that Lisa Furlong pays for the other half.
But hey, the payday lenders would never try to squeeze money out of another ballot question committee, would they?
I don’t understand the concept of paying a firm to collect signatures. I don’t think the original supporters of the initiative and referendum would approve. Never did any group I was involved with pay anyone to collect signatures.
Why would anyone bringing an initiative or a referendum do that? The only reason would be that the measure has so little support and is of so little consequence to the broad public that no one will put in the volunteer effort to get it on the ballot.
Unfortunately, we can’t ban paid signature gathering. The Supreme Court holds that money is speech, and paid petitioning gathering by flunkies for whoever hires these out-of-state outfits is now equivalent to petitions gathered by real outraged citizens exercising their real rights under the Constitution. Dumb, isn’t it, but that’s what corporate rule, oligarchy and righty ideology gets you. But such outfits and their shenanigans could be regulated.
To Jason Glodt,
An easy way to distance yourself from the 18%rs is to renounce their tactics and confirm that our 36% petition is the real one and the other one is a deceptive blocking petition. Even better, announce your endorsement of our 36% rate cap. Until then it’s hard for us to believe your two efforts are truly independent of each other.
Anyhoo– I appreciate our friendship and will certainly miss hanging out in Pierre.
SH
This is very funny:
“But hey, the payday lenders would never try to squeeze money out of another ballot question committee, would they?”
Good one Cory.
If Glodt really wants to separate his petition drive, and he believes it’s really good for South Dakotans, he ought to take Don’s advice and line up those supportive SD citizens to carry his petitions. Shouldn’t be a problem for a ‘grass roots’ effort, right?
Hickey, “An easy way to distance yourself from the [misogynists] is to renounce their tactics and confirm that [you plan to push for real, criminal action against gun and run impregnators.]
Beep, beep, vrooooooooom! That’s Hickey imitating the Road Runner, escaping hard questions.
Glodt – “There are allegations that we’re a decoy, that we’re not a real campaign and that’s absolutely untrue.”
Gee, Jason. If you walk like a decoy and quack like a decoy … well, you sure look like a decoy. Just sayin’!
Speaking of foul fowl, it’s not been a good week for SDGOP errand boys Glodt and Arends. Chickens are coming home to roost! Don’t get Bosworthed, boys.
“Don’t get Bosworthed, boys.”
Good one 96.
Donald, what sort of regulations could we put on paid circulating that would not hamper volunteer circulating? Could we require any paid circulator to obtain a circulator’s license from the state or register with the Secretary of State?
I don’t think you want to discourage petition circulating by bureaucratizing it too much, but some sort of registration and official ID and some minimal training might help weed out the crooked and illegal circulators.
The real problem lies with the ballot question sponsors, too many of whom now are just bullshitters hired by one special interest or another. Quite frankly, I’d drown these slimeballs in the deepest part of Lake Oahe, but that would be illegal, so I’d go a different route. You can’t stop paid circulators, but you can stop the ballot question sponsors from hiring firms that hire them for you. So, I’d require all sponsor of a ballot measure to directly hire circulators themselves, be totally responsible for them and disclose their names to the Secretary of State.
You usually don’t run into these sorts of issues with ballot measures that have volunteer circulators. They are committed to the issue, and want to do things right. Also, the people circulating the petitions consist solely of South Dakotans. So, ballot measure sponsors should be required to disclose whether they will use paid circulators and, if they do, then they should be regulated to a far greater extent.
grass roots initiative laws are being co-opted by corporate initiatives (hello Koch Bros.-nice to meet you, thanks for the introduction, Joel-you getting rich along the way?)
In other words, if you hire someone to collect your signatures and that circulator commits a crime by collecting them illegally and engaging in fraud, then the sponsor(s) is/are also guilty of the same crime. I think once some of these Republican asshats who are abusing the initiative and referendum are put in the slammer, we might see the process cleaned up.
Also, do away with the a priori AG explanation, and all the other bullshit crap that Republicans set up in the last 15 years that serves only to clog up the system, and makes it necessary for some folks to think they have to have attorneys, consultants and paid circulators before they can engage in petitioning for a ballot question.
We don’t have an AG’s explanation for referenda; why should we have one for initiatives?
Donald, Bob Mercer’s column this weekend advocates a circulator registry. Could we take the burden of registering off the volunteer circulators and put it on the shoulders of the petition sponsors? Let petition organizers hand out petitions to whoever volunteers to circulate, but require the organizers to submit the names and addresses of those volunteers to the county auditor, or better yet straight to an online registry on the SOS website. Signatures from each circulator count only if they are collected on or after the date entered by the organizer.
But do we need a registry or any other requirements on circulators? Or do we just need law enforcement to make existing laws stick? Do we need Marty Jackley and the DCI to make the rounds at the courthouses and post offices in Sioux Falls and Rapid City, ask circulators for IDs, and simply bust any circulator who can’t prove South Dakota residence on the spot?