Given the rivalry with Oklahoma City over the Sonics, we're not too likely to emulate politics from Oklahoma, but here's one political ploy that may be worth borrowing, particularly now that Tim Eyman, the initiative king, is riding high again.

Attention John Ladenburg, Pierce County Executive who is gearing up to challenge Rob McKenna for Attorney General in 2008. Here's an Oklahoma six-shooter.

The story, as recounted by The Wall Street Journal's editorial page ($), concerns Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson, who has taken aim at a key weapon of initiative-gatherers, the use of out-of-state petition collectors. The AG is pursuing felony charges against the Eyman equivalents in Oklahoma, saying they violated state law by bringing in petition gatherers from out of state.

The citizens in question launched a signature campaign in 2005 to enact a Taxpayer Bill of Rights, or Tabor, to cap state government spending increases. The story follows a familiar script. The Tabor advocates gather 300,000 signatures, well beyond the 219,000 needed to get the measure on the ballot. A court challenge rules the signatures invalid because nonresidents of the state had collected many of them. Edmondson then indicted the campaigners, even though the court decision on the residency requirement is being challenged in the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals.

The whole issue is now going ballistic. The leaders of the Citizens in Charge group face 10 years in prison, even though they claim the state had told them that nonresidents could simply move to the state and declare themselves to be residents. Edmondson, a Democrat, is accused of grandstanding in the name of gaining higher office.

Could this be a foretaste of an escalation of the war with Tim Eyman? Maybe so, but considering the way Gov. Gregoire and the state Democratic Party are now behaving, rushing to enact I-747 even though the state Supreme Court invalidated it, Eyman would still dictate state tax policy while banging the bars in jail.