The group working to qualify an initiative to the 2016 Washington State Legislature that would levy a tax on polluters and use the revenue to reduce other taxes is relying on the signature gathering services of a company run by a man previously convicted of forgery who has also done work for disgraced initiative promoter Tim Eyman, the Northwest Progressive Institute has learned.
Reports filed by CarbonWA, the name of the group, show that it hired Your Choice Petitions, LLC to gather signatures for Initiative 732 beginning this past summer.
Your Choice Petitions LLC has two governing persons: Douglas Campbell and Brent T. Johnson. YCP’s address of record is coincidentally the same address that Brent Johnson is registered to vote at. According to the state’s voter registration database, he joined the rolls on July 6th, 2015, and records also show he subsequently participated in the August 2015 Top Two election.
Here is a table showing CarbonWA’s first set of payments to Your Choice Petitions LLC, as reported to the Public Disclosure Commission:
YOUR CHOICE PETITIONS LLC | 2015-08-03 | 62,500 | PAID SIGNATURES |
YOUR CHOICE PETITIONS LLC | 2015-07-03 | 25,000 | PAID SIGNATURES |
YOUR CHOICE PETITIONS LLC | 2015-08-06 | 6,759.20 | PAID SIGNATURES |
YOUR CHOICE PETITIONS LLC | 2015-08-17 | 6,725.20 | PAID SIGNATURES |
YOUR CHOICE PETITIONS LLC | 2015-08-28 | 6,361.40 | PAID SIGNATURES |
YOUR CHOICE PETITIONS LLC | 2015-07-17 | 6,182.05 | PAID SIGNATURES |
YOUR CHOICE PETITIONS LLC | 2015-07-28 | 6,170.15 | PAID SIGNATURES |
YOUR CHOICE PETITIONS LLC | 2015-08-21 | 5,242.80 | PAID SIGNATURES |
YOUR CHOICE PETITIONS LLC | 2015-07-28 | 4,682.65 | PAID SIGNATURES |
YOUR CHOICE PETITIONS LLC | 2015-07-13 | 3,455.25 | PAID SIGNATURES |
Johnson is an associate of Roy Ruffino and Eddie Agazarm, whose shady “Citizen Solutions” company provides the labor to qualify Tim Eyman’s destructive initiatives, including Eyman’s latest, Initiative 1366. Johnson was a subcontractor for Citizen Solutions on its signature drive, which wrapped up a few weeks ago.
I‑1366, which NPI is currently working to defeat, is Eyman’s response to the invalidation of his I‑601 clones… measures that unconstitutionally required a two-thirds vote to raise revenue. I‑1366 would slash funding for schools in Washington State if the Legislature doesn’t bow down to Tim Eyman’s demand to submit a constitutional amendment reinstating the two-thirds scheme.
Like other firms in the signature gathering industry that think the law simply doesn’t apply to them, Your Choice Petitions, LLC presently doesn’t have a worker’s comp account with the Department of Labor & Industries like it should.
More alarmingly, as mentioned, Johnson has a criminal history.
He was arrested in July of 2005 on charges of forgery, arraigned the following month, and offered an Alford plea in September of 2005.
A convicted forger seems like the very last sort of person who should be entrusted with overseeing a signature drive for a statewide initiative.
Yet, that’s who CarbonWA has turned to in order to qualify I‑732.
Whether or not they vetted Johnson, they exercised extremely poor judgment by entering into a business relationship with him. Their unwise decision doesn’t bode well for either the future of their initiative or their organization.