The Oklahoma legislature is not in session until next year. On September 25, an Oklahoma Democratic legislator said he will introduce a bill next year to make it a crime for anyone to pay a petition circulator on a “per signature” basis. The legislator, Rep. Mike Shelton, represents the 97th district in Oklahoma City.
He said, “We can’t continue to incentivize lying to the public about the issues. When a signature collector gets paid according to the number of signatures he collects, what’s to stop him from misrepresenting the issue to the public to get them to sign his petition? These matters are too important to allow snake-oil salesmen to bend the facts and flat-out lie just to fatten their paychecks.”
The implication of Shelton’s remarks is that the ordinary citizen is so stupid and gullible that he or she will sign any petition without looking at it first. Current Oklahoma law requires the title of the Initiative (which is written by the Attorney General) to appear in large print. Many legislators, judges and political commentators believe in their hearts that ordinary people are too uninformed and unthoughtful to be trusted at the voting box. This is the real reason why democratic practices in the U.S. are not secure…many of the most influential and powerful in the U.S., in their hearts, don’t believe in popular control of government. Therefore, they are eroding popular control of government, little by little, with laws and practices that reduce the political power of ordinary people.
I fail to see how circulating a petition in a volunteer effort stops you from misrepresenting the candidate or issue.
If I know my candidate or initiative is likely to have low support or is something/someone the populace at large will react negatively to (think Nader in the 2004 election), I might be willing to use chicanery to get people to sign their names.
How about, “We can’t continue to incentivize lying to the public about the issues. When an elected official gets paid for holding public office, what’s to stop him from misrepresenting the issue to the public to get them to vote for him?”
I’m really getting sick & tired of these lying hypocrite politicians attacking the petition process. They can put whatever spin on these attacks that they want, but the truth is that they want to take power away from the people and further empower themselves.
To act like everyone who collects petition signatures is a liar is nothing short of being a lie. The average petitioner is more honest than the average politician. If anyone shouldn’t get paid, it is the politicians.
No pay for petitioners!
No pay for politicians!
Petitioners are paid through voluntary donations. Politicians are paid through taxes which are involuntary. If anyone shouldn’t be paid it is the politicians.