Payday Lenders Hail Mary Petition Drive

I've had a few people ask me about the petition drive to get a referendum repealing the payday lending bill (HB545) onto the ballot. My reply has been that there's little chance of them making the ballot, and if they do, even less chance of them winning in November. Interestingly, though, one of my key arguments is a whole lot shakier than I had realized.

The first hurdle is to actually get the petition drive started. In order to do that, they have to get language that provides a summary description of the initiative. It appears that they might have some problems there.

Assuming that they get this resolved by tomorrow (?!?), they will have to collect 241,365 signatures from registered voters in 44 of Ohio's 88 counties. That's a lot of signatures in a short period of time. In my conversations with interested citizens, I've compared this situation to that of the infamous "stripper bill" from last year. In both cases regulations were created to limit the activities of industries with low social standing (adult entertainment, payday loans). In both cases, private industry groups attempted to get the regulations repealed by going to the ballot. For the stripper bill, this involved hiring a slew of petition gatherers, and pressing them hard to get signatures in a hurry. The end result was a petition drive in which the invalid signatures outnumbered the valid signatures more than 2-1. This happened for an attempted repeal of a bill that wasn't even very popular with many folks on the right or the left. The Community Financial Services Association, on the other hand, is looking at trying to drum up support against a bill that was popular both with progressives and social conservatives. A substantial portion of the base of supporters for their position are people who use their financial products, a demographic that, unfortunately for tham, is much less likely to have/provide the valid registration data required for the petition.

Hopeless, right? Perhaps, and my money is still on missing the ballot, but there's an intriguing counter to that argument above. In the wake of failures such as the stripper bill repeal and the GIRFOF education amendment, a brand spanking new petition-gathering firm was created last January. They promise state-of-the-art collection techniques, real-time registration validation, and experience in collecting more than a million signatures in less than three months during 2006.

The Ohio Petition Company, however, has never conducted a petition drive of this magnitude. I can't find evidence that the company (as opposed to its founders in their pre-OPC days) have conducted a petition drive of any type at any time. They don't appear to have field tested this state-of-the-art approach at all. I contacted them by email last Friday for this post, but despite their website's promise of a 24-48 hour response time on emails, I haven't heard back from them.

The biggest political story to come out of this petition drive may not be the ballot measure (I can't imagine it will get within 10% of passage if it does make the ballot), but the success or failure of OPC's methodology. If they can get 241K valid signatures in six weeks for a dog like this initiative, the bar for ballot access in Ohio will be functionally lowered by a staggering amount. Expect a landslide of ballot access drives conducted by OPC and copycats in 2008. On the other hand, a spectacular failure using this methodology may send a very different signal about the cost/benefit ratio of attempts to spend one's way onto the ballot.

Opinions are Like Something or Other that Everyone's Got One Of

Pure Halletry, that type of blogging which primarily concerns itself with commenting on stuff found in traditional media sources, along with meta-Halletry, that being blogging about people commenting about stuff they read in print media:

1. It is harmful if the word “plagiarism” follows him through life, Griffith said.

   “In this day and age, a charge like this, it hangs around,” he said. “The point of the lawsuit is to set the record straight. This is not about money.”

   ...Umm, Mr. Acosta, you don't get to be valedictorian by being an idiot, so you should weigh the opinion of your lawyer against another, albeit unsolicited opinion, that "repentant plagiarist" is a much better label to have follow you than "lying, whiny, unrepentant, and frivolously litigious plagiarist," which is pretty likely to attach itself at this point regardless of the outcome of your suit.

2. 'Due process of law for terrorists is an irrational concept, adoption of which would do nothing more than reinforce the worldwide perception that the U.S. is weak, irresolute, and ready and willing to permit the slaughter of its citizens to promote a nebulous image of "fairness". '

   Add William J. Davidek to the list of terrorists who should be attacked by vigilantes for his plans to kill your children.

   
   

3. From the same batch of 'web-only' letters comes this gem:
   

   I can't help regarding Mr Obama as the "affirmative action" candidate, and I'm not speaking of the exceptional educational opportunities afforded him, but rather the way he was selected by the media, MoveOn.org and others from the American Left to head their movement.

   Clearly there are many more qualified Dems, including Hillary, to lead the Executive branch of our government, but the thought of a "clean, articulate...African-American".... [Joe Biden] was just too hard to resist. The result is a candidate with zero national security experience, who doesn't know what he doesn't know...affirmative action at its' worse.

   Anyone who has worked for a major US corporation has seen the result of an early promotion to meet a racial quota, and it isn't fair to either the "promoted" or to those that must suffer the consequences....but Obama's early promotion promises much more serious long term impacts.

   It's actually a disservice to y'all if I highlight just some of the ignorance here at the expense of shifting attention away from the rest, so I'll let you chew on it yourself. As for me, I have to admit that I'm glad that our history of only nominating women for president has come to an end now that we've found a minimally qualified man to fill our nominee gender quota.

4. "What H of the 4-H has anything to do with beer?" Nelson said. "You have city kids coming to the fair to see a hog and they will see people bellowing at a beer garden instead. What's next? Mud wrestling?"

   I must admit, I was a bit puzzled by this comment regarding the Union County Fair, as I have certainly consumed my fair share of beer, but I have never been any closer to mud-wrestling than seeing it portrayed in those 1980's comedies that show up on weekend-afternoon basic cable. Then I realized that I wasn't connecting the dots correctly. Sheriff Nelson meant: City Kids + Beer + Hogs = Drunk City Kids Wrestling Hogs in Mud, While Onlookers Shake Fists and Bellow at Beer Garden. What's a shame is that were I to for some reason attend the Union County Fair, I'd probably be in the beer tent, missing out on all the entertainment.

5. "The president, Congress, no one can touch it. The Federal Reserve is not federal at all; it's owned by private stockholders. There is no reserve because it was intended to create money instead of holding gold in reserve. Those federal notes in your pocket are redeemable in nothing."

   Mr. John D. Harmer of Columbus, Ohio raises an interesting point, one I'm sure these gentlemen flying the black helicopters around Columbus would love to discuss with him. We would love for him to help us shed some light on the subject.

Just another shopping day in the marketplace of ideas.

Money, Mouth. Mouth, Money. Fundraising in OH-12.

David Robinson's campaign has set a goal of reaching $100,000 in campaign contributions by the end of this month. I'd like to help him in that goal.

Right about now, regular readers are primed for the ActBlue link pitch, and by all means, the easiest way you can effect change in the 12th District's representation is to click through and contribute there.

On the other hand, there's something a bit impersonal about the internet. So, on Sunday June 29, I'll be hosting a party where you can meet me in person. More importantly, where you can meet David Robinson in person. He'll talk, you'll offer to help his campaign. Don't believe me? Prove me wrong.

The party will be from 5-7pm at my house in South Bexley. If you're at all interested in attending, drop me a line at BlueBexley@gmail.com, and I'll give you more details. That's Comfest weekend, so some of you out-of-towners could make a day of it. This is the first time I've ever done something like this, so it should be interesting...

Lynx

I'm a word-play nerd. This is never more evident than when I reference a nerdy word-play joke, and it turns out nobody else gets it. From The Pointer Sisters' "Neutron Dance" (the lyrics of the song are all about not having the money to do anything but the Neutron Dance, and the one key fact about Neutrons is that they have no charge), to the old school Unix browser "Lynx," which was named such not so much for the wild feline, but because you could, for the first time, utilize hypertext and its defining feature... Links.

1. The Correct 'Blogging in Tongues' Link
2. The Columbus Peace Resolution
3. The New OSU Research Blog (some of y'all might find this particular entry interesting...)
4. Free Obama '08 Stickers
5. Delaware County Axe Grinding

Zelfs was Oud New York eens Nieuw Amsterdam

Als u dit in het Nederlands leest, dan moet ik waarschijnlijk niet u van om het even wat overtuigen. Als u dit in het Engels leest, dan veronderstel ik u de pagina met veel grote argumenten tegen HB477 hebt gevonden. Ik ga niet toe te voegen veel hebben, maar ik zal een paar commentaren maken: HB477 eist dat de overheden in Ohio slechts Engels wanneer mogelijk, gebruiken en de kosten van gebruikende een andere taal melden wanneer het noodzakelijk is dit te doen. Het belemmert ook het vereisen van tweetaligheid als voorwaarde van openbare werkgelegenheid tenzij het met de baanbeschrijving direct verwant is. Veronderstel zo nu als uw jonge geitjes in het branden bouwend waren en verzender 911 weigerde om de vraag te nemen meldend de brand omdat de bezoeker didn' t spreekt het Engels, en het Engels was de enige taal om het even welke verzenders konden spreken…

Dit zou nooit kunnen gebeuren, omdat de wet overheden een uitzondering voor het bevorderen van openbaar welzijn of het beschermen van openbare veiligheid verleent. Natuurlijk, kan ik niet aan één enkel geval van een overheid denken gebruikend veelvoudige talen die niet voor het uitdrukkelijke doel om openbaar welzijn of veiligheid te bevorderen is. Zo, zou deze wet slechts als grote middelvinger aan de generaties kunnen bestaan die na uw voorvaderen zijn gekomen. Natuurlijk, zij won' t wordt noodzakelijk het bericht. Veronderstel als alles geschreven over HB477 in het Nederlands werd geschreven?
De Nederlandse kolonisten waren hier zodra de Engelse kolonisten. Het Nederlands zou een fijne voertaal maken. Niet zo goed zoals Navajo, Lakota, of Ojibwe, misschien, maar een fijne kandidaat niettemin. U kunt het argument dat maken het doesn' t de kwestie die de taal eerst kwam, wat van belang is is dat de Amerikaanse maatschappij op het Engels als primaire wijze van mededeling heeft geregeld. U zou juist zijn. En het gebeurde omdat de mensen verkozen om het Engels te leren toen zij konden, en hun kinderen leerden het als vanzelfsprekendheid. Wegens geen wet.