Editors note: This is the third in a three-part series on legislative referendums scheduled for the November 2024 election

The 2023 Oregon Legislative Session was considered by many Oregonians to be a controversial session, involving a walkout by Republican legislators over highly partisan politics. The resulting laws from the session were amended after walkout negotiations upon the Republican Senate return, but still largely catered to the majority Democrat agenda.

To many observers, HJR 16 seems to be some of the more reasonable, bi-partisan legislation resulting from the session, a bill that many political insiders in Oregon say was long overdue, with Oregon being the only state in the nation without the legislative power to impeach a state official.

This proposed amendment has been referred to the voters of Oregon through Referral 401. If approved by the Oregon voters, it will amend the Oregon Constitution to vest power of impeachment of statewide elected Executive Branch officials in House of Representatives and power to try impeachments in Senate. Requires three-fifths] two-thirds majority vote of House of Representatives to deliver impeachment resolution to Senate and two-thirds majority vote of Senate for conviction.

Currently, Oregon only allows the removal of an undesirable state official through the recall process, which is known to be difficult, and time consuming. It is possible that Oregon never bothered to implement the impeachment process due it having a smaller population in it's earlier days.

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The corruption and resignation of former Democrat Governor John Kitzhaber brought the subject to the forefront, as well as the recently disgraced former Secretary of State Shemia Fagan, who resigned after being caught moonlighting for a Cannabis company.

House Representative Shelly Boshart Davis (R-Albany) and others have pressed throughout the last several years for this ability in the legislature.

"Recent events illustrate, yet again, the importance of having an impeachment procedure on the books as a check against negligence and abuse of power by public officials," said Representative Boshart Davis. "The Legislature must have the ability to remove a statewide elected official when necessary"

The 2024 Oregon General Election will be held on Tuesday, November 5th next year.


--Ben Fisher

Post Date: 2023-09-17 06:58:01

Last Update: 2023-09-16 21:59:04

Editors note: This is the second in a three-part series on legislative referendums scheduled for the November 2024 election

Speaker of the House Dan Rayfield (D-Corvallis) was chief sponsor of HB 2004 that is now Referendum 403 on the November 2024 ballot. The referendum establishes in Oregon Revised Statutes, ranked choice voting as the statewide voting method for selecting winners of federal, state and local elections. There are currently no official titles for the 2024 referendums pending action from a legislative committee.

Rank-choice voting is an instant runoff system that can neutralize the people's will. The process is for the ballots to be recounted in rounds, eliminating the lowest candidate until one candidate has the majority of votes. Each round is a new count substituting second and third choices, so the winning candidate in round one can be overridden in subsequent rounds when second and third choices are added into the count. Too many choices distorts the method and may not reflect the voters' choice. In Oregon’s governor race, each party had over 10 choices, the process does not provide for how to limit the number of candidates, except to adopt rules.

Some say it incentivizes candidates to appeal to a broader base of voters, but it has been shown to reduce voting by demanding voters think beyond their first choice. That causes a strategy in voting that is complicated.

Crafters of HB 2004 admit this process is so confusing they provided for a program to educate voters about how ranked choice voting will be conducted in elections. This bill is hard to decipher, but appears to allow two tally methods. It requires major political parties to use ranked choice voting for the primary and the general election only for federal offices, Governor, Secretary of State, State Treasurer, Attorney General, and nonpartisan BOLI office. Other nonpartisan offices, state and local, may, but not required to use ranked choice voting to determine the winners in the primary – in the manner they do now. The Secretary of State may tally all ballots cast using ranked choice voting. What’s missing from the list of mandated offices required to use rank choice voting are State Senators and State Representatives.

Should voters add a process that is so confusing that it requires the expense of an ongoing education program for voters, new and old, to understand? That is the basis behind Marc Theilman’s lawsuit, Theilman vs. Fagan, which has advanced to the 9th Circuit Court. It challenges voter laws as being the cause that people have lost confidence in our elections. It is a constitutional requirement for government to maintain the confidence of the people. His remedy is to go back to one-day voting, presenting ID, signature matching, and count ballots by hand.

Janice Dysinger, Oregonians for Fair Elections, says, “Ranked choice voting will further alienate the people of Oregon who want to have a fair and accountable system they can observe in the election process. Ranked choice voting totally relies on computer programming and tabulators without a way to audit the results. Any recount efforts would be a rerun of the same program. We have seen other states with systems that are not different from ours that have their count corrupted by people who just program the count for a different outcome than the one the people voted for through back doors in the machine systems. We need to return to an accountable system that the people can observe and verify in the process.”

In 2019 the Oregon Legislature passed the National Popular Vote for presidential contests. It passed based on the premise that every vote counts because the vote of each voter in the U.S. carries equal weight. Equal weight does not produce fair representation when small states are lumped into a compact with larger states – it’s the rural/metro scenario on a larger scale. Small states lose their voice. The Electoral College weighs every vote so smaller states are weighted more than larger populated states giving Oregonians a 1.3 vote value compared to California or New York's 1.0 vote value. Oregonians would forfeit vote value, which takes away voter sovereignty when yielding to the popular votes of more populated states.

HB 2004 incorporates the use of ranked choice voting if the National Popular Vote is triggered. Since the National Popular Vote compact was never voted on by voters, a vote for ranked choice voting simultaneously may also be a vote of approval for the National Popular Vote.

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“Every vote counts” is even less true for ranked choice voting. As the ballots continue to be recounted in each round, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated, but so are voters whose choices are eliminated. The final tally will only count ballots that voted for the candidates left in the running, allowing their ballots to be counted more times than those eliminated, whom have no vote in the final decision. So, if your candidate didn’t win, it's possible that your vote wasn’t counted in the winning tally. No ballot should be counted more than one time to be equitable.

Representative E. Werner Reschke (R-Crater Lake) asks,” how many more voters will incorrectly fill out their ballot? How many voters will know voting for their second choice or third choice could accidentally knock out their first choice — their real choice — from the winner’s circle?... Why would we want to make the ballot even longer and more complicated with more choices? Ranked Choice voting could very well discourage voting because ballots could end up being multiple pages long… Ranked Choice voting’s complexity can and will only delay election results on more races and therefore bring further confusion and doubt to the integrity of our system.”

Reschke also asked about equipment to handle a new system that can tabulate ranked choice votes. What is the need for more trained staff and will the state dedicate tax payer funding to cover costs? “Overall, I believe Ranked Choice voting treats Oregonians like children who can’t decide who they want to win for a particular race. I much rather regard my fellow citizens, 18 and older, as adults. Our most important laws certainly do, and so ought our election process.”

If passed, ranked choice voting would apply to elections and nominations occurring on or after January 1, 2028. A lot of effort is going into exposing the vulnerability of the use of internet tabulators and the possible presence of fraud. Referendum 403 may be viewed as having to many risks until voter confidence is regained.


--Donna Bleiler

Post Date: 2023-09-15 10:18:35

Last Update: 2023-09-14 16:23:23

Editors note: This is the first in a three-part series on legislative referendums scheduled for the November 2024 election

Three Legislative measures will be referred to the people of the State of Oregon in the November 2024 Election -- in addition to whatever the citizens' initiative process will produce. SJR 34 amends the Oregon Constitution to establish an Independent Public Service Compensation Commission; HJR 16 adds an impeachment process to the Oregon Constitution; and HB 2004 establishes ranked choice voting as the statewide voting method for selecting winner of federal, state and local elections.

The statutory ballot title process was supplanted by the 2023 Legislature by passing SB 28, which creates a joint legislative committee to prepare the ballot titles and explanatory statements for referendums referred to the ballot during 2023 regular session. Senate President Rob Wagner (D-Lake Oswego) is to appoint three legislative members and Speaker Dan Rayfield (D-Corvallis) three. The committee has until March 12, 2024 to complete the process giving the electors time to petition the Supreme Court with any objects on how the title or explanation is written. Deadlines associated with the ballot title and explanatory statement will be drafted in Administrative Rule. In the meantime, there are no official titles for these three Referendums.

This article is the first in a three-part series that examines SJR 34, Referendum 402, which proposes amending the Oregon Constitution to create the Independent Public Service Compensation Commission giving it authority to decide salaries for the listed public officials paid from the General Fund.

The commission would establish salaries for the following officials:

1. Governor
2. Secretary of State
3. State Treasurer
4. Attorney General
5. Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor and Industries or any successor agency
6. Judges of the Supreme Court
7. Judges of other courts under the administration of the judicial branch of state government
8. State Senator
9. State Representative
10. District attorneys

Upon the commission’s adoption of its determinations, the state is then obligated to budget moneys from the General Fund sufficient to pay the salaries determined by the commission as they deemed to be appropriate.

Prior to 1956, salaries for the Governor, Secretary of State, State Treasurer, and Supreme Court Judges were stated in Article XIII of the Oregon Constitution and it took a vote of the people to change their salaries prior to its repeal.

This isn’t the first time a commission has been proposed to determine state salaries. It was used twice before to review and make recommendations to the Legislature on salaries for certain state public officials. The ideology is a separation of compensation from political pressures will produce a fair approach.

Oregon's previous version of a Public Officials Compensation Commission was first established by legislation in 1983, but all positions became vacant in 2000. Legislation was again enacted in 2007 to revitalize the Commission with new membership and a revised scope of work. The Commission’s 2008 recommendations were introduced amidst the Great Recession, and the Legislature ultimately declined to increase compensation for public officials. The Commission went unfunded after 2008 and was eliminated in 2017 along with other state boards and commissions identified as inactive or obsolete.

By making the commission a constitutional mandate, it removes the latitude of the legislature to respond to economic abnormalities. To avoid the delay or final approval by the legislature, the commission is given full authority to implement salaries they deem appropriate. That puts a lot of weight on selecting nonpartisan members that have an understanding of the salaries they implement has on the economy and state budget.

Unfortunately, SJR 34 and Referendum 402 does not define how the committee is selected. It only prohibits state employees or officers or family members, and lobbyists or family members from serving, and allows the legislature to add other classes of individuals.

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Chief Justice of the Oregon Supreme Court, Meagan Flynn, claims it “will help ensure that we can attract and retain highly qualified people to those offices of public service.”

The National Conference on State Legislatures (NCSL) found that 21 states set compensation for lawmakers with input from an independent commission, as Oregon has done in the past. Certain states also rely on independent commissions in setting compensation or benefits for selected other statewide officials, which may include members of the executive or judicial branches.

However, what is appropriate compensation may have the consequence of reducing other services or raising taxes when fixed outside of the budget process. We see a form of this when teacher salaries are lobbied by unions and set prior to school districts knowing what the legislative budget will give them. That sometimes means cutting staff. Voters are given the task to decide if they want to give up their voice when it comes to salaries for the highest officers in the state.


--Donna Bleiler

Post Date: 2023-09-14 10:19:16

Last Update: 2023-09-14 16:22:55