Update (August 13): The Sunlight Foundation, having been notified by us about HB 2058,  has now downgraded Oregon to an F, joining Florida, Nevada, and West Virginia in the F category.

The Sunlight Foundation issued a report on August 12 , 2015, rating each state's lobbying disclosure requirements. They assigned Oregon a grade of D, but that grade was based on their error in failing to account for the new bill passed by the 2015 Oregon Legislature (and not vetoed by Gov. Kate Brown), HB 2058.

That law allows lobbyists to avoid reporting for the next 2 years what amounts to over 99% of their expenditures.  So Oregon now clearly deserves a -1 on the Expenditure Transparency criterion, which would give Oregon a correct overall score of -3 and place it firmly in the "F" category in the Sunlight Foundation analysis, along with only 3 other states (Florida, Nevada, West Virginia).

I testified to the Oregon Legislature (on behalf of Oregon Progressive Party) that I was "in the rare position of agreeing with an editorial in the Bend Bulletin, which pointed out that this bill would relieve lobbyists of the obligation to report all but $92,000 of the over $26 million actually spent on lobbying in Oregon in 2014."

"This 99.6% reduction in reporting of such spending seems particularly inappropriate in light of the recent events that caused the resignation of Governor Kitzhaber. Oregon needs more disclosure of money in politics, not less, and lobbying spending is definitely part of money in politics."

It was the only written testimony against HB 2058, which passed the Oregon House by a vote of 42-16, with Democrats providing 24 of the yes votes. It passed the Oregon Senate by a vote of 18-11, with Democrats providing all of the yes votes.

Here is the Oregonian article on the Sunlight Foundation report.

Dan Meek and Davlid Delk discussed recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions and actions (and inactions) of the 2015 Oregon Legislature. Must See TV!

The Oregon Progressive Party commends Oregon U.S. Representatives Earl Blumenauer and Peter DeFazio for recently signing on as co-sponsors of the “We the People” proposed U.S. 28th Constitutional Amendment (HJR 48).

Since the January 2010 U.S. Supreme Court's Citizens United decision much interest has been expressed in Congress and by citizens working at the local and state level in amending the Constitution to address the granting to corporations of the right to freely spend corporate funds on elections campaigns.  The Court did so by concluding that corporations have constitutional rights--that they are in effect human beings with constitutional rights.  

Oregon and 15 other states have now called for a constitutional amendment to at least overturn Citizens United.  The “We the People” proposed amendment would go further by amending the U.S. Constitution to say that corporations are not people and money is not speech. Such an amendment would overturn court decisions going back to Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad (1886), which gave 14th Amendment human rights to corporations, and would include more recent decisions like Buckley v Valeo, First National Bank of Boston v Bellotti, and others.

On June 17, these 3 bills were "withdrawn" directly to the floor of the Oregon Senate by their Republican sponsors.  All were then rejected on straight party-line 18-12 votes, with all Democrats voting against them.

• SB 940 makes “vote trading” illegal for legislators, ensuring they put their constituents first and not vote based on future promises of campaign contributions.
   
• SB 853 places high-ranking agency and elected officials under oath when testifying before the Legislature.  This is the ordinary procedure in the U.S. Congress.
   
• SB 852 makes submitting false information in a candidate voters’ pamphlet statement illegal.

Welcome to "ethics reform," Oregon style.

Yesterday the Oregon House of Representatives rejected 5 reasonable ethics reform bills proposed by Julie Parrish (R). All 5 bills were supported by the Oregon Progressive Party, and 4 were supported by the Independent Party of Oregon. On the floor of the House, all Republicans voted in favor of all 5 bills. All but a couple of Democrats voted against all 5 bills.

The Democrats, in control of both houses, refused to allow any of the bills to go to the floors for votes.  So Republicans used the "withdrawal" procedure to withdraw the bills from committee and put them on the floor for immediate vote, without debate.  This is similar to the "discharge petition" process in the U.S. Congress.

Here are the rejected bills:

• HB 3331 authorizes the Legislative Assembly to appoint an independent counsel by joint resolutions (Failed 27-33)
   
• HB 2790 requires that statements made by certain witnesses to a committee of the Legislative Assembly be made under oath and therefore subject to crime of false swearing (Failed 26-34)
   
• HB 2791 includes false statements made to legislative committees by certain persons in crime of unsworn falsification (Failed 27-33)
   
• HB 3505 requires public bodies to establish public records retention schedules that require a minimum three-year retention of public records (Failed 27-33)
   
• HB 3043 provides that upon being sworn into office, or for other stated reasons, the Governor shall file declaration with the Oregon Government Ethics Commission declaring identity of First Spouse and identifying official policy-making or agenda-setting duties of First Spouse, if any  (Failed 28-32)

UPDATE: JUNE 18.  Today the House of Representatives approved a "stand alone" Fast Track Authority bill on a vote of 218-208. Democrats who voted in favor again included Rep. Blumenauer, Bonamici and Schrader.

One Win but battle not over.

On Friday, President Obama's corporate driven trade agenda was dealt a serious blow in large part due to the huge grassroots insurgence of phone calls, emails, faxes, meetings, rallies and general rabble-rousing done by all of us and our allies in the labor, environmental, consumer, farmers, internet users, public health, LGBTA and other peoples' movements. Those movements have really stepped up to the plate to say No to Fast Track, the TPP and other corporate trade agreements.

But the fight will continue and so we must be ready ON MONDAY to swing back into action.

What happened on Friday is that the corporatists' plan fell apart. The Senate had passed a combined Fast Track/Trade Adjustment Assistance bill (62-37) last month. But the House split it apart, resulting in two votes, one on Fast Track and one on Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA). The House voted in favor of Fast Track Authority (219-211, with 28 Democrats voting with the Republicans) but soundly defeated TAA (126-302). Democrats, who typically support TAA, voted against it because of various modifications made to it in order to attract conservative Republican votes and most importantly, because it had to pass for Fast Track to move forward. Not wanted Fast Track to move, Democrats in large number voted No. Note, however, that Oregon Representatives Blumenauer, Bonamici and Schrader, all Democrats, voted wrong on both these pieces of legislation, voting to move Fast Track forward.

Because of differences between the House approved Fast Track and the Senate version, it must either go to the Senate for their approval or the House must try to pass the TAA in another vote on Monday or Tuesday. Speaker Boehner has called for the House to reconsider during that time frame. If the Speaker does not think that a vote would produce the desired result, he might delay the vote. For us, the more delay the better. Or the Fast Track bill could be sent to the Senate as is, without the TAA, for their approval.

So our job now is to CALL, CALL, EMAIL, and CALL more and more often.

(c) 2015 Ted Rall, All Rights Reserved (reprinted with permission)

Our candidate, Michael Sonnleitner, yesterday won a seat on the Board of Directors of the Portland Community College system, which serves over 90,000 students.

The vote was close.  We conducted a phone bank for Michael on May 5.

Courtney Wilton . . . . . . . . 3,407 30.5%
Anita Yap . . . . . . . . . .   3,435 30.7%
Michael Sonnleitner . . . . . . 4,234 37.9%
WRITE-IN. . . . . . . . . . .      93

Congratulations!

Monthly Comprehensive Reporting of Citizens Financial Status

(by Don Baham on May 12, 2015)

The federal government’s monthly reporting of national employment/unemployment numbers is inadequate to provide a comprehensive picture of citizen’s financial health.

To remedy this, we need the federal government to provide the following additional information to the citizenry at the same time as the employment/unemployment numbers are provided:

a. The combined monthly income of both the employed and unemployed for the last three months.

b. An authoritatively-compiled estimate of a livable monthly income.

c. The monthly income of the employed alone for the last three months.

d. The non-employment monthly income of the unemployed alone for the last three months.

e. The length of time that the unemployed have been unemployed by age group.

f. The length of time that the unemployed have been unemployed by race.

Chris Hedges recently, writting on TruthDig, quoted Ralph Nader on the need to Make the Rich Panic, which Nader says is something Bernie Sanders' bid for President running as a Democrat will not do.

“The only way you can get the parties’ attention is if you take votes away from them,” Ralph Nader told me by phone. “So,” he said of Sanders, “How serious is he? He makes Clinton a better phony candidate. She is going to have to agree with him on a number of things. She is going to have to be more anti-Wall Street to fend him off and neutralize him. We know it is bullshit. She will betray us once she becomes president. He is making her more likely to win. And by April he is done. Then he fades away.”

Chris goes on to says that only an independent political party dependent on a mass movement can achieve the revolutionary change needed. Read the rest here. 

The Oregon House voted 57-0 for HB 2892, which requires that every government building in Oregon (state, county, city, district, etc.) fly the POW-MIA flag every day of every year. The bill is now in the Senate Committee on Veterans and Emergency Preparedness.

The bill also requires new government buildings to install more flagpoles in order to fly the POW-MIA flag. The Legislature's Fiscal Office says that the cost of those flagpoles and of buying thousands of POW-MIA flags and replacing them as they wear out is so small that it need not be quantified.

The Testimony of the Oregon Progressive Party was the only testimony on the bill, except from veterans' groups. We testified that it is such a good idea that it should be adopted for all political and social groups and causes. We offered examples of 10 other flags that should fly from all Oregon government buildings, every day of every year, including the flag of the Oregon Progressive Party. There are literally tens of thousands of other suitable flags.

Some might think that flags on government buildings should merely identify those buildings as housing government functions and not be used to trumpet various groups or causes.

Governor Kate Brown and Democrats in the Oregon Legislature are getting lots of laudatory press about proposing campaign finance reform.  But their bill, SB 75, is 100% loophole and 0% limits.  The only thing it would actually accomplish is repeal of the meaningful limits and disclosure requirements adopted by Oregon voters as Measure 47 of 2006.  See the Testimony of Daniel Meek.

The Oregon Progressive Party issued this press release today

:
Oregon Progressive Party asks Portland City Council to Join Seattle and Denounce Trans-Pacific Partnership and Fast Track
April 3, 2015
Contact:David Delk davidafd@ymail.com 503-232-5495

This week the Seattle City Council voted 9-0 in favor of a resolution to oppose the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership and the proposed "Fast Track" method of adopting it in Congress. See the article in the Seattle Times. The full text of the Seattle resolution is below.

Seattle is a major port city. International trade is a foundation of its economy. The Seattle City Council took this action, despite phone calls from President Obama and opposition from Ed Murray, mayor of Seattle.

"We urge the Portland City Commission to pass a similar resolution against the Trans-Pacific Partnership and Fast Track," said Jason Kafoury for the Oregon Progressive Party. "The Trans-Pacific Partnership would destroy the environmental, labor, and social justice laws of the United States and all of the states and localities within it. TPP puts the corporations in charge of both the economy and the government."

David Delk, chair of the Oregon Progressive Party stated, “The Trans Pacific Partnership would undermine the rule of law based on nation states, replacing it with rule of, by and for multi-national corporations. The ability of local governments like Portland's to make decisions would be subject to attacks by multi-national corporations, making a mockery of democracy.”

Shame on Mayor Hales and the Portland City Council for Rejoining the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF)

The Progressive Party applauds Commissioners Fritz and Novick for voting against rejoining the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF)

Progressive Party members Jason Kafoury and David Hess spoke against the City of Portland rejoining the JTTF agreement at the February 5, 2015, City Council meeting. Only Police Chief Larry O’Dea, U.S. Attorney Amanda Marshall and a representative from the Portland Business Alliance supported rejoining the JTTF. Over 35 activists, including Brandon Mayfield, spoke against rejoining the agreement. Over a hundred citizens attended. Please watch the videos at http://www.portlandoregon.gov/article/518464.

At the March Oregon Progressive Party public meeting, we appoved this statement to be mailed to our US Senators/Representatives and other stating our position of opposition to the granting of Fast Track Authority to the president as well as to the Trans Pacific Partnership, NAFTA on steriods corporate trade agreement. 

Because Oregon Senator Ron Wyden plays a unique role in moving the next corporate trade agreements forward, the Oregon Progressive Party calls for Senator Wyden to abandon his talks with Senator Hatch of the Senate Finance Committee for granting revised Trade Promotion Authority (Fast Track Authority) to President Obama and to opposite the trade agreements which President Obama has been negotiating in top secret for as long as the past 5 years.