Grassroots firms also specialise in generating attendance at town hall meetings and public hearings as well as signatures on petitions and attendance at rallies. National Grassroots and Communications sets up local organisations to support their clients using selected individuals from the local community who are paid and supervised by their own staff. The business of collecting signatures for petitions has also become a professional activity that corporations can pay for. (Stauber & Rampton 1995/6, p. 24)

In California where bills can be initiated through petitions, the use of professional petitioners seems to be the way to ensure success. Two companies have been responsible for 75% of the 65 initiatives that qualified for the California ballot in the decade from 1982 to 1992. These companies also operate in Oregon, Nevada, Washington, Michigan, Ohio, Oklahoma and Colorado. The people who collect the signatures get paid 25 to 35 cents per name. Often they have several petitions going at a time, which makes the operation more efficient. Increasingly it is only the well-financed who can afford to get such an initiative qualified.(Price 1992, p. 546)

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Additional Material

Citizens for Corporate Accountability and Individual Rights, 1997, Silicon Valley and Wall Street Moguls Spent $15 Million on Failed Attack on Consumer Protection Laws, Press Release, 12 September (case study)

Price, Charles M., 1992, 'Signing for fun and profit: the business of gathering petition signatures', California Journal, Vol. 23, No. 11, pp. 545-8.

Stauber, John and Sheldon Rampton, 1996, 'The public relations industry's secret war on activists', CovertAction Quarterly, No. 55, pp. 18-25, 57.