Howie Rich

Howie Rich's 2006 effort to put his three-headed monster-Taxpayers Bill of Rights (TABOR), pay-or-waive schemes, and judicial attacks-on the ballot was anything but pretty. In fact, the drive to manipulate state laws resulted in unprecedented rule-breaking, lawsuits, fraud, and even violence. As a result, Rich's pet issues were kicked off the ballot in six states-Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, Ohio and Oklahoma.

Rich began 2006 with nine filed TABOR measures, seven regulatory takings and two anti-judges initiatives. Only eight of these made it to the ballot in November and only one (Arizona takings) passed. At the end of the day, Rich spent over $15 million dollars to pass a single initiative. Soon after the election, this President/Secretary, Treasurer and Senior Fellow at Americans for Limited Government left the organization to create a new Libertarian front group, the Sam Adams Alliance.

Rich prefers to operate in the shadows, and has refused to talk to the media, despite hundreds of requests, but here's what BISC has uncovered:

• Howie Rich is a real estate investor and mega millionaire from New York City
• He either directs, or is part of the leadership of every shell group that has pushed a set of extreme ballot measure in 2006
• We know he has deep ties to other secretive organizations that prefer to operate outside of the public eye
• And we know he has a long history of supporting radical libertarian causes with a handful of like-minded cronies

• 2006. NVO was hired by the Stop Over Spending campaign (a Taxpayers Bill of Rights (TABOR) initiative) in Michigan to circulate their petitions. NVO petitioners committed such ramped fraud that NVO owner, Susan Johnson, was forced to notify the police about her circulators. In the end so many signatures were thrown out because they were fraudulent or duplicates that the proponents didn't have enough to qualify. ("Company Blows Whistle on Fraudulent Petition Signatures," Contra Costa Times, May 30, 2006)

• 2006. The Howie Rich-funded campaign to put TASC (a TABOR initiative) on the Nevada ballot, hired Arno to circulate its petitions. The circulation of TASC in Nevada led to an affidavit from a circulator who stated that he and approximately 100 others attended a "fraud party" over Memorial Day Weekend where they were taught how to copy signatures onto their petitions and ways to avoid detection. Other cases of signature fraud were exposed by the group opposing TASC including: cases where the same person signed more than once, where multiple names were in identical handwriting, where signers' addresses didn't match their names or where petitions weren't properly notarized. ("TASC Opponents Seek Investigation," Las Vegas Review Journal, August 23, 2006)

• 2006. NVO was hired by Oklahomans in Action to put a TABOR initiative on the ballot. In July of 2006, Oklahoma's Supreme Court threw out the TABOR initiative because it was found out that more than 60 circulators were not Oklahoma residents and had used false Oklahoma addresses, which is against the law in Oklahoma. ("Petition Drive Compared to Watergate," The Oklahoman, July, 10 2006.)

• 2006. The Howie Rich-funded campaign to put TABOR on the Oregon ballot hired Arno to circulate its petitions. It was uncovered that Arno paid homeless people to gather signatures for the TABOR initiative, and paid by the signature, which is against Oregon state laws. Don McIntire, the head of the Taxpayer Association of Oregon and a chief petitioner on the TABOR initiative, said his campaign wasn't liable for the way its signatures were gathered and claimed that he made Arno sign an agreement that it wouldn't pay per signature. As a result of the scandal, Arno declared they will not be back in Oregon on account of the ban on pay per signature. ("The Price of Democracy," Portland Mercury, July 13, 2006)

Fraud Wire