Oregon Anti-Union Activist Jailed

by Mike Hall, Dec 10, 2008

Anti-union activist Bill Sizemore, a three-time loser on Oregon ballot measures to silence working family voters, was jailed Dec. 1 for contempt of court in a case related to his failed 2000 paycheck deception ballot measure.

Don McIntosh, associate editor of the Northwest Labor Press reports:

It was his fourth contempt of court charge relating to an eight-year-old lawsuit by two teachers’ unions against Sizemore’s ballot measure operation. After a 2002 trial, a jury found that two Sizemore-run groups were guilty of a pattern of fraud and forgery in getting anti-union measures on the 2000 ballot. Sizemore was ordered to pay $2.5 millions in damages to the Oregon Education Association and the AFT/Oregon, which had spent money to fight the measures. And the judge issued a detailed injunction barring Sizemore personally from committing similar acts.

The most recent contempt charge stems from Sizemore’s creation of American Tax Research Foundation (ATRF) in 2006. ATRF, a sham charity incorporated in Nevada, was used to launder contributions that supported Sizemore and his family while he worked to get five initiatives on this year’s ballot.

“Mr. Sizemore is so blinded by his hatred of unions, who are plaintiffs in this case, that he seems to have concluded that he is not required to follow the law,” Judge Janice Wilson wrote in her ruling from the bench

According to court documents, ATRF collected more than $1.1 million beginning in 2006 but just $14,000 was used to support the groups’ started mission of researching and publishing “the fiscal impact of real and proposed ballot measures.” But through a $700,000 salary from ATRF and other expenses and personal purchases—a timeshare in Mexico, a car, home remodeling and more—Sizemore pocketed $856,000 while still owing the teachers’ unions most of the $2.5 million judgment.

In addition to jailing Sizemore—he was released the next day—McIntosh writes that Wilson also

ordered Sizemore to pay the unions’ additional attorney fees and costs, added the money raised through ATRF to the earlier jury award owed, and announced that the union plaintiffs will have broad power to subpoena records from Sizemore’s groups and two of his close associates.

Click here to read Wilson’s 46-page ruling. McIntosh notes the ruling

contains dozens of pages of lurid detail about Sizemore’s operation, plus a four-page appendix listing “examples of deceit by Mr. Sizemore.”

Sizemore’s most recent attack on working family voters was Measure 64 that voters defeated in November. His 1998 and 2000 paycheck deception ballot initiative also went down in defeat.

Paycheck deception initiatives take away the right of union members to use payroll deductions for political purposes, which is one of the best ways for union members to pool resources—bit by bit, through our unions. The funds are used to counter the big-money contributors who relentlessly write fat checks for corporate-backed candidates. In the 2004 election cycle, corporations outspent unions by a ratio of 23­­­-to-1.

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