Losing our initiative: state's wrongs.

• Author: Doherty, Brian
• Position: Political activists' conspiracy case on taxpayer's bill of rights initiative - Brief article

THREE POLITICAL activists face criminal charges for trying to put a taxpayer's bill of rights on a state ballot in 2005. Oklahoma, which prohibits out-of-state residents from collecting signatures to put an initiative on the ballot, has indicted Paul Jacob, Susan Johnson, and Rick Carpenter for conspiracy to defraud the state by helping organize outsiders to collect signatures.

The taxpayer's bill of rights was unpopular with a wide range of political forces in Oklahoma, from public employees' unions to big business. Jacob thinks the campaign's controversial nature caused an enforcement double standard. In a previous case involving a petition against cockfighting, an Oklahoma Supreme Court decision allowed signatures collected by people with no other proof of residency beyond affirming that they were residents and...