Rebooting Democracy-- the initiatives

Submitted by sysadmin on January 9, 2006 - 9:10pm

Event Reports

At this weekend's Rebooting Democracy conference, we discussed 11 initiatives that are being worked on for Oregon's 2006 election. Each of them dealt with one of the seven E's that the Bus Project works on.

They are (listed in order of submission):

1. HOPE for Oregon Families - Health Care Promise
Makes affordable health care a constitutional right in Oregon, and requires the legislature to pass a plan to provide affordable health care to all Oregonians by 2009. ('Ealth Care)

2. Fair Contributions to Schools - Impact Fees for Schools
Requires developers to pay a development fee to help communities build new schools and rehabilitate existing schools. Developers already help pay for water and sewer infrastructure; this measure would expand that option to schools. (Education)

3. One Ballot Campaign - Oregon Open Primary
Requires candidates for public office to run in a single primary where the top two finishers for each office, regardless of party affiliation, advance to the general election. (Election Reform)

4. Payday Loan Reform
Limits the ability of payday loan operations to charge high interest rates, or place terms and conditions on loans, that make it very difficult for a borrower to get out of debt. (Economic Fairness)

5. Reduce Video Lottery Commissions - Better Deal for Oregon Schools
Reduces the commission paid to bar and restaurant owners from the current 24%-25% level to 18% and puts the difference toward Oregon school funding. (Education)

6. Nursing Home Regulation - Nursing Home Resident Safety Act
Sets minimum staffing levels for nursing homes. ('Ealth Care)

7. Homeowner Bill of Rights - Land Use/Measure 37 Reform
Amends Measure 37 to disallow waivers of land use policy if such waivers would reduce the value of a homeowner or farmer. Also prohibits local government from seizing homes under eminent domain in order to transfer them to a private corporation or developer (Economy, Environment)

8. New Energy for Oregon - Oregon Apollo Program
Creates "Centers of Clean and Renewable Excellence" to promote clean and renewable energy. Sets standards for biofuels and renewable energy production standards. Authorizes an increase in bonding authority to fund renewable energy projects. (Environment, Economy)

9. Family Health and Wellness Act - Children's Health Care/Tobacco Tax
Raises tobacco taxes to fund universal health care for children under 19. ('Ealth Care)

10. Campaign Finance Reform - Common Sense Campaign Finance Reform
Prohibits corporations from donating to political candidates and limits individual donations to $15,000 per year (indexed for inflation) to all candidates, combined. (Election Reform)

11. Tax Refund Equalization Act - Kicker Parity
Limits the percentage of the corporate "kicker" to the same amount as the "kicker" for individual taxpayers. (Economic Fairness)

We plan to post information on the various initiatives over at DFO Action, including text (if available), contact information, web site links, etc. We encourage supporters of the various measures to post blog entries (updates, event reports, etc.) on this site and events info over at DFO Action. They're also all encouraged to buy table space at the 2006 DFO Progressive Leadership Summit-- The Blue Tide.

We had several rounds of discussion, questions, voting, etc. until we finally got to the final round.

For every vote a person made, they had to pledge $50, 20 signatures, or 3 hours of volunteer time. Each person had a total of 10 stickers to use (with their voter number on each) as well as a "black ball" sticker. The black ball round ended up being cancelled, but anyone who went ahead and used it to either blackball an initiative (or a person just for the fun of it) still owed money or time to the Bus Project.

In the end, the New Energy for Oregon - Oregon Apollo Program initiative ended up with the most votes.

Here is how the voting broke down:

Caucus eve voting (first round):

New Energy for Oregon-- 29
Fair Contributions to Schools-- 20
Payday Loan Reform-- 20
Reduce Video Lottery Commissions-- 16
Tax Refund Equalization Act-- 16
HOPE for Oregon Families-- 15
Homeowner Bill of Rights-- 11
Family Health and Wellness Act-- 11
Campaign Finance Reform-- 11
Nursing Home Regulation-- 10
One Ballot Campaign-- 4

Second round:

Payday Loan Reform-- 154
HOPE for Oregon Families-- 144
New Energy for Oregon-- 137
Fair Contributions to Schools-- 100
Homeowner Bill of Rights-- 85
Tax Refund Equalization Act-- 81
Reduce Video Lottery Commissions-- 55
Campaign Finance Reform-- 41
Family Health and Wellness Act-- 30

Final round:

New Energy for Oregon-- 351
HOPE for Oregon Families-- 275
Payday Loan Reform-- 257
Fair Contributions to Schools-- 180
Homeowner Bill of Rights-- 116
Tax Refund Equalization Act-- 102
Reduce Video Lottery Commissions-- 57

While "New Energy for Oregon" was the initiative to win the Bus Project's full support, each of the initiatives came out winners-- they walk away with pledges for time, signatures and money as well as a whole new group of supporters.

Every one of the groups did a great job in getting their information out, answering the hard questions, and more. I applaud each of them for their hard work and efforts.

sysadmin's blog

What are the "Centers"?

Submitted by Ruth Adkins on January 10, 2006 - 10:38am.

Thanks so much for this excellent report, Jenni! This is very exciting.

On the Apollo proposal, do you have any more detail on what the "Centers of Clean and Renewable Excellence" are? I love the overall idea but am not clear what this part means.

Thanks!

Possibly...

Submitted by sysadmin on January 10, 2006 - 2:26pm.

It could possibly be in all the info we were given in our binders. I hope to get all of that info onto DFO Action so people can have more information.

If it's not there, we can contact the people running the campaign and see what they say.

Jenni Simonis

More info

Submitted by sysadmin on January 11, 2006 - 12:15am.

Everything we had in our binders can be found here:

http://www.dfoaction.org/2006/creating_oregons_energy_independence

Jenni Simonis

Campaign reform

Submitted by A. Scott (not verified) on January 17, 2006 - 9:20am.

Your #10 is a good start but I would like to see it go even further to reduce the influence special interests have. I would like the State of Oregon to change the way money can be given to political parties and candidates by adopting something similar to a "blind trust." Any money given to any political party, person, or organization would be done anonymously by setting up an account that receives contributions and passes them along without identifying the source of the funds. This would hopefully do two things: eliminate the influence of the big spenders and reduce the money donated. Reducing the money donated should reduce what it costs to become elected and make office more affordable. This would also eliminate the tax deductability of contributions and, therefore, stop the pseudo tax-payer support of elected officials. I would also like to see ANY acceptance of any size gift from any person or organization to an elected official be outlawed and reason for removal from office. There are just too many "parties" where favors are traded and that needs to stop.

ONE Ballot initiative dangerous

Submitted by Clark Geil on January 11, 2006 - 5:09am.

The ONE Ballot campaign, while democratic in intent, will just cause lefties to lose more campaigns. In Oregon, where this law will apply, Republicans tend to elect the more conservative candidate in the primary. Oregon has an electorate that does not like extreme Republicans and because Republicans elect the extreme in the primary, this is the reason they lose. If the ONE Ballot Campaign is successful, Democrats will vote for Liberal Republicans and Republicans will vote for conservative Democrats, so all candidates bill be centrists. This will enable the electorate to vote Republican and will cause many Democratic losses. Also the Democrats who do win will be moderates and will not stand up for the party's issues.

The ONE Ballot campaign got the least votes out of all campaigns. The ONE Ballot campaign is seriously flawed. I believe party primaries are closed for a reason -so that that party can elect a candidate representative of the party. In the ONE Ballot scenario, should Democrats be able to tell Greens who should represent the Green party? No, only the party members should pick someone to represent them. If we wanted to truly embrace the democratic intentions of this initiative, then we should have an initiative to get rid of the party system in the Oregon and run candidates with positions on the issues. It would cause voter to actually think about whom they are voting for and what they want in a politician and a state. What’s the point of party systems? To help spread information about the candidate? More like misinformation. Parties hold too much power; the people should hold more power. Let’s say for example, a man wants to join the Green Party to help support it’s causes, but he wants to make have a say and make the Democrats more accountable. He can't do both and that’s where the good intentions of the ONE Ballot initiative lie - the injustice that voters can't have a say outside of their own party. Getting rid of the partys will do that and it will do it in a truly democratic manner.

Good points...

Submitted by Ginny Ross - DFO on January 11, 2006 - 8:33am.

Thank you for this comment, Clark. As you mentioned the "ONE Ballot" initiative received very few offers of supportat the "Rebooting Democracy" conference this past weekend (www.engageoregon.com). In fact, it was the first measure to be dropped from consideration However, the debate on the topic was very lively and educational. Phil Kiesling is a persuasive speaker and there are many exciting possibilities involving the opening up of our elections to more voices. But this one carries a lot of risk and there seem to be SO many other pressing concerns that demand our immediate attention. I am glad you came here to point out some of the problems with this measure --- thanks.

Initiatives

Submitted by Elizabeth (not verified) on January 11, 2006 - 6:37pm.

Thanks for all of the info. People always ask about this when canvassing and in the past, the Democratic party has not put together a platform on initiatives that is ready to give to people who want more information.

Maybe that's something that could be done by DFO. I think that having understandable summaries for Democratic positions of each year's ballot initatives would be so helpful. It could 'rescue' people struggling to figure out things at the last minute plus would show that Dems are prepared.

Elizabeth