Petition fraud a menace, activist testifies

PORTLAND — The man who collected most of the initiative petitions for tax activist Bill Sizemore before the 2000 election testified yesterday that forgery is "a constant menace" when paying for signatures.

Saul Klein operated Klein Campaigns and NFP to collect signatures on initiative petitions for Sizemore, who has led several successful campaigns to limit taxes in the past decade.

Sizemore, the founder of Oregon Taxpayers United, is being sued by the two largest teachers unions in the state, the Oregon Education Association and the state chapter of the American Federation of Teachers.

They say Sizemore failed to keep finances separate for a nonprofit, tax-exempt education foundation and a political-action committee that organized initiative drives. They also say many of the petitions contained forged signatures.

In videotaped testimony last December, Klein admitted that more than 1,000 petitions containing forgeries had escaped his detection before he delivered them to Sizemore before the 2000 election.

"A bit of confidence was lost on my part," Klein said.

But Klein said the standard for obtaining valid signatures in the paid-petition industry is considered to be only about 70 to 75 percent.

Klein also said Sizemore gave him a bonus for delivering petitions with more than 80 percent valid signatures, amounting to between $18,000 and $25,000 for the 2000 election.

Attorneys for the unions and Sizemore were unable to locate Klein to appear in court, so Multnomah County Circuit Judge Jerome LaBarre allowed the unions to play a videotaped deposition taken Dec. 10, 2001.

Klein appears confused and evasive throughout the videotape, unable to provide detailed answers and often correcting himself after apparent contradictions.

He said he did not know why he stopped doing business as Klein Campaigns and switched to NFP midway through the Sizemore initiative campaign before the 2000 election, and he said he did not know what the letters "NFP" represented.

But he did confirm he was the sole owner of both businesses, and the sole employee, who contracted petition gatherers. Those contractors, in turn, subcontracted with others, and some people even approached him with unsolicited signed petitions, Klein said.

He claimed to have routinely inspected petitions for forgeries, but Greg Hartman, an attorney for the unions, determined during the deposition that it was Sizemore who alerted him to actual forgeries given to Oregon Taxpayers United.

"They went through your initial review?" Hartman asked in the videotape.

"It was a very time-consuming process," Klein said.

"Any additional fraud on those petition sheets?" Hartman asked.

"Yes," Klein said.

"It had gotten by you the first time, then?"

"Yes," Klein said.

Klein said that Becky Miller, Kelli Highley and Leesa Baudoin, all former Sizemore employees, repeatedly returned questionable petitions to him.

Highley pleaded guilty in February 2001 to forgery, making false statements and perjury for her role in handling petitions.