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TABOR opponent alleges criminal activity
By AP Wire Service
7/10/2006 1:37:00 PM


OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) -- An attorney for a group challenging the so-called taxpayer-bill-of-rights initiative petition said Monday it should be thrown out because of "criminal activity" by circulators he likened to the Watergate scandal in the 1970s.

"What we've got here in Oklahoma is TABORgate," charged Kent Meyers in closing arguments before Gregory Albert, Oklahoma Supreme Court referee.

Meyers said that just as in Watergate, the scandal that brought down President Richard Nixon, TABOR officials engaged in "fraud, corruption and chicanery" by bringing in scores of out-of-state petition circulators to get signatures in the final weeks of the campaign.

He said framers of the Oklahoma Constitution required that only "a bona fide resident" could circulate petitions and instructed lawmakers to write laws to protect voters from corruption of the process.

If the petition is allowed to survive the lawsuit challenge, Meyers said, "we have ripped those sections right out of the Constitution and out of the statutes."

He cited testimony that one petition worker was an illegal immigrant, among 80 nonresident circulators who "smashed into Oklahoma and in the process ran over our laws."

Meyers and others represent a group of leading Oklahoma businessmen who are challenging more than 146,000 signatures on the petition. Most of the signature challenges argue signers of the petition are not registered voters.

The TABOR petition would limit the growth of government to a combination of the inflation rate and growth in population.

Kieran D. Maye Jr. , attorney for Oklahomans for Action, petition sponsors, said the challengers arguments can't stand based upon a Supreme Court decision that allowed a cockfighting petition to go to the statewide ballot.

Maye said opponents had failed to pass the Supreme Court's test that "clear and convincing" evidence was needed to remove signatures from initiative petition.

Sponsors of the petition garnered more than 299,000 signatures, about 80,000 more than would be needed to send the issue to the ballot box.

"We ask, in conclusion, your honor, to let the people vote," Maye said.

Albert took the case under advisement and will present a report containing his recommendations to the Supreme Court, which will make the final decision.