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| SEIU-UHW's Dave Regan |
Just in case
Dave Regan’s lopsided
defeat on last week’s ballot measures wasn’t bad enough, he suffered an even
more embarrassing ballot-initiative blunder in his home state of Ohio.
In a f*ck-up
of interstellar proportions, Regan’s Ohio dialysis initiative was knocked off the
ballot because, well, Dave forgot to have his signature-gatherers fill out a
required state form.
Way to go, Dave!
It gets
worse. Ya see, Dave didn’t happen to notice his mistake until he’d already
spent upwards of $4.1 million on his Ohio initiative. D’oh!
Of course,
we’ve all made mistakes, right? But have you ever made a $4
million mistake? And it wasn’t even Dave’s money!
Here’s what
happened.
After Regan’s
SEIU-UHW filed an initiative against
the kidney dialysis industry in California, Dave then filed copycat initiatives
in both Arizona and Ohio in an
apparent attempt to "up the ante" on industry leaders.
Months later,
Regan abandoned
his effort in Arizona.
But in Ohio,
Dave soldiered on like a preacher consumed by the holy spirit. He spent
millions on signature gatherers in a fervent quest to qualify his initiative,
called the “Kidney Dialysis Patient Protection Amendment.”
In fact,
Dave paid $3.6 million to a California signature-gathering company called PCI Consultants (headed by Angelo Paparella) to run his Ohio effort,
according to campaign expenditure records from the Ohio Secretary of State.
And he paid
thousands to the law firm of his private Ohio attorney, Michael Hunter of “Hunter, Carnahan, Shoub, Byard, & Harshman.”
In late
July, Regan triumphantly filed 296,000 signatures to try to qualify his constitutional
amendment for the ballot. But he was
9,500 signatures short. Fortunately for Dave, the Ohio Constitution gave
him ten more days to collect the missing signatures. One more chance!
Ten days
later, after spending even more money on his signature-gathering campaign,
Regan finally hit the target. Except for one important thing. Dave’s crack team
forgot to have the signature gatherers sign a state-required form required before
collecting voter signatures. Whoops!
Dave’s
opponents, the Ohio Renal Association,
leapt on Dave’s blunder like a pack of hungry wolves on a T-bone steak. They sued
to block Dave’s initiative on the grounds that his signatures were invalid. In
a 7-0 decision, the Ohio Supreme Court agreed, thereby knocking Dave’s multimillion
dollar initiative off the November 2018 ballot.
(Jackie Borchardt, “Ohio
kidney dialysis ballot issue invalidated by state Supreme Court,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, August 13, 2018;
Laura A. Bischoff and Kaitlin Schroeder, “Ohio
Supreme Court kicks kidney dialysis issue off the November ballot,” Dayton Daily News, August 13, 2018.)
When the
court’s decision was announced, it must’ve been quite a scene at the Renal
Association… execs doing back flips, taunting Dave for his colossal blunder,
etc.
It turns out
that Dave’s self-inflicted failure is even worse than it first appears.
Why?
In 2016,
Regan committed the same exact dumb-ass blunder
in Arizona, which caused another one of Dave’s initiatives to be stripped
from that state’s ballot.
How did
George W. Bush put it? “Fool me once, shame on... Fool me twice, shame on...” Except,
of course, George kinda garbled it all up. (Here’s the YouTube video.)
So what’s up
with Dave?
Maybe his
memory ain’t so good these days. Perhaps his fistfight in a Sacramento bar and his headline-grabbing assault on a
process-server have resulted in the premature demise of a few of Dave’s brain
cells.
But you gotta
hand it to Dave. When he f*cks up, he really f*cks up big-time.
According to
campaign disclosure records, Regan spent $4.1 million on his Ohio campaign. And
in June, he loaned $1.7 million of SEIU-UHW’s funds to the Ohio campaign. That
money has not been repaid, according to the Ohio Secretary of State. These
figures don’t include all of the national TV advertising, which tallied
millions more.
Regular
people get fired if we make a $50 screw-up at work.
So why isn’t
Dave held accountable for his repeated multi-million-dollar blunders? Shouldn’t
he be fired?
To view
campaign expenditure records, go to the Ohio Secretary of State’s website
and retrieve records for Regan’s PAC: “Ohioans for Kidney Dialysis Patient
Protection” (PAC Registration No. BI1793). The PAC’s address is: 777 S.
Figueroa Street Suite 4050 Los Angeles, CA 90017.
