Comments on: Corbett aims to ban per-signature petition pay

By: George Antrobus

George Antrobus — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 19:22:58 +0000

Well, how do you like this: “It was certainly not set up to create a scam to line the pockets of signature gatherers.”

There you go Senator Corbett. Signature gatherers are “lining their pockets.” Why doesn’t Senator Corbett go out and gather a few signatures? See what it’s like to earn about $10 per hour with no benefits.

Of course, no problem if the Democrats want to get initiative measures on the ballot – they’ll just dip into the union political funds – paid for by ME, the taxpayer – and spend as much as they want.

This is another attack on direct democracy by a union operative. I’ll bet Senator Corbett never had to raise money for her campaigns. Being a Democrat, she just does what the union bosses tell her, and they give her as much money as she needs to buy another election.

Someday, when I get thrown out of my home (already paid for in full) because property taxes cost more than social security pays, I’ll think of Senator Corbett and all her privileged public sector retirees, whose pensions sucked the life out of our economy, turned it all over to Wall Street (in order to pretend the taxpayers didn’t actually pay for these pensions) to gamble, then jacked up taxes some more, so they could not only afford property taxes but mortgages and car payments and tuition on their obscene, grotesque, bloated, disgusting retirement pensions (and free premium health care). You never had to plan for retirement. None of you public “servants.” You actually think we private sector workers (whose taxes pay your obscene over-market compensation) “make more” – hence, these poor semi-destitute signature gatherers are “lining their pockets.” Do you have any idea how despicable you sound, Senator Corbett? Go buy another election with the money your union stole from the taxpayers.

California is an occupied state. The Unions own us and control us. And Corbett is just another one of their lousy puppets. Gee, I guess this all makes me a “hater,” doesn’t it? What stinking hypocrisy.

By: Josh Richman

Josh Richman — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 21:06:35 +0000

I e-mailed Sen. Corbett’s office this morning to see where they’d gotten the information to back up their contention that, “In 2006, Sacramento county election officials discovered that nearly 33 percent of signatures in a petition filed were fraudulent." Corbett spokeswoman Lynda Gledhill sent me back this Sacramento Bee article, and said a staffer had confirmed the circumstances with Sacramento County Assistant Registrar Alice Jarboe.

By: monica h

monica h — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 17:12:34 +0000

There are 2 points Senator Corbett continues to ignore:
1. paid signature gathering is a mutli million dollar industry in California, that employees thousands of people and generates much need tax dollars for the state of California.
2. The states with hourly rates for signature gatherers have seen an increase in forgeries because they all use signature quota based bonus programs. It also has caused the overall cost of qualifying an initaitive because the validity of signatures is lower.

The last point is I would like Sac County Elections to provide proof of the numbers of forgeries quoted in this article, because the SOS website, which reports county validity numbers and is public information, directly disproves this quote.

This is just another attempt to prevent direct democracy from causing elected officials from acctually having to do their jobs

By: John W

John W — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 04:45:53 +0000

Ralph Hoffman, you raise an excellent point. Nobody should be allowed to pay signature gatherers on a “per signature” basis. Anybody know whether the bill is drafted to cover everybody? We should write our Assembly and Senate representatives on that point.

By: ralph hoffmann

ralph hoffmann — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 00:42:58 +0000

What about Labor Union gatherers?