TAKING THE INITIATIVE, HIRING MERCENARIES

In contrast to the attorney search it was relatively easy to find a number of professional signature gathering companies, both national and local, such as National Petition Management and Progressive Campaigns to name just two.

These companies are only in it for the money. They couldn't care less about the issue for which they have been retained. They are effective, but can be expensive, depending on the competition for their services (which definitely heats up as filing deadlines approach).

Their special skill is tapping into a subculture of persons, many of whom live on the margins of the economic milieu in America, in states where the ballot initiative process exists. Many of the people they hire are literally "migrant workers," earning their entire livelihood traveling from place to place and gathering petition signatures. In fact, a really good signature gatherer can earn over $6,000 in one month in a big, last-minute, statewide campaign - tax free in most instances. Some signature-gathering companies will even pay transportation and housing costs to top notch people to work on initiatives in distant states.

In our search process we were (wisely) advised to go for at least 9,000 signatures to be sure we got enough valid signatures to make up for all the unregistered or otherwise unqualified persons who would inevitably sign our petition.

The best bid DCCC received from a professional sig-gathering company to acquire the number of signatures we needed was $21,000. This was a god deal more than I was prepared to personally finance. We needed another alternative.

Acting upon the suggestion of a DCCC Steering Committee member, I asked a couple local Detroit politicians to spread the word among their followers who might "need extra Christmas money," that the DCCC campaign was prepared to pay $1.00 per signature (the usual, non-primetime, retail, per-sig rate).

Within two days, the phone was ringing off the hook with people looking for work. Some folks showed up without appointments at the DCCC office (my business office).

Some of these applicants appeared to have serious substance abuse problems or were overly temperamental and possibly violent. These were politely sent away.

Any sincere, "normal" looking person, who had identification and a valid voter registration card (a legal requirement), was hired on the spot.

There were only two "work rules." In order to get paid, the gatherer had to bring in at least 100 signatures. And these signatures were subject to cursory "validity check" to weed out signatures of any who obviously did not live in Detroit, or appeared "suspicious" in some way.

In addition, I considered it my responsibility to make certain these folks were treated fairly. Specifically, due to both accounting and campaign finance reporting purposes, DCCC refused to make any cash payments. As a result, some gatherers got hassled trying to cash their checks, especially African-American males. This prompted me to go to the local bank branch manager where I had some accounts and explain: "This is my name on these checks, and if you want to keep my corporate and personal business, just cash the damned checks for whoever presents them - whether they have any identification or not!"

To make a long story short, DCCC gathered more than 9,000 signatures in less than three weeks - at a total cost of $1.00 per signature.

The result of our success in gathering so many signatures in such a short period of time, for what the mainstream media considered such a controversial issue, was electric.

Once the Detroit Free Press got wind of what we were up to, we decided to go public. All of us on the DCCC Steering Committee contacted by the media for comment got it right. Our performances for the newspapers, as well as the radio and TV cameras, were flawless.

In fact, as it turned out, this was the high-water mark for Detroit #1. It was downhill from there.

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