Petition backers
won’t give up
without a fight

By JOHN FORTMEYER
CNNW publisher
   One way or another, Oregonians will get to vote next November on overturning the state’s new gay rights law, vow the people behind the recent petition effort to make that happen.
   While state officials insist that the petition drive very narrowly failed, the campaign sponsors are now pursuing a two-pronged strategy in response:
  • A legal battle to have enough signatures declared valid that at least one of the two petitions will instead have succeeded. Coming to the campaign sponsors’ aid is the Alliance Defense Fund, an Arizona-based Christian legal defense organization that announced last month it is seriously considering filing lawsuits in multiple courts.
  • If that fails, preparing for a new signature campaign in early 2008 that would require 82,000 valid signatures by next July.
  “There will be a vote on these bills!” wrote David Crowe of Concerned Oregonians in an e-mail to supporters of the recent petition effort after its narrow failure was announced. “And it is about the good people of Oregon politely — but firmly — pushing back, saying ‘No, this is not right.’ The people of Oregon have a right to vote on these issues these bills address ... And we will!”
   State officials last month announced that by a slim margin — only 116 signatures short of the required 55,179 valid signatures — the petition drive to place House Bill 2007 on the ballot failed. That bill created legal domestic partnerships, giving state benefits of marriage to same-sex couples.
   Also narrowly failing, according to state officials, but by a slightly larger margin, was the petition to place Senate Bill 2 on the ballot. It fell 1,304 signatures short of the 55,179 mark. That bill bans discrimination based on sexual orientation in housing, work and public places such as restaurants.
   Both new laws take effect Jan. 1.

 The recent signature campaign secured a total of 63,000 signatures. Most visible in the effort were two groups — Concerned Oregonians, represented by Crowe, and Defense of Marriage and Family Again, with former state Rep. Marylin Shannon of Brooks as spokesperson.
    During phone interviews in late October with both KXL radio talk host Lars Larson and KPAM talk host Victoria Taft, Alliance Defense Fund attorney Austin Nimocks alleged that county clerks in from three to eight Oregon counties were deliberately refusing to review their offices’ signature validation work. He said the process was often subjectively and arbitrarily applied by state and county officials.
   ‘They’ve been brought clear evidence of mistakes and errors, but the clerks are refusing to review,” Nimocks told Taft.
    Nimocks told Larson that he and another Alliance Defense Fund lawyer have personally seen many signatures that easily should have been declared valid, but weren’t. He said some people who signed the petitions are coming in person to clerks’ offices to affirm that questionable signatures are indeed theirs.
   “I’ve seen the signatures with my own two eyes, and I can tell you it is actually inexplicable on why some of these are being excluded,” he said. “People are going right to the clerks and looking them right in the eye and saying ‘I want my signature to count,’ and the clerks are saying no ... It’s an absolute tragedy.”
    Nimocks specifically mentioned Washington, Jackson and Marion as counties where a disproportionately high portion of signatures are being thrown out.
    According to Taft, John Lindback, state director of elections, has countered that state law does not allow verbal statements and affidavits from alleged signers to prompt a review of petitions.
    But Nimocks disagrees. “There is nothing in the (state) constitution that says you can’t review signatures,” he said.
    If the counties’ clerks continue to refuse to review their work, Alliance Defense Fund is prepared to file lawsuits in multiple counties, Nimocks said.
“If that’s what we have to do, that’s what we’re going to do,” he told Taft.
    But Basic Rights Oregon, which campaigned for the new gay rights law, is also retaining legal counsel and monitoring the situation, according to its website. The group decried what it termed “bullying” by the gay rights opponents.
    Gov. Ted Kulongoski, who had championed passage of the bills earlier this year, hailed the reported failure of the recent petition efforts.
   “... We can move forward together in implementing (the new laws) and create an Oregon where every family can realize its hopes and dreams and every worker can be free from discrimination,” he said in a prepared statement Oct. 12.
    Not so fast, is Crowe’s response. “Oregonians now realize what these bills are about and what the governor and Legislature have done, and they are even more eager to sign petitions that will eventuate in the rejection of both laws,” wrote Crowe.