The full press release is attached

Attached below is the full text of the complaint filed yesterday in Marion County Circuit Court. Also attached is the letter from the Secretary of State’s office stating an intent not to enforce Measure 47. Also attached is the full text of Measure 47 from the 2006 Oregon General Election Voters’ Pamphlet.

Below are comments contributed by the plaintiffs in the case.

Contribute your thoughts here on where we go from here. In addition to the lawsuit for enforcement of Measure 47, should we ask the Legislature to refer to voters a CFR constitutional amendment? Should we be surprised if the Legislature repeals all of Measure 47, despite its enactment by voters?

Below is progressive events calendar for March and April. If you know of an event you think should be listed please send me the details at davidafd1@hotmail.com.

Last night at the David Cobb/Riki Ott event at the 1st UU Church, we begin the event with a musical number by Dave Edwards and David Lyles, titled We the People Solumnly. They have a YTube video of it and is worth seeing. Link to it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohlj4OpVgeM. I think it should be called A Railroad is not a Person.

You can suggest groups to add to our list of Oregon Progressive Groups. Send an email to info@progparty.org with your suggestions. Thank you.

Full Calendar Here (break out of frame)

From the Alliance for Democracy, Portland Chapter

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On-going Events.
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The Kinton Grange is sponsoring a Film Series on Agriculture and Food starting Wednesday, Jan 20 and continuing on the 1st and 3rd Wedneday through April.

The Kinton Grange is part of a national organization created for the benefit of farmers and eaters in 1868, a time of national crisis and recovery following the War Between the States.

Those who formed the Progressive Party of Oregon have long been opponents of state-promoted gambling. While it may raise money for government, it does so by destroying the lives of its victims and their families. It is immoral.

Oregon Lottery addicted to big losses of gambling addicts

by Brent Walth, The Oregonian
November 14, 2009

The Oregon Lottery is addicted to addicted gamblers.

More than half the money the lottery collects from video gambling -- about $375 million last year -- comes from a small number of Oregonians, many with big gambling problems.

These gamblers tell the lottery they lose more than $500 a month, every month. They represent only 10 percent of Oregon's video gamblers but account for 53 percent of the money lost, according an analysis of three years' worth of the lottery's data obtained by The Oregonian under the state's public records law.    Read more ...

Those who formed the Progressive Party of Oregon have long been opponents of state-promoted gambling. While it may raise money for government, it does so by destroying the lives of its victims and their families. It is immoral.

Is the Oregon Lottery for us, or against us?

by The Oregonian Editorial Board
December 31, 2009

It was a dark bargain that Oregonians struck in 1984, when they overwhelmingly approved an initiative to create the Oregon Lottery.

Exactly how dark, though, may have become starkly, painfully clear only in the past year. And now it seems our state has reached a new low. In a new advertising campaign, the lottery telegraphs a more primitive appeal, one that problem gamblers may find very difficult to resist.

If experts on problem gambling are to be believed, the new campaign lures and excites addicted Oregonians, all but inviting them to deepen their dependency -- and their despair.

New spots featuring Zeus and Cleopatra incorporate images of people gambling at video terminals, whirring wheels and punching buttons -- images that may not do anything for you. But experts on gambling addiction say such imagery can trigger compulsive behavior.    Read more ...

We recognize that people around the world all seek similar things: dignity, security, economic justice, human rights, and a healthy environment.

Unlike Democrats and Republicans we support these platform stances.

OREGON ISSUES

• We have worked for real campaign finance reform, not the fake “reforms” promoted by Democrats and Republicans. The Democratic Party of Oregon even opposed the 2006 Oregon campaign finance reform ballot measures that severely limited corporate influence in Oregon’s elections.

• We want a State Bank, modeled after North Dakota’s, to invest in Oregon jobs for Oregonians and to stop the State Treasurer and the Oregon Investment Council from speculating in the stock market and jumping in bed with corporate raiders and Wall Street fast-buck artists.

• We want fair taxation. Even after Measure 66 and 67 Oregon still has the 4th highest income taxes of any state on lower-income working families and is still at the bottom in taxes on corporations.

• We want to stop government promotion of gambling (like video poker and video slots) and stop giving away $100 million per year in commissions to the “delis” that have these addictive machines.

• We want to make the initiative and referendum again available to grassroots efforts, instead of making it so complicated and expensive that only corporations, unions, and out-of-state special interests can afford to use it.

• We advocate abolishing the Oregon Senate, leaving the 60 member Oregon House of Representative. Keeping two bodies in the State Legislature allows both to become beholden to corporate interests and avoid responsibility.

NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL ISSUES

Human Rights/Dignity

• We support same sex marriage and full equal rights for all regardless of sexual orientation. Our family values are that all members of the human family deserve compassion, equality, and love.

• The U.S. will adhere to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and use all resources to influence our trading partners to do the same.

• The U.S. will not provide economic or military aid to regimes that practice genocide, aparthaid, and break international human rights laws.

• We oppose “free trade” deals and economic policy that reduces the opportunities, environmental safety, and human rights of individuals in the developing world.

• We support Health Care as a human right. Single Payer, Improved and Expanded Medicare for all is the solution the the health care crisis.

• We want to end racial and immigrant profiling and end the militarization of our police.

Security

• We advocate a strong United Nations as the guarantor of world peace; the U.S. military budget will be markedly reduced and the Department of Peace will be instituted.

• The U.S. will never again engage in a preventive war of choice and will only act unilaterally when our security is clearly threatened.

• We must end the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan.

• The U.S will ban all arms exports and use our leverage with our trading partners to influence them to do the same and not increase weapons exports as is the current Democratic Administration’s agenda to increase overall U.S. exports.

• The U.S. will not interfere in the activities of democratically elected governments anywhere.

• The U.S. will have effective gun control.

Opportunity

• Every American will have access to a quality education to the full extent of their abilities.

• Every American will have access to guaranteed quality health care, regardless of their financial means.

• Immigrant workers will receive full protection of our labor laws.

Economic Justice

• We oppose Wall Street bailouts and believe people must be placed over profit.

• End “too big to fail” policy.

• We will work to end poverty.

• Our minimum wage laws will be adjusted to ensure that every full-time adult worker receives a living wage.

• Trade policy will embrace workers' rights, environmental protection, and living wages around the world.

• The "personhood" of corporations will end.

• We believe in a balanced federal budget, except in times of national emergency.

Environment

• We need a sustainable energy future where we say NO to nuclear, coal, and offshore drilling.

• Present and future generations are entitled to a healthy environment; sustainability will be our guide.

• Funding environmentally sound alternative energy sources will be a top national priority.

Signing up below will allow us to send you email about the activities of the Progressive Party of Oregon. If you wish to become involved, please Join the Progressive Party Group.

For More Information Contact:
Philip Kauffman at 503.250.0327
Paul Hochfeld at 541.740.4065
Tour Overview Video: www.madashelldoctorsvideo.com

Back From Whirlwind U.S. Tour to DC, Oregon’s Mad As Hell Doctors Hold Town Hall on Health Care in Portland. Address Problems with Current House Bill and Advocate for a Single Payer Health Care Solution.

Oregon’s Mad As Hell Doctors will hold a Health Care Town Hall on Sunday November 15 from 7 PM - 9 PM at the First Unitarian Church in downtown Portland (1034 SW 13th).

Jerry Wilson, CEO of Soloflex and other businesses, has announced that he is running to become Governor of Oregon in the November 2010 election and is seeking the nomination of the Progressive Party.

If you have an Oregon driver's license or State ID card, you can now Register to Vote On-Line or change your existing registration (address, party membership, etc.).

If not, you can download and print a PDF voter registration form, fill it out, sign it, and mail it in.

Print out the form. Mark the circle next to Progressive Party. Sign it. Mail it to your county elections office (addresses are on the second page of the form). Don't forget the 49 cent stamp (or a "forever stamp")! You do not need to send in the second page of the form.

If you are already registered and are simply changing your registration to the Progressive Party, you do not need to send in any of the ID materials mentioned on the form (driver's license, etc.).

Also, if you go to the county elections office or the Post Office to get a registration form, it may not offer you the choice of the Progressive Party. At the county elections office, be sure to ask for the correct form--the one that includes the Progressive Party--and ask them to offer only that form to everyone.

Update: Voter registration forms listing the Progressive Party are now available from the Oregon Secretary of State, who is distributing them to county elections offices. But some of those offices are still trying to use the old forms.

We tried to get a bigger room, but there were not enough seats for the 400+ who heard Ralph Nader speak about single payer health care at Portland State University on October 4. Watch below.

Ralph Nader will be speaking at two events in Portland on Sunday, October 4th. The first will be a speech on single payer healthcare sponsored by Single Payer Action (singlepayeraction.org) and Portland State University's Model UN student group.

Portland State University
University Place
2nd Floor Ballroom
310 SW Lincoln St.
Sunday, October 4th 2009.
1-3pm including a Q&A session

Then later Ralph will be at Powell’s Books on 1005 W. Burnside at 7:30pm to speak about his new book “Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us.” Check out the reviews below:

“Since the Progressive era, Ralph Nader has done more than anyone else to protect American consumers. With this utopian fantasy, he shows us how good he thinks things could be.”

— Warren Beatty

“Ralph Nader is an exemplary citizen and prophetic leader who tells the truth at great lost to himself on behalf of everyday people. This tale has a moral substance and political content that is quite relevant for our time!”

— Cornel West
Princeton University