Issues
Does One Party Want More Uninformed Voters?
…Voters can take their completed ballots to the Lane County Elections Office at 275 W. 10th Ave. in downtown Eugene or to any of more than a dozen election drop boxes…
The real vote-fraud opportunity has arrived: casting your ballot by mail
– News21 (a program of the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation)
From a continuing series of articles, Who Can Vote?, a News21 investigation of voting rights in America…
Election fraud is rare, but it usually involves absentee or mail ballots, said Paul Gronke, a Reed College political scientist, who directs the Early Voting Information Center in Oregon…
Curtis Gans, director of the Center for the Study of the American Electorate, said vote-buying and bribery could occur more easily with mail voting and absentee voting…
Our Response & Your Comments
We know the potential for fraud in vote-by-mail elections. For some it’s pretty easy to vote for granny, granddad and a couple of uncles. Others might go door to door in their neighborhood trolling for ballots.
But why let voters vote by mail at all? Because it makes it easier to vote? What’s the virtue of taking nearly all the effort out of voting? Because we get more people to vote? In fact, the easier it is the more we’re pulling into the election process people who are too lazy to go to a polling place or request an absentee ballot.
What else are they too lazy to do? Read a voters’ pamphlet? Read a newspaper? Get informed?
So who wants them to vote? Maybe the party that made these rules wants to attract uninformed voters because they think these people will vote for them.
Oh, by the way – just wait for motor voter registration. You’re gonna just love it. And so is the party that wants it.
Oregon needs to limit campaign contributions
By Floyd Prozanski and Lee Beyer
For The Register-Guard
The costs of political campaigns are skyrocketing, blocking out the voices of everyday Oregonians. That is why we believe the Legislature needs to pass campaign finance reform…
The lack of contribution limits gives far more power and influence to those who can write massive campaign checks— businesses and wealthy individuals who don’t necessarily represent the needs of Oregon’s working families…
That is why Gov. Kate Brown, when she was secretary of state, supported the introduction of Senate Joint Resolution 5 in this legislative session. SJR 5 is a constitutional amendment that would authorize citizens and the Legislature to establish campaign contribution limits for Oregon…The absence of contribution limits has been a significant problem in Oregon…
Passing SJR 5 is one of the best ways to ensure that our citizen-based Legislature remains responsive to all people, regardless of income or background…
We Respond & Your Comments
We’re touched by this Oregon Senate tag team’s concern for “working families” and their commitment to being “responsive to all people.” We know they’re just out to protect “the little guy.” Right?
But then our cynical natures make us ask “What do these guys have in common?”
Together with five other Democrat legislators who signed on to this touching plea they’re all…incumbents. What do incumbents want most? To get reelected.
Do you think they know that the best way to get reelected is to be…an incumbent?
Think they know that over the last 50 years an average of 80% of Federal Senate and House incumbents (and often 90%) have been reelected?
They do know that “campaign finance reform” just makes it harder for challengers to raise as much money as incumbents because incumbency brings with it name recognition and power.
That’s why campaign finance reform laws are often called “incumbency protection laws.” But we know Floyd and Lee just want to give “the little guy” a “voice.” Right.
Commission: Replace statues of Lee, McLoughlin in Capitol hall
– Raymond Rendleman, portlandtribune.com
A committee appointed by Gov. John Kitzhaber unanimously agreed last week to recommend that the statues of both Dr. John McLoughlin and Rev. Jason Lee no longer represent Oregon in the National Statuary Hall in the U.S. Capitol.
McLoughlin, the chief trader for the Hudson’s Bay Company generally acknowledged as the “father” of Oregon, was not even being considered for removal a few years ago, when former governor and U.S. Sen. Mark Hatfield died in 2011, and a movement grew to honor Hatfield by replacing Lee…
We Respond & Your Comments
We’re not taking sides here. But it did cause us to ask ourselves “Why are some elected officials honored and others aren’t? Why is Sen. Hatfield’s legacy so much greater than Sen. Packwood’s?”
Let’s look at Packwood and other elected officials for an answer.
Packwood’s legacy is that of a man who assumed every good looking woman would be eternally grateful if only he’d grab her and plant a sloppy French kiss.
Then there’s Oregon Governor and Portland Mayor Neil Goldschmidt, who could’ve starred in a sequel to the hit movie “Adventures in Babysitting.”
How about another Portland Mayor, Sam Adams, who lied about a reported sexual relationship with a teenage boy? Then there’s Gov. Kitzhaber, who gave a new meaning to “First Lady.”
The common thread? It’s that these four all succumbed to “The Arrogance of Power,”
which transcends party and office. It’s often about sex and it tends to infect politicians who are entrenched in their positions.
When we next fill out our ballots, let’s ask ourselves “Will the Arrogance of Power infect this guy or gal?” “Will he/she be another Hatfield or another Packwood/Goldschmidt/Adams/ Kitzhaber?” And might this candidate’s statue find a home in the National Statuary Hall?
An obscene amount of money spent on the election
– chicagotribunenews.com/news/opinion/letters
After observing the reactions of Republican and Democratic pols and pundits to the national midterm election results…I’ve distilled my own characterization of the entire campaign down to one word: Obscene.
After all, $4 billion was spent in service to this embarrassing fiasco; $4 billion for saturation advertisements awash in cynicism and demagoguery…
Four billion dollars that could have built how many new public schools in Chicago?…
— Jane Artabasy, Glencoe
We Respond & Your Comments
We hear this all the time: “Obscene money spent on elections.” A few thoughts on this…
First, the $4 billion spent on the 2014 elections is just two thirds of the money we spend on potato chips each year.
Second, the money doesn’t just evaporate. It’s paid to printers, writers, camera operators and others who use it to get their kids’ teeth filled, send them to school and buy them Christmas presents. How “obscene” is that?
Third, does anyone (are you listening, Ms. Artabasy?) think that if we spent, say, a billion bucks less, that even one more school would be built in Chicago?
Fourth, does anyone think that we write out checks to political parties because we want to? No – we do it because of governments’ intrusion into our private lives and businesses. Some pay to reduce it; others to expand it. Want to get the money out of politics? Get the government out of our lives.
Fifth, isn’t public discourse about the direction of our country’s destiny a pretty good thing to spend money on? Maybe it’s even worth a few million bags of chips!
Kitzhaber, Richardson disagree on performance reviews
– Hannah Hoffman, Statesman Journal
Gov. John Kitzhaber and his Republican opponent Dennis Richardson disagree a lot…
They differ a great deal in what kind of managers they plan to be.
Our Executive Editor, Michael Davis, asked both of the candidates whether they think each state employee should receive an annual performance review…
Richardson answered Davis’s question pretty clearly. Yes, he said, every employee deserves an annual performance review.
Kitzhaber gave an answer that seemed less clear.
“I think that would be very impractical,” he said, noting that the state has about 35,000 employees. However, he then went on to say that everyone does need be held accountable for their performance, but he did not seem to think reviews were necessarily the mechanism for this.
Our Response and Your Comments
Hey, Guv. Kitz – How about if we give you a performance review?
Us: Oregon has lots going for it: natural resources, good universities, educated workers, a natural harbor and a whole lot more.
Guv Kitz: Yup.
Us: After you’ve had 12 years as Governor, why are we 6th among states in unemployment, 6th highest in gas prices, 4th in childhood hunger and 3rd in homelessness?
Guv Kitz: Give me four more years and I’ll fix all that stuff.
Us: Is it true that you scorched half a billion bucks on Cover Oregon and the Columbia River Crossing and have nothing to show for it?
Guv Kitz (scratching head): Maybe. But give me four more years and I won’t do it again.
Us: Do you represent the State well when Oregon’s “First Lady” isn’t your wife, has an office in your office suite, “consults” for clients who have business interests with the State, and is awarded a no bid contract with the Oregon Dept. of Energy that cost Oregon a million dollar settlement?
Guv Kitz: Is this part of your War on Women?.
Us: Thanks, Guv – You’ve reviewed your performance for us. And for the voters.
U.S. Senate race getting louder
– The Register-Guard
The volume is about to be cranked up in Oregon’s already negative U.S. Senate race.
Both Democratic incumbent Sen. Jeff Merkley and his Republican challenger Monica Wehby released new campaign television ads this week, while Freedom Partners — a group tied to businessmen and influential conservative political donors Charles and David Koch — released an ad of its own through its super PAC Thursday…
Freedom Partners’ involvement in the race has become a key talking point for Merkley’s campaign…
Asked why his campaign is focusing so heavily on Freedom Partners’ involvement in the race, Merkley responded: “It’s out-of-state billionaires coming to Oregon with a specific agenda. … It’s a unique event in Oregon history to have these folks come in and try to seize the airwaves and try and buy a seat in the U.S. Senate.”…
– Saul Hubbard
http://registerguard.com/rg/news/local/32110949-75/senate-candidates-crank-up-the-volume.html.csp
Our Response & Your Comments
Way to go, Jeffey – You tell those out-of-staters to keep their filthy money out of our Senate campaigns! You tell them you won’t take one doggone cent from a non-Oregonian trying to “buy a seat in the U.S. Senate!”
You wouldn’t, would you? What’s that, Jeffey – you might? In fact – you did.
According to Merkley’s Federal Election Commission filing for just two days in May in his last campaign he received donations from organizations or individuals in VA, NC, CO, and twice each from NY & DC.
And did we mention that Washington, DC-based League of Conservation Voters reported tossing Jeff $83,625 of non-Oregon bucks?
Say it ain’t so, Jeffey. Say it ain’t so.