Vote! Ballot Endorsements for 2014 Election in Oregon

VoteVote!

Ready to send in your ballot, but not sure about all the measures?  A group of us put together the ballot endorsements below just in case you wanted suggestions in filling out your ballot.  After studying the issues, here’s our 2 cents worth:

People
YES for Jeff Merkley, Earl Blumenauer, and John Kitzhaber.  For local Oregon races, we generally recommend OLCV’s candidate endorsements.
 
Candidates
Measure 86 – Post-secondary education fund – YES
Measure 87 – Employment of state judges – YES
Measure 88 – Driver cards – YES!!!
Let’s join California and Washington to create a route for everyone on the roads to take a driving test and access car insurance.
Measure 89 – Can’t abridge rights based on sex – YES
Measure 90 – Change general election nomination process – NO!!!
This is a tricky but important one.  Per election scholar Josh Berezin, “It solves none of the problems it aims to solve. This is a basically a play for business interests to get business Democrats and corporate Republicans elected. This NW Labor Press article about the measure from a union perspective explains it very well. Other states with this system — Louisiana, California, Washington — have seen the costs of “primary” elections go up (a candidate has to communicate with the entire electorate, not just the candidate’s party members), with no increase in voter participation among independents. It has also led to the dreaded situation in which, say, a strongly Democratic district ends up with two Republicans in the general election! Happened in California in 2012. Imagine 4 Democrats and 2 Republicans running in the same primary where the top 2 emerge. Four Democrats split the Democratic vote into smaller pieces than the two Republicans; the two Republicans “win” the primary. Pretty crazy.”
Measure 91 – Legalize marijuana – YES
It’s about time, Oregon!  Campaign website.
Measure 92 – Label GMOs – YES!
Here comes the money flood.  This was beaten back in WA and CA.  This is about your right to know what you put in your mouth and who you support with your pocketbook, not whether GMOs should or should not be part of our food system.  Let’s win it in Oregon. Here’s the campaign website.
Local government
Portland – parks bond – YES!
Metro – Extends amendment that prohibits Metro-mandated density increases in single family neighborhoods – TOSS UP
This amendment was originally introduced and passed back in 2002 as an alternative to a draconian measure from anti-planning group Oregonians in Action to strip Metro of its planning authority (which failed).  The measure that passed had a 12 year sunset clause and a requirement that Metro put it back on the ballot before then, so here we go again.  Metro can’t dictate density increases anyway; that level of detail is up to individual cities and counties.  So a YES vote keeps Metro from doing things it can’t do anyway. And a NO vote lets this silly amendment sail off happily into the sunset.  Either vote sounds fine to us.
Portland – public school levy renewal – YES
Cheers,
– Eli Spevak, Noelle Studer-Spevak, Jim Labbe, Josh Berezin, Lee Dayfield, Linda Robinson, Albert Kaufman, Ted Labbe, Kelly Rogers

Register to vote online in Oregon NOW!

Vote

yes on 92 and yes on 91

Sensible Changes Coming to Oregon – Be a part of history!

Let’s legalize marijuana – I want to see us sending less people to jail for no good reason. Labeling GMOs also makes sense. Voter registration in Oregon ends on 10.14 – don’t miss this historic opportunity!

Ed: 11.13.19 – Recreational Cannabis is now legal in Oregon! We won!

I’d love to legalize marijuana here in Oregon in a couple days. There are so many reasons this makes sense – not putting people in jail unnecessarily (freeing funds for other actual problems) – creating all sorts of job – making it easier for people who need marijuana-related products for healing to receive them, legally – reducing peoples’ intake of alcohol (more on that another time, but I see a connection) – hemp may be the best answer to a lot of problems we face today – climate change, clear-cut logging of Oregon forests for paper products. Anyway, I think I could probably brainstorm about 100 reasons why this will be good for Oregon (tourism) – feel free to add your thoughts in the comments section below. The news media mainly focuses on tax revenue – but I think that’s just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the positives!

We have 5 days left to register to vote here. And then, we get our ballots in 9 days, and then we vote.

We will also vote to Label GMOs (poison), which would delight me. As far as I can tell GMOs are poisons that are increasing the rates of cancer. By labeling any products that have them – I believe it will force food companies to reformulate their products (as they’ve done in other countries) so they can avoid having to include a GMO label. I learned about this and more in the film GMO OMG which has been showing around town. The film-makers are making screening rights free for anyone who wants to host a gathering on the topic – it’s quite brilliant and I highly recommend viewing it if you’re interested in learning more about the issue.

Some relevant links to share:

Register to vote on-line here

  1. Vote yes on 91 – Legalize It! Vote Yes on 91 – Endorsers
  2. Vote yes on 92 – Label GMO (poison) – YES!

91: Video with Rick Steves

92: Lively Video about GMOs by my friend, Dana Lyons

Thanks for your efforts to get everyone you know registered to vote. Know someone who has moved in the last 2 years? Know someone who turned or turns 18 before election day? Send them this link, thanks!

https://secure.sos.state.or.us/orestar/vr/register.do?lang=eng

Both of these campaigns can also use our $-support and any time you can spare to Get out the Vote (GOTV) – Bring a posse with you for best results 🙂