The Sentinel: Shower-Nuts Lied To People

I'm glad to see this story. I have wondered if there wasn't any law regulating what you can tell people when you get them to sign a petition.

Unfortunately for us, The Sentinel is behind a paywall. Here's the story.

Petition Faces Big Road Blocks

A top attorney with Montgomery County said that some if not all of the signatures gathered by Citizens for a Responsible Government for a petition may be invalid if it is born out that petitioners were misrepresenting the contents of the petition to potential signers.

Citizens as diverse as members of the media, church goers, county council members and their staffers have reported that the CRG, a group responsible for a petition drive to try and get a referendum vote on County Council bill 23-07, which protects transgender individuals from being discriminated against in employment, housing and public accommodations, have been misrepresenting the content of the bill and their petition for several weeks.

True, that. We heard them say all kinds of stuff. They said, This law will require men and women to use the same bathroom. They said it would enable pedophiles and predators to come into ladies rooms. We saw one guy with a sign that said, "Protect our children," though the law has nothing whatsoever to do with children.

Hey, we know of at least one person who signed it because it said "Just the Facts" on it, and they thought it was "Teach the Facts." They asked the petition-pusher, is this Teach the Facts, and were told yes, it was. Another person said they almost signed it, thinking it was us, but caught themselves at the last minute.

The Council passed the bill unanimously in November. CRG claims that the bill grants special rights to transgender people and provides easy access for pedophiles and adult men to women's bathrooms and locker rooms.

When asked if verbally misrepresenting a petition while gathering signatures can invalidate the petition, the attorney, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said, "It could." He also confirmed that he has heard about several people familiar with the bill being misinformed about its content by signature gatherers.

The County Board of Elections is currently evaluating the more than 30,000 signatures gathered by the group. Twenty-five thousand valid signatures are needed to get a question on the ballot in November asking about repealing the bill.

During CRG's push to collect signatures, several people familiar with the legislation said many of the petitioners were inaccurate about what the bill allows. Council President Mike Knapp said he got into an argument with one CRG member gathering signatures at a polling place on Maryland's presidential primary last Tuesday.

"I asked them if they knew what they were promoting," Knapp said.

"They were misinformed in what they were telling people."

Knapp said when he explained that the legislation doesn't say anything about bathrooms or locker rooms to the petitioner, they replied, "I think you're wrong." They asked Knapp how he knew, and Knapp said, "Well, I voted for the bill."

Asked how the petitioner was misrepresenting the legislation, Knapp said, "They were asking, do you want your kids sharing bathrooms with adults of the opposite sex?" Knapp added, "To their credit, the person that was there didn't know a lot about it [the bill]."

Dr. Dana Beyer, Senior Policy Analyst to Council Member Duchy Trachtenberg said she also confronted some signature gatherers last weekend outside of area grocery stores.

By law, every page of the petition must have a summary of the bill printed on it. The summary must be approved by the Board of Elections attorney when the final petition is turned in. A full copy of the bill must also be present at each petitioning site. Board of Election attorney Kevin Karpinski said that it is very rare that someone gathering signatures misrepresents legislation because the summary is right there.

"If there was a misunderstanding, it was on the part of the individual signing the petition," CRG spokeswoman Michelle Turner said.

I am interrupting this narrative to make you think twice about that last line. Do you remember when P.T. Barnum had a sign at the circus that said "Egress" and pointed to a door? Customers who had never seen an "egress" before went through the door and found they were outside and had to pay again to get back in. As Barnum would say, "There's a sucker born every minute." Ms. Turner is also happy to blame the poor sucker who signs the petition thinking he is making children safer, when in fact it's about discrimination against a vulnerable minority. They should have known better, she's saying.

She emphasized the fact that a summary was provided and a full copy of the bill was present at every site.

"It shouldn't be overlooked that petition gatherers were being harassed and intimidated," Turner said.

She added that one transgender individual introduced herself as a senior member of the Montgomery County Council and abused her authority by doing so.

CRG's director Theresa Rickman said she provided volunteers with talking points and literature to pass out, which is all legal. "I think Mr. Knapp is confused," Rickman said. "I don't think he's looked at this bill in the context of what it changes."

"This bill doesn't address the conflict between gender identity and personal privacy," Rickman continued.

"What we think is, if you have male genitalia, you can't go in. I challenge the county attorney to publish a legal opinion that says this legislation doesn't cover bathrooms."

But Knapp says it may be Rickman who is confused, and there could be ramifications when the petitions are evaluated. "I think there are going to be some issues there," Knapp said. "If you have well intentioned, critically minded people who are out there on the basis of misinformation, that's not right."

The Board of Elections plans to have a final signature tally by March 9.

There is currently no law regulating who can go into what bathroom, and never has been. It sounds like the Citizens for a Responsible Whatever are saying they want a different law, one that regulates restroom access.

What they really want is the re-legalization of discrimination against transgender people, and the only way they can get the county to go along with it is by lying to everybody. I will be curious to see how far that gets them.