Today's Election Day across the country, such as it is in Oregon with only local races on the ballots in-state. But there's another one coming up in January that you may not be thinking about, and it's an important one--the key question will be an attempt at repeal of the tax fairness measures established by the Legislature last session. The astroturf Freedomworks affiliate in Oregon, strongly assisted by the Oregon Republican Party, secured more than enough signatures to place the question on the ballot, and so here we go playing Russian roulette with basic services again.
Most ballot questions are at least a little convoluted in their makeup, written as they are in legislative legalese and designed to explain something typically very complex in a few vague, catch-all phrases. Make it a ballot item about taxes, however, and the confusion doubles. Who pays what, and how much? Of course, it doesn't help when proponents of repeal have no compunction about misleading and flatly lying on the specifics.
Which businesses are going to be paying more taxes under Measure 67, and which won’t? Which Oregonians will pay more and which Oregonians will get a tax cut on their personal income taxes under Measure 66?
Oregonians now have an easy way to answer those questions with today’s release of two flowcharts by the Oregon Center for Public Policy.
“The flowcharts are designed to bring clarity to the debate over Measures 66 and 67,” said OCPP executive director Chuck Sheketoff. “We want to help the public and the media understand how the two measures work.”
Sheketoff said the impetus for the charts was “widespread confusion about who will be paying more taxes, and how much they will pay.” He attributed the confusion to an opposition campaign that is “banking on fear and misinformed voters to beat the odds.”
Those odds, according to Sheketoff, are based on the fact that “people, not corporations, vote.” About 3 out of 100 taxpayers will see their taxes increase while about 270,000 of Oregon’s 1.5 million taxpayers will have a tax cut under Measure 66, according to an analysis by economists in the legislature’s revenue office.
“Our flowcharts will break through the campaign noise and dispel the fear created by the opposition,” said Sheketoff.
The press release links to the two pdfs showing the flowchart for each measure, but I've got a call in to OCPP in order to get the image versions that I can embed right into the page here. I'll add those when I get them. Edit--how about here and now?
No excuses now, it's easy! Unemployed? You'll likely GET money. One of the vast majority of Oregonians who make less than $125K by themselves, or $250 in their household? Congratulations, you pay nothing extra and get a host of urgently needed basic services in return. Make more than that? Your taxes will indeed go up, but by 2% on just the marginal amount--that is, just the part OVER 125/250K. Are you a corporation? The numbers are different, but the same principle applies--those who can most afford it are the ones taking on the burden (and it finally puts an end to the ridiculous $10 tax bill for corporations privileged to operate in Oregon).
There are just over two months to make sure folks are aware of the election, the ballot measures at hand, and what they mean. But you can distill it into one simple phrase, which I carved into a pumpkin this weekend:
The Oregon Center for Public Policy on Tuesday released a poll they had commissioned from Grove Insights, querying Oregonians on their interest in repealing the corporate and wealthy-household tax hikes passed by the Leg earlier this year in order to balance the budget and restore some fairness to the tax code. (As OCPP Exec Director Chuck Sheketoff points out in a follow-on piece at Blue Oregon, restoring SOME fairness doesn't mean the disparity between individual and corporate rates is yet fair, but baby steps...)
On the surface, the numbers are excellent and perhaps even a bit surprising, given the gloom and doom from some about "when" the changes will be repealed, rather than "if." The money (pun intended) question--how would you vote on the repeal if the election were today?--yielded a 2-1 response opposing it, including a near-majority 48% indicating "strong" opposition. The response to repeal the tax measures garnered 26%, with fewer than one in five voters strongly supportive of the repeal.
Those figures match up with preceding questions that attempted to determine whether voters felt it was more important to hold the line on taxes, or fund basic services such as education, health care and public safety. By a 60-35 margin, respondents answered that it was more important to prevent service cuts. And interestingly, while it appeared that taxes per se were not seen as a negative option for helping to balance the budget, sales tax continues to poll dismally in this state, with 53% against--40% solidly so.
And yet, I have a number of questions that make me wonder how solid these results are--not only how well they'll hold up over the next few months before the election, but whether the poll design was robust enough to paint a truly accurate picture of what we might see in January.
I am totally ripping this off from where it was posted on Facebook by Bus Project mucky-muck Garrett Downen, because--while unofficial--it offers solid advice from him and other members of that august body of do-gooders on how to view the myriad ballot initiatives up for a vote this year. To reiterate, these are not "official" Bus Project positions, but a "sense of the group" memorandum from several of their number. On with it!
Measure 54: Lets 18-year-olds vote in school board elections and gets rid of literacy tests for those elections. While reading and schools clearly go together, literacy tests are...you know...unconstitutional. Plus, what were we doing with stricter requirements for School Board than President? We can't believe we even need this measure but since we do, you should vote for it.
Measure 55: Allows gerrymandering political types to finish their terms in the districts that elected them, even after said wild district redrawing. We want to have Oregonians represented by the people they vote for. Logic and democracy tell you to vote yes.
Measure 56: Gets rid of kooky "double majority" rule for local property bond measures in May and November elections. Right now, a majority of registered voters need to turn out and then a majority of them need to vote for the bond for it to pass. What? While we want everybody to vote in every election, we figure that elections should be decided by voters and not the people who mistake their ballot for a phone bill.
Measure 57 is like Measure 61, but much better. Measure 61 is horrible (see below). Measure 57 was written by the Oregon Legislature and stiffens penalties for property crimes and drug-related offenses. It'll cost less than Measure 61 and it offers treatment to drug offenders and protects older folks.
The major difference between Measures 57 and 61 is that Measure 57 doesn't revel in the destruction of society. Both bills will probably pass, but the one with the most votes wins. So vote yes on 57 and no on 61. Really. Do it now.
The Secretary of State's office has released this notice today:
A certified recount completed Friday showed Measure 53 passing narrowly, just as it did in the first count of the votes after the May 20 primary.
The results of the state-mandated recount showed Measure 53 passing with 490,158 in favor to 489,477 opposed, a difference of 681 votes.
The initial count showed the measure winning 489,592 to 489,042, a margin of 550 votes and well within the margin that triggers an automatic recount by the state. Under Oregon law, the state must conduct a recount when the margin in an election is less than one-fifth of one percent, which is 2,000 votes for every one million cast.
Measure 53 is a constitutional amendment that modifies civil forfeitures related to criminal activity and the use of the proceeds by law enforcement.
In the recount, some counties wound up with only little change in their results while three counties - Baker, Harney and Malheur - had no change at all from the first count to the recount.
This marked Oregon's first recount of a statewide ballot measure since 1994. Recounts that reverse the outcome of a race are extremely rare.
The official recount results can be seen at the state Elections Division web site, www.sos.state.or.us/elections.
Not particularly unexpected, particularly in Oregon where there are no "provisional" or "absentee" ballots to count--you simply run the ballots back through the counter again, and see what totals come back. In this case, 130 votes were added to the "Yes" margin, and 1001 "new" votes were found overall--about .1% of all ballots originally cast for the measure.
With final certification, this means that all three measures on the ballot passed--and I couldn't tell you when the last time THAT happened. I worry about the potential for abuse of these new rules, and why shouldn't I be suspicious about Kevin Mannix and his proposals to "improve" the criminal justice system. Won't it be mighty ironic if Mannix flamed out yet again as a candidate, but scores nothing but victories as an initiative hawker--remember, his Measure 11 booster bill is on the ballot in November, and if it gets more votes than the version passed by the Leg in February, his is the one that becomes law. Which would suck.
(I mean really, that's just sad. I keep telling my BROs these repeal measures are deader than a yella dog in a den fulla cougars, and it's because of nonsense like this. They've insulted the intelligence of otherwise normal people who don't like gay marriage, and they've pissed off the churches to the point that Crowe and his ilk're now having to beg on sidewalks short by post offices for signatures. You know what the truth is? Too many Oregonians think that with everything we have going on in this country and state, who the hell has time to worry about whether domestic benefits will cause the downfall of civilization? BRO could have swung with their eyes closed and hit a triple on this colossal mistake by Crowe. - promoted by torridjoe)
John Hummel, Executive Director of Basic Rights Oregon, today condemned comments made by anti-gay activist David Crowe, who called an elections complaint against his group "Oregon's Own 9-11" and "an attack within our borders." The complaint was filed last week against Crowe's group, "Concerned Oregonians" and another organization gathering signatures to force a vote on Oregon's new family fairness and anti-discrimination laws.
"This comparison is incredibly disrespectful not only to the mourning of our nation but to the families of those who died and to those who fought so hard to saves lives at Ground Zero," Hummel said. "For David Crowe to compare his own self-inflicted legal troubles to the events of 9/11 is beyond comprehension, purely reprehensible and downright bizarre."
In an e-mail with the subject line "Defaming To Destroy: Oregon's Own 9-11," Concerned Oregonians leader David Crowe complains of a "September Day of Infamy" occasioned by the elections complaint. The complaint, filed last week by ballot watchdog Ellen Lowe, alleges that Concerned Oregonians is violating the law by soliciting campaign donations while unlawfully promising donors that they are eligible for a "dollar for dollar" political tax credit. The Secretary of State has said that it plans to investigate the complaint.
Crowe's email also singled out a Eugene, OR pastor who has alerted other churches to the complaint. Rev. Dr. Dan Bryant, of First Christian Church in Eugene, sent a letter to 3,000 pastors last week sharing his concerns about the group. Crowe's email says that Rev. Bryant is "part of a cabal that begins with the Governor, extends through Basic Rights Oregon, the law firm of Smith, Diamond and Olney, and into 'ecumenical' church leadership in Oregon."
RSS Feed: http://www.loadedorygun.net/rss/rss2.xml
