Statement by Common Cause, League of Women Voters, Oregon Public Interest Research Group, and Honest Elections urging elected leaders to prioritize passing SJR18.

SALEM, Ore. – If Oregon Republican senators return to Salem after a week-long walk-out, the question on many minds is what remaining business will get prioritized.

By refusing to show up until the final hours, Republican senators ensured that much business will be left undone. Now it falls on the governor and all legislators - Republicans and Democrats alike - to determine what gets prioritized in the final hours.

Early in the session, the governor and legislative leadership committed to get serious about campaign finance reform this session. Though some legislators worked hard to broker consensus, legislators passed no legislation, month after month.

Statements:

“The Governor and Legislature committed to prioritize campaign finance reform this session. Now in the last days, the question remains, will they?”

-Norm Turrill, League of Women Voters of Oregon

“As the Oregonian exposed in its recent investigative coverage, Oregon’s political process is awash in more corporate cash per capita than any other state.”

-Kate Titus, Common Cause

“These walkouts are one more example of the influence of big money in Oregon politics. According to data from National Institute on Money in Politics, the walkouts were funded two-thirds by corporations. It is time to reform the system that has brought the legislature to the brink.”

-Jason Kafoury, Honest Elections

“Reining in Big Money’s influence on the political process is clearly a top voter priority. The Legislature’s failure to act makes this even more clear. It raises the question, whose interests are legislators serving by not passing legislation.”

-Charlie Fisher, OSPIRG

“If the Republicans return, the Legislature will pass dozens of bills by midnight on Sunday. If those bills do not include referring the contribution limits constitutional amendment to voters, it will be a deliberate decision by the super-majority Democrats to keep huge money in politics.”

Dan Meek, Honest Elections.

"Stop the dirty diesel trucks on Oregon roads" 

Oregon’s air is toxic!
Stop the dirty diesel trucks on Oregon roads. Support strong diesel standards!
Hearing on HB 2007 on Tuesday, March 19, 2019 starting at 1 PM

Your action is needed to stop the dirty diesel trucks and equipment on Oregon’s roads and clean our toxic air.

After decades of allowing dirty diesel trucks to run on Oregon roads, the Oregon legislature is again taking up the issue. Both Washington and California have enacted standards regarding diesel trucks/equipment on their state roads. Because Oregon has failed in its past efforts, trucks no longer allowed in Washington and California have been sold by those states’ trucking firms to work the roads and construction sites of Oregon. According to a report in The Oregonian (Jan 2015), 350,000 such trucks failed to meet CA standards. CA regulations require pre-2010 diesel trucks to be off the road by 2023. Many have found and will find new lives here in Oregon. Our air is dirtier as a result, causing health problems like lung cancer, low-weight births, heart attacks and asthma.

And it is not just diesel trucks. Also showing up in Oregon are old off-road equipment like back-hoes, bulldozers and more.

Oregon standards and regulations need to be updated. HB2007 is the legislation to get this done..... if it is strengthened. HB2007 gives diesel operators a full decade to comply with regulations, a full 6 years longer than California operators have. Demand that Oregon deadlines meet those in California (2023 deadline for all trucks to meet the 2010 federal emissions standards). Further, HB2007 must close the Glider Truck loophole, which allows old diesel engines to be ‘hidden” from detection by failing to have an honest label on the truck and equipment. New truck bodies hid old diesel engines. This loophole must be closed. Oregon DEQ should be directed to develop a sticker identification program like California to make it easier to see that clean diesel standards are in place on construction sites.

Taking Actions:
• Come to Salem to advocate for this bill and for strengthening it’s language? If so, click here.
• Send testimony 24 hours in advance of the March 19, 1 PM hearing via Email: hee.exhibits@oregonlegislature.gov
• Come to Salem for the Clean Air/Environmental Lobby day on Thursday, March 21, being organized by Oregon League of Conservation Voters. Details and registration information here.

David Delk, Chair of OR Progressive Party had this Letter to Editor published:

The Daily Astorian declares some Public Employees Retirement System (PERS) reforms — those that would result in less economically secure state workers — “solid ideas” ("Our View: Solid ideas for restructuring PERS," Jan. 3). So, let’s look at a couple of other ideas that don’t amount to an attack on public employees’ well being, but still would reduce PERS public employers’ costs.

1. Direct the expected $724 million upcoming state kicker to the PERS system to reduce the unfunded actuarial liability. The Legislature is empowered to redirect that kicker from taxpayer kicker refunds to other uses, like funding the PERS system. After all, the bottom 20 percent of taxpayers will get only an average of only $13. Not getting the kicker would not be a hardship, so let’s just divert the whole kicker to a higher purpose — PERS reform.

2. The Legislature could create a new tax surcharge on current benefits paid to the top 7 percent of PERS beneficiaries, those making over $6,001 to as much as $76,111 monthly. That revenue would be directed to the PERS funding difficulties. Applying a conservative surcharge of 7 percent on the PERS income of the top 7 percent would generate new revenue exceeding $54 million/annually at minimum. Making the flat 7 percent surcharge progressive would generate even more revenue.

Let’s get these two options into the public conversation, and on the minds of our elected officials in Salem.

DAVID DELK

We were asked recently to withdraw our Progressive Party candidate by Oregon governor. This is our explanation for our refusal to do so.

Thanks for your note and your heartfelt plea for us to withdraw Chris Henry from the governor's race. We won't do that. Chris Henry would need to do that; even if he did, his name would still be on the ballot and he would still get votes.

Note that those votes are not stolen from Kate Brown. The Democrats do not own our votes; they need to earn them. While many Democrats are progressive people and we might elect to support them (thinking about Bernie Sanders who had the Progressive Party endorsement for Pres or some candidates for state legislature) but that would only be because they have taken stands which support a non-corporate agenda, especially by supporting limits on campaign contributions. I know that Kate likes to talk about her support for limitations but far as we can tell, she did the least possible while she was Secretary of State and during her time as governor to actually enact any. We note that environmentally she does not take strong stands in favor of addressing climate change (she has yet to oppose Jordon Cove LNG or to be a strong advocate for removal of diesel trucks on our roads, or for the inclusion of forests and agriculture in the carbon energy jobs bill). She bargained with Nike and the unions to not increase corporate taxes when enough signatures had been collected to qualify for the ballot. Therefore, voters did not get to weigh in on the question. She is not the kind of leader we need.

Lately, note that every election cycle the same argument is made. You need to support so-and-so; if you run a candidate against so-and-so you will ensure that the other so-and-so will win and the world will collapse. Then, win or lose, after the election democrats fail to support election reforms like proportional representation or ranked choice voting, which would solve the problem and allow everyone to support and vote for the candidate(s) they really want.

We as a party will continue to run candidates. We will not accept blame for the failures of other parties. And we will not remove our candidate for governor.