Chad Peterson e-mails from Vermillion to report a suspicious petition circulator on the University of South Dakota campus.
Peterson says he encountered the circulator yesterday in the mall area between Old Main and the Muenster University Center. The man was asking passing students if they were South Dakota citizens. Peterson noticed that the man was wearing his South Dakota driver’s license on a lanyard around his neck.
If individuals told the man they were from South Dakota, his next question was, “Are you against violent crimes?” A question that stupid should put all of us on alert.
Peterson asked the circulator to explain in greater detail what the initiated measure he was circulating would actually do. The circulator could not explain what the measure would do, nor could he identify who is sponsoring the measure, whom the measure would affect, or why we need this change to the status quo.
Given the circulator’s inability to explain what he was actually after beyond his thin pitch line, Peterson refused to sign. Remarkably unbowed, the circulator proceeded to ask if Peterson would support a rate cap to help reign in creditors. Aware that two rate-cap petitions are circulating, Peterson asked if it was a cap at 18% or 36%. The circulator was unable to answer that crucial question, a question that any circulator of either competing petition would want to be able to answer immediately and confidently to distinguish his petition from its competitor.
The circulator allowed Peterson to read the petition, and Peterson discovered it was the fake 18% cap. Peterson asked the man if he was paid to circulate the petition, and the man refused to answer. Peterson pressed, asking for whom the man works and why he was circulating the fake 18%-rate-cap petition, and the circulator refused to answer.
Peterson says this man was the third circulator with whom he has had such interactions on the USD campus this month. All of them have refused to disclose their employer and their reason for circulating petitions. Peterson says he wants to warn the public about such shady circulators because they are “a threat to our direct democracy system.”
Voters, heed Peterson’s warning. We have a right to ask petitioners questions about the proposals they want to put on the ballot, their reasons for circulating, and the money that may be behind their efforts. Petitioners have an obligation to answer those questions. Petition circulators who refuse to answer voters’ questions immediately forfeit their right to ask for your signature and personal information.
p.s.: For those of you following the events of this petition season, notice that Peterson’s encounter at USD is another instance of the apparent twinning of Marsy’s Law and the fake 18%-rate-cap petitions. The ongoing association of these two petitions reinforces the likelihood that Marsy’s Law, the purported “crime victims bill of rights,” is being used as cover to lure people into signing the notorious fake 18% rate cap. Marsy’s Law thus appears to be not a sincere effort at legal reform, but just another devious ploy in the payday lenders’ multi-pronged attack against the genuine grassroots effort to cap payday loans at 36%.
Update 10:30 CDT: Chad Peterson is a senior at USD, majoring in political science. He also presides over USD’s non-partisan Political Science League.
I also ran into two of them yesterday at USD. Neither one could explain the 18% rate cap beyond that it would cap rates at 18%. When I pointed out to both of them the language allowing the so called “cap” to be anything agreed to neither of them could explain how the petition sets a rate cap. One said I could go ask his supervisor which I took as one of their two “handlers” sitting on a bench outside the student center. The petitioners were offering up four petitions and stated that I only had to fill out one completely and just sign the others.
How many people when presented with the real rate cap petition will say they already signed it?
They were indeed wearing their SD drivers licenses. The one here the previously week couldn’t provide. I had asked him if he was a SD resident and to see his drivers license. It was “in his car”.
For what it’s worth, I also encountered a petitioner who had both the Marsy’s Law and 18%-rate-cap petitions. She was at the corner of 11th and Phillips in downtown Sioux Falls. She also led with the Marsy’s Law petition and asked if we wanted to protect victims of domestic violence. I was in a hurry, so I was only able to ask a few questions but she did say her interest rate cap petition was the 18% one and seemed a little deflated when I told her I only wanted to sign the other one. Not sure who she was with or anything but she was not pushy about not sign the rate cap petition and was able to answer my few questions.
It’s worth a lot, Hefe and Curt, to hear from more observers like you. Establishing the connection between these petitions is important for understanding the political games afoot and for scrutinizing the spending we will see on the ballot question committee finance reports next year.
Curt, you touch on exactly the immediate issue that matters: these shady petitioners are tricking people into signing the “rate cap” and trying to depress the signature count for the real 36% petition.
Hefe, she was deflated that you would only sign one because she’s probably getting paid “by the set”, meaning she only gets paid if she gets signatures on both petitions. If she got 1,000 on Marsy’s Law and only 100 on 18%, she’d only get paid for 100.
At what point are you going to lay this stuff on the SOS’s desk and demand she do does something about it?
In terms of changing the law for a long term fix maybe one should skip the SOS office and go directly to the Board of Elections and ask them to sponsor legislation to fix this. If we register circulators we should also register their employer…
So, does anyone assume that the people (namely GOP politicos) so recently expressing concern passing restrictive laws toward people wishing to vote will be concerned with this influx of lawbreakers and scum floating these phony petitions on behalf of the “payday loan” industry? Clean clear elections anyone? I haven’t heard of one of these guys, let alone the ‘enforcer in chief Jackley’ being vocal about the lawbreaking going on!!!
I signed the Marcy’s Law one at the 11th St Post office in SF today. She also had the 36% one and two others.
Lanny, your circulator was carrying Marsy’s Law and the real 36% petition? That’s very strange. Did the circulator indicate for whom she was working?