Tim Vandenack, Standard-Examiner

HARRISVILLE — The message from the billboard to U.S. 89 motorists in Harrisville is a dramatic one. The dollar amount is anyway.

“Join our $500 trillion lawsuit against the federal govt,” it reads.

The claims from the group behind the message — Friends of the Original Constitution — similarly stand out. The group’s mission, reads its website, is to prosecute the federal government and a long list of other organizations, businesses and business leaders, “get back what they’ve stolen from us, end tyranny, re-found our government and base it on Liberty and on the Constitution, Now & Forever.”

If that’s an ambitious goal, it doesn’t stop there.

The organization — the brainchild of Scott Workman, who’s from the Salt Lake City area — seeks support for its cause against the U.S. government from 170 million Americans and two-thirds of the state legislatures in the country. That, proponents maintain, would enable the calling of what the group calls a Constitutional Convention and Court, where the charges in its long, conspiratorial lawsuit promising the $500 trillion payout would be heard.

Tim Vandenack, Standard-Examiner

The Friends of the Original Constitution’s U.S. 89 billboard is one of two in Weber County. A second sits along Wall Avenue with another directive, “Mandates are unconstitutional,” underscoring critical online messaging from the group elsewhere targeting vaccine and mask mandates as the COVID-19 pandemic lingers.

Many more billboards are scattered around Utah, Brad Erickson said in response to a Standard-Examiner query emailed to the group. However, they “have run their allotted days” and will apparently soon come down, if they haven’t already.

The billboards are another seeming salvo directed the federal government’s way by conspiracy theorists and others critical of Washington, D.C.’s, power. At the core of Friends of the Original Constitution proponents’ grievances is the belief that the federal government apparatus is a “foreign corporation” dating to 1871. Group material lauds the Founding Fathers of the United States, but doesn’t explicitly explain the transition of the government to the entity it derides and is pushing to replace.

Whatever the case, Workman — who also says the COVID-19 pandemic is one of an unspecified number of  “false narratives” propagated by the government — maintains the campaign is gaining traction.

“Yes, we are mainly getting positive feedback and support from our messaging,” Workman wrote in response to another Standard-Examiner query. “We’re gaining supporters every day.”

Indeed, he bristled at any suggestion that the group’s effort is a longshot or far-fetched.

“Kind of like the Founding Fathers far-fetched idea to hold a constitutional convention — to create a new form of government with a Constitution? Does that sound like a far-fetched idea to you? The Founding Fathers had the courage to stand up to tyranny,” Workman wrote. “They had the courage to put their lives and livelihoods on the line for freedom and liberty. Do you have the same courage?”

Workman’s bio on the Friends of the Original Constitution website says that in December 2019 he closed a business he had operated “to devote all of his time to finalize this plan and to launch this movement.” How long the effort is supposed to take isn’t spelled out in group material.

Recently, though, the group has said on messages posted on its YouTube page that it would be augmenting its social media presence.

“We’re hopeful that our social media site that launches soon will give us the chance to mass communicate with all the friends. This will also help friends to communicate with each other. The volunteering effort will be huge,” reads the message. The website also seeks donations and touts two books by Workman on the matter.

The billboards in Weber County with the Friends of the Original Constitution message are operated by Reagan Outdoor Advertising. Dewey Reagan, the company operator, said he is generally aware of the group’s thrust. He also noted the disclaimer on the signs that the ads don’t reflect the views of the company.

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