Community organizer Pete Woiwode was meeting a friend at a street fair near downtown Oakland in November when a signature collector approached him and asked if he would sign a petition to lower gas prices.
But Voivode said that reading the petition, he realized the real issue was a referendum to repeal SB 1137 — a state law passed in September banning new oil and gas wells within 975 meters (3,200 feet) of schools, homes and hospitals.
As soon as he resisted the claim that the petition was about cutting gas prices, the signature collector relented, Voivode recalled. “He said, ‘Look man, they’re paying me a lot of money per signature to do that. I know I don’t agree with this, but I have to have this job. You must sign this petition. Will you do it?’” he said.
Voivode said no. “I will not actively undermine democracy,” he told the Associated Press.
This happened not only to Voivode. Several California residents who spoke to AP claim they were misled by signature collectors over the past two months as the Stop the Energy Shutdown campaign attempted to collect enough signatures to hold a referendum on the 2024 statewide vote to overthrow accessible from SB 1137.
Among them was a man in Oildale, California, in oil-rich Kern County, who said a petitioner told him drilling near residential areas had no human health impact. Another man in Los Angeles said a petitioner wrongly told him the referendum would ban oil and gas drilling near schools and hospitals.
SB 1137 — signed into law by California Gov. Gavin Newsom in September — has been hailed by environmental justice advocates who have been pushing for the ordinance to reduce air pollution in poor and communities of color for years.
But days after the bill passed, Nielsen Merksamer, a law firm specializing in electoral measures, submitted a referendum Rescind SB 1137 on behalf of Jerome Reedy, a board member of the California Independent Petroleum Association. This association has defied several state and local actions regulating oil and gas drilling, including bans and phaseouts in Los Angeles County and the City of Los Angeles.
The Stop the Energy Shutdown campaign started collecting signatures. Last week, announced it It had raised nearly a million, well over the roughly 630,000 needed to qualify the measure for the 2024 statewide election.
These are now undergoing certification at the Office of the Secretary of State. If enough are notarized and the referendum is qualified to vote, SB 1137 will not go into effect in January. It will be put on hold until after the referendum.
It is unclear what the Secretary of State will do about the alleged use of misinformation by signature collectors. Joe Kocurek, a spokesman for the bureau, confirmed it had received several complaints alleging misinformation, but declined to provide further details, citing an “ongoing or potential investigation.”
Rock Zierman, CEO of the California Independent Petroleum Association, told the AP in a statement that “signature collectors have been given explicit talking points about how SB 1137 increases the state’s reliance on foreign oil exempt from our strict environmental and labor laws.”
PCI Consulting, the company that managed the petition drive, responded to a call from the AP on Tuesday and took a message for someone to call back, but didn’t.
Mary-Beth Moylan, associate dean for academics and professor at McGeorge Law School at the University of the Pacific, has been studying California ballot initiatives for nearly 20 years. Since 2003, she has overseen and edited the California Initiative Review, a journal that analyzes election action before each election.
“Often,” she said, “the people collecting the signatures don’t really know what they’re doing. They don’t know what their referendum is actually about.”
Moylan said the Supreme Court rulings prevent states from requiring signature collectors to be volunteers or knowledgeable about a petition.
“It’s hard … to take action against misinformation and disinformation when collecting signatures,” she said, noting that the millions of dollars spent on petition campaigns did not encourage petitioners to “be thoughtful or deliberate” when they residents communicate with them.
Last Chance Alliance, a California-based climate protection group made up of over 900 public health, environmental justice, climate and labor organizations around the world, heard California residents encountering misinformation from signature collectors and turned their names to the AP People who said they were misled. The AP spoke to six residents who told the Last Chance Alliance this happened to them. Five said they had lodged complaints with the Foreign Secretary’s office and the other said he was preparing to lodge one.
Woiwode said he was “frustrated” and “appalled” by his experience with petitioners, in part because he is a community organizer and manager at Reclaim Our Power, an Oakland-based organization that works to give communities of color and poor people access to cleaner to provide energy. In other words, he works against the fossil fuel companies.
Ilonka Zlatar, president of the climate protection nonprofit 350 Sacramento, was on her way to get Halloween candy from a grocery store when she saw the unattended table with signs urging residents to ban oil and gas emissions near schools and hospitals to support and halt the rise in gas prices to $10 a gallon. She said it was “outrageous” to see the “blatant lies” on the signs and that she attached photos to her complaint to the state.
Jesus Alonso, the Oildale man, said it was disturbing to hear the petitioner say there were no health effects from drilling in the neighborhood considering there are days when he takes his two sons home from school keep away if the air quality is bad enough.
Local residents and environmentalists say a lot depends on whether the referendum qualifies for voting.
The California Department of Conservation announced on Monday that it proposes contingency rules along the lines of the drilling restrictions in SB 1137. California’s Department of Geologic Energy Management is enacting regulations that would block permitting permits for new oil and gas wells within 3,200 feet of schools beginning January 1, 2023.
Environmentalists fear regulations they’ve worked hard to get will still be overturned if the referendum qualifies to vote. And they fear this would open a window for oil and gas companies to approve new oil and gas wells within the 3,200-foot radius.
On December 13, a coalition of California-based environmental groups sent a letter to Gov. Newsom and Uduak-Joe Ntuk, chief of Geologic Energy Management Division, calling on the state to impose a moratorium on all permits for new oil and gas wells within the 3,200-foot radius outlined in SB 1137.
“The oil industry … is spending millions trying to remove the hard-won safeguards in SB 1137 by referendum,” the letter said.
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Follow Drew Costley on Twitter: @drewcostley.
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