Oregon
Did the hot-button issues of affirmative action and racial preferences come up in this election? It depends where you look.
Voters in Nebraska and Colorado weighed in on ballot initiatives to ban racial preferences. Those in Nebraska voted “yes” on the ban, following the lead of California, Washington and Michigan, which had approved similar initiatives. Those in Colorado voted “no,” making it the first state in the country to reject such a measure.
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If you think you’ve seen a lot of campaign ads so far, get ready for a lot more. The Oregon Education Association has donated another $2.1 million to the coalition opposing most of the ballot measures on the Nov. 4 statewide ballot.
That means the state’s largest teachers union has contributed a total of $4.1 million to the coalition this year, far outstripping all other donors for and against this year’s measure campaigns. That also means a ton of money for campaign ads, particularly on television.
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A ballot measure that aims to tie teachers’ pay to their “classroom performance” is adding another round to a long-running feud between Oregon’s teachers unions and conservative activist Bill Sizemore.
Sizemore, a one-time gubernatorial candidate who sponsored the teachers’ pay initiative and four others on the November ballot, says basing educators’ salaries on merit rather than seniority would improve the quality of the state’s schools.
A union-funded watchdog group has asked the state to investigate whether signatures on initiative petitions circulated by conservative activists were forged.
Meanwhile, the conservative activists have gone to federal court to try to force the state to ease or overturn new restrictions.
The complaint filed by the watchdog group Our Oregon alleges that at least four signatures, including of Ellen Clay, of Keizer, were forged on current election-cycle petitions.
A coalition of labor groups says it has found evidence of widespread use of illegal practices to gather signatures for several conservative initiatives aimed for the November general election ballot.
But the practices in question, including the use of carbon paper to duplicate printed names and addresses on multiple signature sheets for different initiatives, were not illegal until Jan. 1, when a new law governing Oregon’s initiative system went into effect. The signature sheets examined by the labor coalition were all dated before Jan. 1.
A recount shows an Oregon constitutional amendment on civil forfeitures narrowly passed.
The results released Friday show Measure 53 with 490,158 in favor to 489,477 opposed — a difference of 681 votes.
The initial count in the May 20 primary showed the measure winning 489,592 to 489,042 — a difference of 550 votes.
An initiative to end bilingual education in Oregon has qualified for the November ballot, officials with the secretary of state’s office said.
If approved by voters, Initiative No. 19 — sponsored by Bill Sizemore — would ban bilingual education for all children in public schools learning English as a Second Language after two years of instruction.
The proposed statutory amendment does allow for instruction of a foreign language to English-speaking students.
Oregon elections officials said Tuesday that they expect an official recount of the votes cast for and against Ballot Measure 53 in the May 20 primary election to begin Monday and that the official recount results will be announced by June 30.
In a tentative schedule announced by state Elections Division Director John Lindback, county elections officials will have until Friday, June 27, to complete their recounts. The Elections Division will then announce the results the following Monday, June 30.
Every word officially spoken by and to Oregon legislators since 1859 has been recorded, itemized and stored within the marble walls of the State Archives Building.
But what about the paper trail left behind by Oregon’s other lawmakers — the ones who have since 1904 passed statutes and amended the state constitution through the initiative system?
For decades, they’ve been boxed up in basements and storage units, or worse, destroyed by floodwaters and set on the curbside for the garbage truck to haul away.
Conservative ballot-measure supremo Kevin Mannix just told WWire he and his cohorts are dropping a proposed ballot initiative to kill the Oregon Medical Marijuana Program.
“That petition’s going to stop this week,” Mannix says. There was not enough time or money to gather the 82,769 valid signatures needed, he says.
“That’s the best news I’ve had all day,” says Paul Stanford, head of The Hemp and Cannabis Foundation, a Portland-based national chain of medical marijuana clinics.
Oregon voters may be asked to do something next year that the Legislature and governor aren’t inclined to do: tilt the state to the political right.
With the Legislature in Democratic control and fellow Democratic Gov. Ted Kulongoski ready to sign its bills, conservatives are turning to the initiative system as an outlet for their goals of reducing government, curbing union clout and advancing their ideas on how the legal system should treat gays, illegal immigrants and women seeking abortions.
Former Washington Gov. Booth Gardner is on this Sunday’s cover of The New York Times Magazine, achieving a prominence in the waning days of his life that eclipses his eight years in office from 1985-93.
Bill Sizemore isn’t the potent political force in Oregon he once was, but the teachers’ union is still after him. It smacks of retribution.
City leaders on Wednesday signaled that they may ask Eugene voters next year to pay new taxes for street repairs, but probably won’t yet ask them to pay for a new City Hall.
The Malheur County Court spent most of its regular session Wednesday preparing for some of its meetings next month, but the elected board also decided to continue a public hearing on a proposal to expand the Malheur County enterprise zone until Dec. 12 and sifted through Measure 37 land-use claims court members will settle at meetings Dec. 5 and Dec. 12.