Update: 6:17PM: Willamette Week has more, including a slew of heavily redacted stuff that Kroger's office released late this afternoon. In a nutshell: the AG can't investigate because alleged events took place outside their jurisdiction. However, it would appear that it is within the jurisdiction of the San Diego' [...]
...collectively in reserve and carry over funds of individual departments of the state government that have not been tapped. His buddy Russ Walker of Keizer, vice-president of the Oregon Republicans said action by the state Legislature could free up some of those funds rather than raising taxes by passing Measure 66 [...]
There's a bunch of news in the Governor's race, so let's run down the headlines.
Last week, I took note of some rumblings of an effort to draft House GOP leader Bruce Hanna into the Governor's race. At the O, Jeff Mapes gets Hanna on the record - and [...]On Monday, a local kid named Ndamukong Suh was named one of five finalists for the Heisman Trophy, the most prestigious individual award in college football (and, arguably, in all of sport.)
The selection of Suh, who went to Portland's Grant H.S. and now [...]
According to the Oregonian's Jeff Mapes, Oregon AFL-CIO's political committee met today and while they decided to take a position in some down ballot races, postponed making a decision on the Governor's race until March 2010. From Mapes:
The unions have two Democrats with a strong pro-labor record in former [...]
A young Portland woman named Lauren Edelson had a very nice piece in the Sunday Times. I won't summarize it because it's excellent, and funny, and deserves to be read in its entirety. Here's to you, Lauren!
Good ol' Bill Sizemore. Despite his indictment on state tax evasion charges (arraignment today), he's not keeping his mouth shut.
Saturday night, he appeared on KGW's "Straight Talk" show. And showed us all once again how he's been able to survive all these years by sweet-talking folks out of' [...]
A few Fridays ago, I had the chance to check out the kickoff of Rex Burkholder's campaign for Metro president. More than 200 folks crowded the ballroom of the Leftbank Project on Broadway, the site of the old jazz club The Dude Ranch from years ago. [...]
Last week I posted an unhappy piece on President Obama's Afghanistan decision. It drew a healthy mix of comments, including some amazement that critics like me apparently didn't hear or remember candidate Obama's support for escalating the war there. That's not accurate; many of us heard it, didn't like [...]
"All politics is local." It may be the ultimate political maxim.
Politicians and journalists instinctively understand the importance of place in peoples' lives--at least the good ones do. Yet, when it comes to governance, everyone also intuitively knows the struggle to deliver programs that are informed and responsive to what' [...]
The plot in LetterGate, the effort by the big-corporate-funded campaign to scare and confuse Oregon voters, is getting thicker than churned butterfat.
It began with a letter tobacco- and beer-industry lobbyist Mark Nelson mailed to households in the state with a return address from an abandoned BedMart store in Salem. In [...]
By David Robinson of Beaverton, Oregon. David is a Democratic candidate for Congress in Oregon's First Congressional District. David is a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, and later taught future naval officers there. He is presently a commander in the Navy Reserves. Learn more at DavidRobinson2010.com.
Stay-the-course and [...]
Over at NW Republican, blogger Ted Piccolo isn't very impressed by Chris Dudley and his big ol' out-of-state cash haul.
The cash is impressive, his brain team? Not so much. ...Topping the list of very impressive politicians is... wait for it.... WAYNE SCOTT! Yayyyy! Whoooo whoooo.
I mean really? Wayne Scott [...]
By Evan Manvel of Portland, Oregon. Evan is a long-time environmental advocate and the legislative director for the Oregon League of Conservation Voters. In August, he contributed "The way democracy is supposed to work."
Since junior high school, I've been working to protect the environment - this fragile spaceship we' [...]
I talked with state Sens. Frank [...]
In 2007, a whole bunch of interested folks came together with the legislature to reconfigure the system for managing the Portland region’s urban and rural land use issues. The system in place wasn't protecting critical farmland or natural resources over the long term and was failing to consider how to' [...]
Blogger and Yamhill County resident Randy Stapilus says uber-conservative Mary Starrett is throwing her hat into the ring for Yamhill County Commissioner:
One of the more naturally skillful minor party candidates the Northwest has seen in the last few cycles is Mary Starrett, who ran for governor in 2006 as [...]...to give the O Administration some benefit of the doubt. I've tried to do that because 1) what O inherited on Jan 20 was a thankless task and a multi-dimensional mess that is FUBAR 2) any criticism that might indirectly bolster attacks from the Limbaugh-Beck-Kristol-Gingrich' [...]
With Congress occupied in the grinding process of health reform, the estate-tax-repeal train has been getting ready to leave the station. Absent congressional action, the estate tax will cease to exist for one year in 2010.
The one-year repeal of the estate tax, a key barrier against the rise of [...]
As I’ve mentioned before, I’m working for the Yes campaign on Measures 66 and 67. Facing an opposition effort led by a tobacco lobbyist, we suspected we might have to debunk a few false claims, and we’ve yet to be disappointed. But this week, Mark Nelson took it to a whole new [...]
Yesterday, President Obama detailed his plan for troop increases for Afghanistan. The Oregonian's Charlie Pope pulled together the responses from Oregon's congressional delegation. Here's some excerpts:
Sen. Ron Wyden – D
“I am skeptical that committing tens of thousands of additional men and women -- and billions of additional tax dollars [...]On Carla's post yesterday about the so-called "job-killing taxes", a commenter (Bob Wiggins) marched out a tried-and-true line to attack the measures.
Whether or not this particular business will be hurt seems less important than the fact that these tax measures together will suck [...]Update: 5:00PM: I do my best under regular circumstances (meaning when news outlets are smart enough to not put up insanely stupid firewalls) to link to material and excerpt just a little so that readers will click through and read the full material. The Bend Bulletin chooses to tie the [...]
The Oregonian has a nice little story about how workers’ compensation insurance costs are going up 7.6 percent on average in Washington next year. Meanwhile, the pure premium rate (the rate set by the state of Oregon that insurers use to calculate premiums) in Oregon will drop 1.3 percent [...]
In the uber-market-tested world of campaigns, I suspect "job-killing-taxes" was found to be at least an 8 on the absolute scale of awesomeness when it comes to trying to defeat the revenue measures on the ballot. After all, everybody likes jobs. Nobody wants to "kill" them. That said, the dubious [...]
The Yes on 66 & 67 campaign is up with an ad on the air - the first one since a summertime ad blitz from opponents. This initial Yes ad hits hard on the fact that Oregon's corporate minimum tax has been stuck at $10 since 1931.
It's a [...]
Since I came on board as Executive Director of the Oregon League of Conservation Voters two months ago, one of the most frequent questions I’ve been asked is “What are you going to do to recruit and help elect pro-environment Republicans?” My answer has been "Everything we can! Oregon's'" [...]
Having fallen victim to the mean and nasty citizenry who continue to spurn his electoral advances, Bill Sizemore's status as serial victim rolls on. It used to just be the unions that were nipping at Bill's heels. No more. Now it's the whole of Oregon's judicial [...]
Do you know about the citizen wisdom movement? It's been used in places like Canada and Australia more than here. It's smart. There are different ways to adapt it to have impact, and to refresh some fact-based idealism that public policy can have visible connection [...]
Look who ended up on the front page of this morning's Oregonian: Chuck Sheketoff. The profile, by Oregonian political reporter Jeff Mapes, is rich with info. It details Chuck's personal background and his long battle for economic justice at the Oregon Center for Public Policy. And mostly, it [...]
There's never been a Civil War game like the one this week. With a nationally-televised Thursday-night game, the Ducks and Beavers will face off - and the winner goes to the Rose Bowl. (And takes home the Platypus Trophy, too!)
While much of Oregon's in-state sports media is focused on this week's Civil War game between the OSU Beavers and U of O Ducks, the consistently excellent Linfield College Wildcats in the lovely burg of McMinnville have put together a pretty fantastic season of their own.
The NCAA Division [...]
Multnomah County Commission Chair Ted Wheeler broke two vertebrae in his back skiing. Not surprisingly for those who are long-time Wheeler followers on Twitters (@tedwheeler), that's where the news first "broke":
tedwheeler In hosp. w/ broken back, shoulder, and slight facial lacerations from skiing accident. Full recovery expected. [twitpic.com]
If you're a Portland Water Bureau customer situated west of the Willamette River, boil your tap water.
Yech.
(I originally wrote this in 2004. I've made some minor tweaks but its essentially the same piece. Happy Thanksgiving to all)
The most formative person in my life when I was a child was my great grandmother.
Having been raised in an extended' [...]
I attended my first march on Portland streets in about 1987. The precise reason for this demonstration now eludes me, but it was during my freshman year of college. For a college student during the Reagan administration, this was not a remarkable act. Over the years, I've attended dozens more.
So the hawks circling Obama will get their escalation in Afghanistan. God save us!
It galls me how these people pose as Brave Thinkers Who (Alone) Understand The Dangerous World We Live In:
I say to them: if the troop surge so vital to our security, show real political spine and support [...]
Over at FireDogLake, David Dayen takes note of a new directive from the US Conference of Catholic Bishops that forbids Catholic-run hospitals, and the doctors and nurses that work in them, from "removing feeding tubes or ending palliative procedures of any kind, even when the individual has an" [...]
The big news today is that John Minnis, the state's police training director and a former GOP state senator (and spouse of former GOP House Speaker Karen Minnis), has resigned his post - amidst a criminal investigation.
The big question: what's he being investigated for?
Presumably, it's big. The investigation is [...]
In an Oregonian guest opinion today, Blue Oregon contributor Jesse Cornett urges police union members to reject the no-confidence measure targeted at Commissioner Saltzman and Chief Sizer:
This week, your union executive board is asking you to take a vote of no confidence on Portland Police Chief Rosie Sizer and Commissioner [...]
What will be at stake when Measures 66 and 67 are on the ballot January 26? The services that make up 90% of the state budget – education, health care and public safety. The State pays most of the cost of public school for over 550,000 children; provides Oregon Health Plan coverage for [...]
Word is out this morning that President Obama has decided to send an additional 34,000 troops to Afghanistan. If true, this could well rank as the worst decision so far in his Administration.
The fiasco of the Afghan elections, which underscored the Karzai government’s lack of any real [...]
"There's an old saying in Tennessee — I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again." —George W. Bush, Nashville, Tenn., Sept. 17, 2002
The Oregon political world's radar blipped yesterday upon' [...]
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Bill Sizemore has filed to run for Governor - setting up a possible Kitzhaber/Sizemore rematch, pending primary races in both parties. (Kitzhaber beat Sizemore in 1998 by a margin of 64% to 30%.)
What do his fellow Republicans think? At the O, [...]
I made it to the Left Bank Thursday to watch Al Gore endorse Bill Bradbury. "Endorse" barely covers it; if you were to write the speech you'd want to hear from a national bigshot to launch your campaign, you could pretty much transcribe what Gore' [...]
The Sunday Oregonian featured a story comparing two businesses and their different views of Measures 66 and 67. Paloma Clothing’s owner Mike Roach said he supports the measures. The other business owner, Bess Wills of Gresham Ford, said that the new minimum tax will [...]
As I sit here writing this post I know I'm about to dive into the equivalent of a boiling vat of hot lava. I'd like to be able to just let it go, walk away and move on with my life. But it just keeps coming back--like a toothache I've' [...]
"It might as well have cooties. Hardly anyone wants to touch the thing, or get close to it," wrote Steve Rubenstein in a special column to the San Fransico Chronicle. According to Rubenstein many nonchain bookstores won't sell it, with one bookseller telling him, "Our customers are thinking people, they're" [...]
A couple of days ago, Dave Frohnmayer made front-page news with a report he submitted to the State Board of Higher Education. In it, he suggested that Oregon's three largest public universities should adopt the OHSU model of autonomy. The state contributes a diminishing amount to universities--down 44% in' [...]
By Erik Fernandez of Portland, Oregon. Erik is the wilderness coordinator for Oregon Wild.
Congressman Kurt Schrader showed he knows how to get the job done in Washington DC by moving legislation at warp speed through the US House of Representatives.
Yesterday, the [...]
(H/T to Daniel Powter)
Well, you need a blue sky holiday
The point is they laugh at what you say
And I don't need no carryin' on
You had a bad day
You're taking one down
You sing a sad song just to turn it around' [...]
In what may become known as a key turning point for the Bill Bradbury's gubernatorial campaign, Vice President and Nobel Peace Prize winner Al Gore announced his endorsement of Bradbury at this morning's sold out fundraiser at the Left Bank. While it was no secret Gore was supportive of Bradbury's' [...]
Despite my damn fine profile on him posted yesterday here at the big Blue O, Democratic candidate for Oregon Governor Steve Shields is dropping out.
I spoke briefly with Betsy Henning, Shields' campaign manager. Hennings said that they discovered during the process that Shields' skill set wasn't a good match' [...]
Ninety percent of Oregon's budget goes to schools, health care and public safety. But another critical piece -- and one of the reasons the Oregon League of Conservation Voters is strongly behind the campaign for Measures 66 and 67 -- is that the January ballot measures will directly impact Oregon's ability [...]
By Ivan Maluski of Portland, Oregon. Ivan is the Conservation Program Coordinator for the Oregon Chapter Sierra Club.
Last week, the Sierra Club, the Northwest Energy Coalition, and numerous other Oregon conservation and ratepayer organizations sent an open letter (pdf) to Governor Ted Kulongoski, asking him to work with [...]
Over at the Cook Political Report, they've done their baseline report on the U.S. Senate race in 2010. Key excerpts:
Oregon is very difficult terrain for Republicans. Democrats hold an 11-point advantage in voter registration, 43 percent to 32 percent, while another 26 percent are unaffiliated. Republicans lost a Senate' [...]In comments made on MSNBC's Ed Schultz Show, Congressman Peter DeFazio wants President Obama to fire his top two economic advisers. At Huffington Post, Sam Stein has the story:
"We think it is time, maybe, that we turn our focus to Main Street -- we reclaim some of the unspent" [...]When met in a somewhat noisy SW Portland coffee shop, Oregon gubernatorial candidate Steve Shields fidgeted with his beverage before we sat down to chat. His campaign manager Betsy Henning had scored us three comfy chairs in the back where we hoped it will be a little quieter.
OK, with everything else going on, this one's not exactly on the front burner. But one thing I'd like to know from the Guv candidates is how many chips they're ready to spend to reverse the 1990s initiative measure that commits every dime of gas [...]
It's a fairly regular occurrence. A couple times a year, some friend of mine will ask me to help them think about running for office. Usually, it's some random local office - and they want me to help them figure out what it would take to win.
Inevitably, I table that [...]
Following up on yesterday's post about the state of the media in Oregon, the good folks at OPB and Portland City Club are way ahead of me.
This Saturday (November 21) in Portland, OPB and the City Club of Portland are holding a day-long conference called "We Make" [...]
It ends where it began.
Back in June, when I first wrote about the sad saga of Sid Leiken, I wrote: "It's a pretty simple rule, actually. If you're a candidate for office, your campaign committee can't pay a business that you own to do work for them."
Yesterday, the state [...]
Iowa pioneered a common sense approach to reducing minority overrepresentation in the criminal-justice system. Major papers say Oregon should follow.
For the past 48 hours, I have been working with Rep. Wayne Ford (D-Des Moines, Iowa) to build momentum for passage of Racial Impact Legislation here like that which Rep. Ford [...]
Dear Blue Oregonians,
When I was working for the Justice Department, I helped start a tradition of celebrating Robert Kennedy’s birthday. When I left, I promised to go back every year to continue the tradition. So I spend every November 20 in Washington, D.C. Which usually means that I miss my good friend [...]
I've seen a number of discussions floating about the internet tubes on how the print media (at least in the Portland area) appears to be on life-support. Television journalism in Oregon essentially AWOL, as far as I can tell.
I missed the Portland City Club discussion on' [...]
The O's David Sarasohn pinned down Congressman Peter DeFazio on whether he's still considering a run for Governor in 2010. The answer? You bet.
Last spring, DeFazio talked about making a decision on the governor's race by Labor Day, and now Kitzhaber and Bradbury have been running for months. When will [...]During the past couple of weeks there's been a lotta bold talk about how we need to get out there and attack certain of our elected representatives as they are just too wobbly and clueless to Do the Right Thing without the input of our own Serious Thinkers.
Well, OK, there's' [...]
I just sent an Open Letter to Harry Reid:
With the latest Pew Research Center Poll showing anti-incumbent anger raging as bad as the majority-changing elections of 1994 and 2006, I reflected on 1992--when I ran for the Senate in an anti-"Insider" year and observed the following:
With gargantuan budget deficits, [...]
There's an old joke that juries are generally made up of twelve people too stupid to get out of jury duty. It's entirely possible that I'm just a geek, but I consider that joke a complete insult to civic duty. I've never much appreciated the humor in that particular line. [...]
In Oregon, we can be proud that all four of our Democratic members of the U.S. House voted for the health care reform bill - and against the terrible, awful, no-good, very bad Stupak amendment. There are only eight other states with a similar 100% record among their [...]
We didn’t need the Pew Center on the States to tell us this, but they did it anyway: Oregon is facing a severe financial crisis. Based on several factors, the Pew Center has listed Oregon as one of the ten states in most “fiscal peril,” tied with Nevada for #5. California’s fiscal [...]
As I was following last week’s elections, I was reminded of a debate that took place here in Oregon earlier this year. Careful observers of the referendums that were on the ballot in Maine and Washington might have noticed that supporters of equality were rooting for two very different outcomes on each measure. In [...]
Today, Lee Beyer announced that he's running for State Senate district 6, in the Eugene area. He previously represented that area for ten years in the Legislature, before being appointed in 2001 to the Public Utility Commission by Governor John Kitzhaber.
His spouse, Rep. Terry Beyer, serves in the House. If' [...]
It is an odd and curious duality: the lobbyist who doubles as an anti-tax-fairness advocate. On one hand there's the individual whose day job is to cruise the halls of the various legislative offices with a hand out, looking to score some government cash for the pet project, idea, notion, [...]
By Paul Evans of Monmouth, Oregon. Paul is an Air Force veteran who served in Afghanistan. He is also a former mayor of Monmouth. Previously, he contributed "Re-assessing and re-thinking our military structure"
Today is Veterans' Day. A day each year that our country at least attempts to recognize the' [...]
Today is the day that was Armistice Day: the end of World War I, the Great War — the War to End All Wars. Except it wasn’t. And now, on the day when once the hope was we would never celebrate the end of any war, we celebrate warriors. Kind [...]
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
Discuss. [...]At the O, Jeff Mapes reports that Governor Ted Kulongoski arrived in Iraq yesterday to visit with Oregon troops. Despite being in a combat zone, Kulongoski told reporters that the troops are concerned with how things will go when they arrive home:
Kulongoski said in a conference call with reporters [...]A couple of weeks ago I was walking through the farmers market and an Obama volunteer stopped me. I brake for Obama, so I waited for his pitch. Obama man handed me a flyer, asked me to "sign up for health care!" and call my elected officials. I read the [...]
On October 30, a fire broke out at 5 a.m. at the SEIU Local 49 office in Portland. At the time, a number of folks noted in the comments on BlueOregon that the Tea Party Express was making the Portland stop on their nationwide tour that day. A pure [...]
There’s been a lot of reminiscing this morning about the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, which has become a symbol of “people power” and liberation. I’ve got a chunk of the wall at home, which a colleague who was in Germany at the time brought [...]
For the first time in American history, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to approve a universal health insurance program. (TPM has an excellent description of what's actually in the bill.)
The vote was 220 in favor and 215 against (roll call). One Republican, Anh Cao (R-LA), joined 219 [...]
As the US House of Representatives draws closer to a vote on HR3962, the House version of the health care reform bill, Representative Kurt Schrader has announced he will vote in favor of the bill. Schrader explained his decision in a statement on his website:
Today Congressman Kurt Schrader (D-OR) announced [...]
Update 1:00PM: David at HorsesAss has some interesting commentary on this as well.
Update: 11:15AM: It would appear that even though the main office line isn't being answered, the internal staff lines are. Rep. Schrader's Legislative Director is Chris Huckleberry. His office number is [redacted -editor. Main number is 202-225-5711.]. [...]
by Nancie Koerber of Central Point. Koerber started her career in sales more than 30 years ago. She has owned and operated a successful insurance agency, real estate brokerage and currently runs Champions Realtime Training in Central Point.
I've just returned from a three day trip to Washington DC with 134' [...]
We are like the skinny kid sitting on the end of the bench on a basketball team when it comes to playing the game against millions of dollars flowing into Oregon to defeat Oregon's tax measures on the January ballot. We are not like the other team all lined up [...]
While Charlie Burr at BlueOregon accused me of stooping "to take the luster off" the Al Gore endorsement of Bradbury by reporting here on the genuine history of bad blood between Gore and Kitzhaber, over at Willamette Week, reporter Hank Stern admits that, journalistically, I simply beat him to a [...]
It appears that the Oregon League of Conservation Voters is getting ready to take their political work to the next level.
First, the Oregonian has a Q&A with OLCV's new Executive Director, Jon Isaacs:
How are Oregon environmentalists doing politically?The environmental community does not get the respect it deserves from [...]
Oregonians with short memories may think Gore’s endorsement of Bradbury in Oregon’s Democratic gubernatorial primary is a singular act of political love for Oregon’s ex-secretary of state.
But that misses an intriguing subplot.
Gore’s move is the continuation of a decades long feud with Oregon ex-governor Kitzhaber, Bradbury’s leading primary opponent, dating back to Gore’s [...]
Former Trailblazer Chris Dudley is thinking about running for Oregon Governor on the GOP side. He's got himself a website on training wheels that includes some nice photos, but nothing so far that gives us a real sense of the guy and what he's about.
I'm not so in to' [...]
Vice-President Al Gore will be in Portland on November 19th and will hold a fundraising event for gubernatorial candidate Bill Bradbury. According to the Oregonian's Harry Esteve:
Bill Bradbury, Democratic candidate for governor, has scored the first big fund-raising coup of the race, booking former Vice President and Nobel prizewinner Al [...]
By Senator Jeff Merkley. Senator Merkley is the junior Senator for Oregon.
I know everyone is tuned in to the big political issues right now: the debate over health care, the battle to rein in the Wall Street banks, and the fight to invest in American energy independence.
These issues are ones [...]
What do the GOP triumphs in New Jersey and Virginia mean for Obama, mainstream Democrats and their agenda?
Ignore the palaver of the punditry; there’s no “megatrend” here. But the important micro question is: in the Democratic cloakroom, what will be the gut assessment of Obama’s power to punish or reward [...]
