—Knock knock!
—Who’s there?
—North American Title Loan. You been circulating petitions?
In tonight’s odd petition story, a Rapid City friend who circulated the petition for the real 36% rate cap (certified December 28 as Initiated Measure 21) sponsored by Steve Hickey, Steve Hildebrand, and Reynold Nesiba reports a knock at his door around 17:30 MST this evening. He opened the door to find a woman in business dress with a yellow legal notepad.
She asked him to verify that his name was what she had down. She asked him to verify that the address they were at was indeed his residence. And she asked if he had circulated “the petition.”
Quickly putting two and two together and getting 18%, my friend asked the woman, “Do you work for North American Title Loan?”
“Yes,” she said. “Have a good night.”
This unusual encounter suggests two logical conclusions:
- My friend was dreaming.
- The payday lenders are preparing the next step in their multi-front war against us South Dakotans and our honest effort to reign in their loan-sharking by ballot initiative. They are checking every angle of the honest 36% rate cap petition to find any legal toehold they might get to invalidate enough signatures to throw the real rate cap off the 2016 ballot. Interestingly, tonight they were checking my friend for the sort of residence violation that is much more likely to hang the people who circulated the payday lenders’ own decoy petition.
Payday lenders, if you’re knocking at our doors, go away. Don’t come ’round here no more.
Mr. H, I keep telling your bloggers here but they keep putting their fingers in their ears: The robber barons have more nefarious things up their sleeves than you can imagine. They sit around and night and cook ideas in their brains and then have the operatives on their payrolls meticulously plan a multi-layered plan. Mark my words, again.
Jane Meyer has written a book titled DARK MONEY. It concerns Koch, Scaiffe, et al. She was interviewed on NPR yesterday. She discussed Koch’s practice of sending investigators to investigate the reporters and law enforcement people checking up on their behavior. The behavior of the credit outfit seems to fit that mold. Below is link to NPR text and audio.
http://www.npr.org/2016/01/19/463565987/hidden-history-of-koch-brothers-traces-their-childhood-and-political-rise
The 36% initiative is as much a threat to a portion of the wealth classes of this state and nations way of life and presumptive attitude as civil rights was to whites in the deep south back in the day. I am afraid things are going to get really ugly before they get better anytime soon….
The usery scum stops at nothing.
Great reporting, Cory.
This is the sort of tactic that Chem-Nuclear used back in 1984, when we put the Nuclear Waste Vote Initiative on the ballot. If this plays out like Chem-Nuclear, they are going to harass and intimidate circulators and signers of the petition.
Chem-Nuclear hired some private investigator to do the dirty work. These guys seem to be doing their own dirty work.
So, they are likely to say things like, “There is an investigation of the 36% rate cap petitioning….” They are going to try to seem like government officials (for example, for the Secretary of State’s office or the AG, or the local District Attorney). They will not identify themselves unless asked. They are angling to find a way to get the petitions disqualified, and all they have to do is scare a few people into signing an affidavit or some such thing in order to file some SLAP suit.
It’s important to get the word out to your circulators and signers: Do not talk to anyone about the petition. Just close the door or hang up the phone.
What you might want to do is what we did: propose legislation that prohibits intimidating or harassing a signer or circulator of an initiative or referendum petition. Just follow similar statutory language that applies to voters. We didn’t get the bill passed, but it focus attention on the kind of tactics Chem-Nuclear was willing to use.
Just the simple fact that they were knocking on doors was intimidation. They are doing things with plausible deniability that are still able to be seen as intimidating. They are likely reading this blog on a daily basis to see if their tactics are effective.
Regardless, a shameful way but not unexpected way of going about things. When you build a business off the backs of others, it is hard to watch your business threatened by reason, even if you don’t want to look at the trail of tears it took to get there.
And of course circulators are under no legal obligation to answer any or all questions posed by strangers-am I right? I’m guessing any info given out will be skewed to fit whatever agenda NATL has up its sleeve.
We expect more challenges and dirt ball tactics. I expect it to get more personal too. It’s a shame as they have limitless dollars to spend and they can conceal who they are, including key people in the Republican Party of SD. What is true is that derailing us before next November is their only hope as South Dakota voters will vote them off the island.
Check this out, just over our border into Iowa: 82% of likely GOP Caucus-Attendees Oppose Payday and Title Lending:
http://debttrap.org/content/iowa-republican-caucus-goers-strongly-oppose-predatory-payday-loans
Oh, I look forward to their visit. Truly. There will be video, and I will have questions of my own. Lots of them.
…and Tove, I will be happy to publish any video you care to share.
Is that why you left the country, Mr. Hickey? Did the robber barons chase you out?
Allow me to reword that, sir. Were you harassed by the robber barons to the point that it became necessary to quit the legislatures and move your family overseas to stop them from bothering you? I did not mean to insinuate that the robber barons could chase you or in any way intimidate you, only that you left to alleviate the bothersome tactics they may have been haranguing you with.
My reason for making a shift was clearly stated. A need to slow way down due to health issues and a window of opportunity to pursue a degree that, Lord willing, will enable me to teach and write post-transplant. All that was in play long long before my nominating petitions were challenged and before the payday issues heated up.
I am still very involved in the ballot measure and still very much within reach of them and Marty Jackley.