Oklahoma’s largest newspaper blasted the Oklahoma Education Association in a Sunday editorial that called out the union for the nasty, undemocratic tactics the union used against the 2005 TABOR initiative. That’s the petition drive the Oklahoma 3—Paul, Rick Carpenter, and Susan Johnson—worked on, which riled the state’s political establishment and now provides pretext for Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson’s vindictive prosecution.

Seems the OEA is launching their own initiative to dramatically increase state education funding, and the Oklahoman saw hordes of hypocrisy in the teachers’ union seeking to use the initiative process after having sought to deny use of the process to others. As the Oklahoman put it:

We find it ironic that the union and its supporters are turning to the initiative petition process to get what they want. In opposing a 2005 effort to get a Taxpayer Bill of Rights to a statewide ballot, the union encouraged its members to report that petition circulators were bothering or harassing them in an attempt to disrupt the signature-gathering process. Talk about harassment. We’d bet the OEA expects to be able to gather signatures without detractors making false claims against well-meaning petition circulators.

In 2005, the OEA and other anti-TABOR groups did more than encourage bad behavior from membership. They also hired paid blockers, many from outside the state, to harass those circulating the TABOR petition and the 300,000 Oklahomans who signed it. While circulators were required by Oklahoma law to be state residents, those seeking to deny their right to petition could be and were from all over the nation.

At the time of the TABOR petition drive, in December 2005, Paul wrote a column at Townhall about OEA’s activities. It now seems almost prescient.