Sizemore WON
For the most part
Remember we told you here that we thought that Sizemore was on the verge of winning his court case upon appeal?
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Oct. 5, 2006
Sizemore Says “We won! Unions lost!”
Bill Sizemore, executive director of Oregon Taxpayers United, said today that he was appalled at the spin the teachers unions placed on the Oregon Court of Appeals decision handed down yesterday in the case of the OEA and AFT vs. Oregon Taxpayers United.
“It is unbelievable that the unions are claiming victory,” Sizemore said. Sizemore explained that one of the three judges on the panel concluded that there was no legal basis for the lawsuit against either Oregon Taxpayers United PAC or the Oregon Taxpayers United Education Foundation. The other two judges said there was no legal basis for the lawsuit against the PAC, but allowed the judgment to stand against the foundation.
The court also removed the restrictions on Sizemore’s political activities, which was the one thing the unions wanted most.
Here’s what the decision means:
1. Oregon Taxpayers United PAC no longer owes the teachers union any money and can continue to raise money and put measures on the ballot.
2. The judgment against Bill Sizemore personally will be vacated, because he was only held liable for the judgment against the PAC, not the foundation. Now that the judgment against the PAC has been overturned, Sizemore doesn’t owe the unions anything.
3. The OEA and AFT will be required to refund to Sizemore approximately $17,000 they seized when he sold a house last year.
4. The unions still have a $4 million judgment against the Oregon Taxpayers United Education Foundation, which has been defunct for more than three years.
“How the unions can claim this a victory for them is beyond me,” Sizemore said. Sizemore added that he expects the unions to sue him again personally. “Last year, the unions offered to forget the $4 million judgment they have against me, if I would drop my appeal and agree to stay out of politics for fifteen years,” Sizemore said. “That makes it pretty clear what they were really after. All they want is to get their political enemy out of politics. I expect they will sue me again to try to regain that leverage,” he said.
Sizemore said the appeals court erred when they left in place the judgment against the foundation. In June of this year, in a case with similar issues as this case, the U.S. Supreme Court made it clear that this kind of lawsuit is an abuse of RICO laws and should not be allowed. “We may appeal this decision further up the ladder and get the entire judgment overturned. Right now, I just want to celebrate the fact that I don’t owe the teachers union any money, but instead they owe me,” Sizemore said.
Sizemore said the sad thing about this entire case is the way he was railroaded in Multnomah County Circuit Court. The first thing the union attorneys did was kick all of the Republicans out of the jury pool, leaving a jury of 14 Democrats and one Green Party member. Then the judge, Judge Jerome LaBarre, concealed for the three years that he presided over the case the fact that his son is a member and activist in the same union that was suing OTU in LaBarre’s court. The judge’s son is now a teachers union president.
“For three years, Judge Jerome LaBarre concealed from everyone the fact that he had a conflict of interest that should have led him to recuse himself from the case,” Sizemore said. “Bottom line is we were railroaded by a judge that was less than forthright in his handling of a case that should never even have gone to trial,” he added.
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16 comments:
Hooray for the winning side!!!
Yay TPU!!!!
Booooo...hisssss to the Unions.
None of that changes the fact that Sizemore ran a lawbreaking operation, that he violated federal tax law, and that he has a lengthy history of manipulating wealthy people through one scheme or another into turning money over to him that always ends up enriching himself and leaving him unable to repay them. Whether there was standing on the part of the unions to bring a RICO claim or whether he ever has to pay them a dime does not undo the fact that he is crooked, and that lawsuit revealed it. Don't be so stupid to think that a technical ruling erases the activity that he engaged in.
Anon1020,
Funny, it was a technical ruling that allow Washington Governor Christine Gregiore (D) to steal the Washington election. Even though it was perfectly clear that illegal votes were cast.
Funny Term Limits was thrown out on a technicality.
Funny, technically the unions have a history of breaking the law and political intimidation.
Funny how that works.
Thanks for posting this. I got it wrong on my blog--took the newspapers at face value. Oops! I'll have to get that fixed later today.
i hope it's true. it should be. the government employee unions are powerful enough without being able to use their muscle to control the courts too.
From an individual liberty perspective, and the disaster represented by the majority opinion. (My comment grew to more than 1700 words, so I'll just point instead.)
--pdxnag
Sizemore wrote:
Sizemore explained that one of the three judges on the panel concluded that there was no legal basis for the lawsuit against either Oregon Taxpayers United PAC or the Oregon Taxpayers United Education Foundation. The other two judges said there was no legal basis for the lawsuit against the PAC, but allowed the judgment to stand against the foundation.
No one but Sizemore could point out that having a minority agree with him (1 of 3 judges) is a victory. Did Kevin Mannix claim victory in the Republican primary because some people voted for him? Hell no.
The judgement stands against the foundation. The judgement stands against Sizemore's actions.
Another such "victory" and I am undone.
Bill Sizemore
um, actually, the decision that there was no legal basis on the PAC part of the case was unanimous. the foundation's on the hook, i guess, but since there's no money in it, and never will be, and since sizemore is personally severed from liability with regard to the foundation, looks like there won't be any payments made to the OEA. if sizemore can return to full-scale political activity and the union gets no money, i don't see how this judgment is anything but a win for sizemore.
All three judges agreed that there was no legal basis for the lawsuit, but two let the judgement stand.
How does this make sense? If there is no legal basis for legal action, how can the judgement stand?
"Well, sir, you weren't speeding. My radar never showed you doing more than 35 mph. However, I am going to write you a ticket for 55 in a 35."
Well, okay, this is Oregon, and up is really down, black is really white, right is really wrong, sweet is really sour, and smart just doesn't seem to exist at all.
I think it says a lot about Sizemore that he feels he won when the ruling sharply scolded him for breaking the law but he's things have worked out so that he won't have to pay out the money. You'd think he would rather be cleared of wrongdoing. But no -he wins because he can escape the $4 million debt. And you guys apparently will accept that as an exoneration. Wow.
"""the government employee unions are powerful enough without being able to use their muscle to control the courts too"""
They sure control the newspapers
As a gamesman, I can predict the proximate outcome of this ruling: Sizemore will again start churning out crap initiatives, with poor or non-existant legal research, and the only one smiling (all the way to the bank) will be Sizemore, who does this for a living.
Consider the turncoat measure 42. Sizemore is now, and always has been, for sale to the highest bidder. Mostly, that bidder was the shadowy pervert Loren Parks, but Sizemore will take anyone's moolah and serve us up another piece of initative trash.
It makes no difference where the politics of those initiatives lie, Sizemore has seized Oregon's initiave system as a tool to boost his ego and fatten his wallet, nothing more.
I worked for OTU and on Bill's race for governor.
Bill's attorney called 3 former employees, that worked with Becky Miller, Bill's accuser, to testify at the trial. We were not cross examined by the union attorney's nor were we interviewed by any reporters and asked about our version of events. Our story of what really went on at Oregon Taxpayers United didn't fit with how they wanted Bill portrayed and or what really happened. By letting us tell some of what we knew, as Greg Byrne, Bill's attorney, questioned us, and with union attroneys not even acknowledging our prescence or asking us one singl question, we were but a small blip in the hours and hours of time spent on this case.
We testified that we were not aware of any wrongdoing by Bill, but, rather, that we all had had trouble with Becky Miller. Becky was confronted many times by staff about things she had done that were unethical and in violation of the law. She did the books and filed all the reports and Bill was, for the most part, unaware of all she was doing. He trusted her and saw her as someone with a lot of ability and promise.
Those of us that worked with Becky saw things differently and warned Bill and even suggested he fire her. Bill was so wrapped up in the measures and talking to people that he paid little attention to the financial details and what he, I think at the time, considered office politics. We all believed that Becky agreed to testify against Bill because she was threatened with possible jail time, along with Bill, by union attorneys and the fact that Bill had denied Becky a raise in pay.
Contrary to the way Bill is often portrayed, he is not in this for the money. He truly sees wrongs in the system that he wants to change, and he wants others to see the strategy of the left and how they have, and continue to, cleverly and sneakily elected liberal candidates and fund a their liberal agenda.
Bill does not have a lot of money and we struggled to make payroll. Look at the state records. The unions spent millions of dollars to defeat Bill's measures while Oregon Taxpayers United and the OTEF spent, and raised, a total amount in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Bill took a modest amount as a salary for the head of an organization and he lives modestly with his large family.
There are always at least two sides to every story. The trouble is most Oregonians have heard only one side.
Since someone at Loaded Orygun was good enough to make a big point of this last post by "Anonymous" I felt I might as well respond to it.
It would probably help if I had linked to the right site.
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