Pubdate: Thu, 22 Aug 2002 Source: San Francisco Examiner (CA) Copyright: 2002 San Francisco Examiner Contact: http://www.examiner.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/389 Author: Warren Hinckle THE FAULKNER SYNDROME CALL IT a glitch, or call it urban democracy in the raw, but The City's elections laws provide a paradise for serial arguers who can enter a lottery. The lottery is run by the Elections Department, which has become a metaphor in San Francisco for the Marx Brothers. I kid you not, the Elections Department runs a lottery, as in state Lotto, to decide with a pick from the hat who's on top of the ballot arguments in the official voters' handbook. This stuff can run to pages and pages, and is on the taxpayers' nickel if you are designated the official opponent. All other arguments that fatten the voters' handbook are paid for by the sponsors at an average cost of several hundred bucks. But not if you can game the system like my friend Terence Faulkner. He is the master of the system that makes for a fatter voters' handbook. That doesn't make him a bad man. That makes him just smart about the game. But perhaps, as an upfront Faulkner would allow, the rules of the game should be changed. Meanwhile, why not play and grab all the marbles you can get in the schoolyard. Faulkner and other masters of the game get free arguments against ballot propositions -- free if you know how to play the game. Otherwise ballot arguments for or against by ordinary citizens and organized influence groups cost in the neighborhood of $300 and counting, depending on how wordy you want to be. Ballot pamphlet words cost real money. To get thus designated, as the official opponent (rarely are you the proponent in this game), you have to win the lottery. To win the lottery, all you have to do is submit a written and sworn statement that it is your argument. Sounds OK. But the wrinkle is that a prospective opponent can submit multiple arguments, five, say, even 10 per proposition, what the hell (there are many propositions which one can file against mutiple times) -- and the more arguments you submit, the better the odds of your winning the pick out of the hat lottery. Wednesday, I spoke to Faulkner, the man who holds, or should hold, the Guinness Book of Records record for the most arguments filed, free, in the San Francisco voters' handbook. On this year's ballot, perennial filer Faulkner has only three official arguments. In previous years, Faulkner, an intellectual and historian and Republican Party argumentative stalwart -- has had three times those three, sometimes four times(he modestly forgets) on the ballot. All for free. All you have to do is swamp the lottery argument box. There is more: "When you get an official argument, you get to get a response to the other side of what you're saying -- it goes with filing the argument," Faulkner said with evident satisfaction. In other words, if you win the lottery for an official opposition, you get to get a free two-for to answer the opposition to your opposition. Get it? Myself, I'm not that clear, but it works something like that. Great. If you have access to a typewriter or computer with a print function, you can add pounds to the ever-thickening voters' handbook, which is sending postmen and postwomen to hospitals to deal with the strain of delivery. Faulkner, a prodigious ballot argument lottery filer -- he sunk to only three official opponents' arguments this year because his typing arm was injured by a staph infection -- gentlemanly declined the Guinness Record for S.F. and said that should go to Margaret Warren, a tireless and relentless crusader for Westside neighborhood issues. That, in my opinion, makes Faulkner a gentleman in the old San Francisco sense, throwing his cape in the mud so a lady can enter the carriage of ballot proliferation. There is something wrong here in the system, but attempts at reform -- such as limiting the number of arguments one person or organization can file on a single ballot without weighting the "lottery" -- have been rebuffed by the current Board of Supervisors, especially board President Tom Ammiano, according to voting law maven Chris Bowman. Bowman said the former Elections Commission sent the supes legislation that would end this madness, but the board tossed it to their new Elections Commission, which paid no attention to such a reform because members were too busy fighting each other and trying to fire the elections director. Who's on first? Well perennial serial-filer Faulkner, who was hindered from sweeping the sleet only by a sore hand. If you want to blame him, go ahead, but you might want to blame somebody else, The perennial filer is not without context to get his free words. He is a born-and-raised San Franciscan, and his father was an official with the Rec and Parks Department. One of the propositions he filed an argument against was growing medical marijuana in The City, which was free to him. But interestingly, he reasoned that while growing up in S.F. and watching his dad and other gardeners at work, he knew The City could grow great pot in the six-to eight-inch-high category, given an enclosed area. Faulkner's ballot argument on the no side wasn't moralistic. He thought it was Republican practical. He figured it out and estimated it would cost more police and fire protection -- and guys with machine guns -- to protect The City stash from raids than would make any economic sense. - --- MAP posted-by: Larry Stevens