The Oregonian
Supporters of an initiative that would jettison Oregon’s partisan primaries said they submitted 140,045 signatures to the secretary of state on Monday — appearing to give them enough to earn a spot on the November ballot.
The Every Oregon Voter Counts Petition Committee collected the signatures in just a little over five weeks in what the group said was the fastest effort to collect initiative signatures in Oregon history.
A controversial bill aimed at toughening rules for petition signature operations in Oregon passed the House Friday on a 35-22 vote.
The largely party-line vote came after several Republican and minor-party activists complained that Senate Bill 154 could “criminalize” inadvertent errors and discourage people from mounting ballot measure campaigns in Oregon.
Those concerns were dismissed by the bill’s Democratic supporters, who used their majority in the House to win final legislative approval and send the measure to Gov. John Kitzhaber for his signature.
The Oregon Senate on Tuesday voted to toughen the regulation of signature gathering firms, despite the objections of Republicans and other critics who charged that it could have a chilling effect on ballot measure campaigns.
Critics said that Senate Bill 154, which passed on a party-line vote of 16 to 14, could subject canvassing firms to potential criminal penalties for inadvertent errors involving election laws.
Supporters, including a spokesman for Secretary of State Kate Brown, said that the measure only subjected firms that gather voter signatures to the same regulations that individual canvassers and the chief petitioners of ballot measures already must meet.
The Damascus City Council voted unanimously tonight to file a ballot initiative to amend the city’s charter to offer more resident power over the city’s future comprehensive plan and similar plans and ordinances. With the initiative on the ballot, Damascus residents will vote on whether to add an amendment to the Damascus Charter that would “require voter ratification of any ordinance or plan adopted by City Council before such ordinance or plan is submitted to Metro, Land Conservation and Development Commission or the Department of Land Conservation and Development or their successors, retroactive to March 1, 2011.”
The Oregon Senate gave final approval today to a bill that allows Oregon residents to review ballot initiatives and share their recommendations with other Oregon voters. The Citizen Initiative Review Commission, approved by the 2009 Legislature as a pilot project, brought about two dozen Oregonians in August to evaluate two ballot measures, render a decision and present their reasons in the Voter’s Pamphlet.
Hours after Wilsonville City Councilors voted to adopt an urban renewal district designed for SoloPower, local resident Vince Alexander launched a petition drive Tuesday morning to push the $11 million plan to a public vote. “Are we ready? Because now the roar starts,” said Alexander as he walked into City Hall at the open of business. Alexander’s political action committee, Stop Urban Renewal Giveway, now has 30 days to collect signatures from 10 percent of Wilsonville’s registered voters.
A new poll by a liberal group says a ballot measure toughening certain crime sentences has strong support, but voters are skeptical of initiatives allowing medical marijuana dispensaries as well as a casino in East Multnomah County. The poll also showed Democrat John Kitzhaber ahead in the governor’s race - which puts it at odds with recent public surveys showing that neither Kitzhaber nor Republican Chris Dudley has a clear lead.
The latest monthly turn-in of paid petition signatures for Oregon initiatives still shows a relatively small number of measures are likely to make it on the November ballot. Under a new law, petitioners are required every month to turn in signatures gathered by paid petitioners (the major form of signature-gathering for citizen initiatives in Oregon). The latest figures from the Oregon secretary of state leads me to list three measures that are now in the almost-certain-to-make-it-on-the-ballot category.
Two would-be casino developers from Lake Oswego launched a new campaign Friday to win voter approval for a private casino at the old greyhound track in Wood Village. Businessman Bruce Studer and attorney Matthew Rossman, who said they have the backing of investment firms in Toronto and Los Angeles, began gathering signatures on two ballot initiatives aimed at allowing them to establish what would be the state’s first private casino.
This is the second month that paid petition gatherers have been required to turn in their signatures to the Oregon secretary of state’s office - and at this point there are just three initiatives that you can say are clearly on a trajectory to make the November ballot. The ones that appear headed to the ballot would raise penalties for sex crimes and drunk driving, liberalize medical marijuana laws and extend Oregon Lottery funding for parks and habitat protection.
Damascus voters, two years after approving initiatives severely limiting their city’s financial authority, reversed course Tuesday night by rejecting four measures that would have substantially limited the city’s powers to operate. The measures’ backers said they were disappointed with the outcome, saying it will thwart greater citizen oversight of local government spending. Damascus Mayor Jim Wright, however, called it “a great result.” “It appears as if we finally got through to most of the voters in the city to get involved,” Wright said.
Some day, we may see a robot chase a voter down the sidewalk, clutching a clipboard in its metal talons, as it chirps, “Sign this if you want to cut your taxes.” For now, however, we have “Petey,” an ATM-style kiosk that may be the country’s first electronic canvasser. Ross Day, a conservative political activist who also runs the petition firm Vote Oregon, developed Petey — short for “petitioner” — and proudly showed off the prototype outside his Beaverton office Tuesday.
The latest effort to ban gill net fishing on the Columbia River is dead, at least for now. The group backing the proposed ballot initiative said it will abandon the Protect Our Salmon Act following an Oregon Attorney General decision altering its title.
Oregon’s leading anti-tax activists are quietly rolling out a new strategy to limit government by partnering with frustrated small-town residents across the state. “We’re going full bore at the local level all over the state,” said Jeff Kropf, a former state legislator and director of Americans for Prosperity Oregon, the state chapter of a Washington D.C.-based group promoting limited government. “If we can’t stop big government in Salem, we’re going to do it at the grass-roots level.”
More than half of Oregon voters support creation of a casino in the Portland area, according to a poll released today. The poll, by Riley Research Associates of Portland, found that 54 percent of Oregon voters either somewhat or strongly support the idea, while 40 percent oppose the idea and 6 percent were unsure. The poll was commissioned by Matt Rossman and Bruce Studer, two Lake Oswego businessmen who have been pursing the idea of a casino resort at the former Multnomah Greyhound Park in Wood Village.