You've Gotta Be Bleeping Me

Oh jeepers! Colorado's M54, the anti-union-security initiative we narrowly defeated under the name of M64 here in Oregon, has passed! Note how the authors over at UnionNews seem to've conflated collective bargaining with "no-bid contracts."

Taking Their Time

Not sure why the vote count is so slow in Multnomah and Lane counties (Portland and Eugene), but with 70% or so of the vote counted in those two counties, Merkley has finally moved ahead of Smith. Right now it's by a few hundred votes, but with more than 125K left to count in Portland, where Merkley is winning 3-to-1, he should pull well ahead.

Measure 64 continues to pass. It is up by 15K or so, down from 25K earlier in the day. I'm not sure were going to make this one.

It's Not Over Yet

Why am I up at 8 in the morning? Because there's a Senate race still up in the air I can't sleep with that shit going down.

Oregon Live seems to have most up-to-date results.

From what I can gather, Lane county (home to Eugene) had a major glitch last night and only 33% or so of the ballots have been counted. They are also way behind on counting ballots in the Portland and Corvallis areas, so Merkley should pick up major votes there, but Smith is still ahead.

I am assuming that as Merkley goes, so goes Measure 64. It was passing last night, but should go down as blue ballots are counted.

I should also mention that the mayor's race Eugene is still up in the air, as is a very important bond for Lane Community College.

More later, surely.

[UPDATE]: Looks like the Minnesota Senate race will go into December. Sorry, Jen.

Not the Kind of Thing Defend Oregon Would Send Out

This is too awesome not to post. From our friend Steve Novick:

One of the most important things you can do this election year is tell everyone you know to Vote No on Bill Sizemore’s Measure 64. A bizarrely technical measure – it’s a sort of attack on the use of a form of direct deposit by public employees – it would have the effect of making it much more difficult for union members to advocate for education and health care, more difficult for organizations like the Food Bank to advocate for social justice, and more difficult for the unions to fight Bill Sizemore’s other measures.

It’s important for you to know that the public employee unions are our first line of defense against devastating Sizemore initiatives like Measure 59, which would gut public services to give tax cuts to the wealthy. A lot of us understand that Sizemore’s measures are bad, and do our part – but the truth is that most progressives tend to focus our resources on candidate campaigns (thanks again for your help on mine!), and it doesn’t occur to us that we need money and manpower for the initiatives, too. It is no exaggeration to say that if it were not for the public employee unions, Bill Sizemore would have burned the state to the ground long ago. He knows that. That’s why he wants to cripple their ability to fight him.

If you’re a Lord of the Rings fan, think of Oregon as the Shire and the unions as the Dunedain. They don’t get a lot of credit. But as Aragorn said to Boromir at the Council of Elrond:

"Peace and freedom, do you say? The North would have known them little but for us. Fear would have destroyed them. But when dark things come from the houseless hills, or creep from sunless woods, they fly from us. What roads would any dare tread, what safety would there be in quiet lands, or in the homes of simple men at night, if the Dunedain were asleep, or were all gone into the grave?

And yet less thanks have we than you. Travelers scowl at us, and countrymen give us scornful names. 'Strider' I am to one fat man who lives within a day’s march of foes that would freeze his heart, or lay his little town in ruin, if he were not guarded ceaselessly."

The fact is that every Oregonian lives under the shadow of foes like Sizemore and his backers, like Loren Parks the Nevada sexual hypnotist and Dick Wendt of Jeld-Wen. They would lay our little state in ruin, if it were not guarded ceaselessly – by our friends in organized labor. Don’t let Sizemore drive the Dunedain into the grave.

Vote No on 64, and make sure all your friends do, too.

I Won't Have My Voice Silenced!

Here in Oregon, we loves us some citizen initiative process for the expression of the "peoples" voices. Got an issue? Gather some signatures on a petition, get that issue on the ballot, and let the people have a say! No more tyranny from the fat cats in Salem! Democracy!!!

Of course, this is not how it works. Rich men with a political ax to grind pay young people to gather signatures on initiatives that everybody agrees to -- "Sign my petition to save kittens, sir?" -- and then they copy names and addresses on to completely unrelated petitions. Then millions are spent convincing the Oregon voter to vote in the interest of a very few rich men and/or corporations. Or for God. The Oregon voter loves having God's back when it comes to abortion, gays, or (Heaven forbid) marriage between gay abortionists.

This year the Oregon voter faces a bevy of ballot choices. The one most near and dear is Measure 64, which would cripple Oregon's unions. The initiative would prevent public employers from using payroll deduction for collecting union dues that could be used for political purposes.

As it works now, a public employee union member signs a dues deduction card, the employer deducts the union dues from the employee's paycheck and sends that money to the union. The union uses the money in any way it legally sees fit. If this measure were to pass, then a member would still sign a dues deduction card, the employer would deduct dues and send it to the union, but the union could not use that money for political purposes. If the union wanted to be involved in politics, then they would have to collect all that money on their own.

The measure basically seeks to fuck with Oregon's public employee unions.

As the days approach, I imagine that I will be writing frequently about this campaign. We have been getting better about forming coalitions to fend off these attacks from the right. Unfortunately, these coalitions tend to run to the center and at times advance tropes that are troubling for those of us on the left. (Perhaps Lips could favor us with a few remarks about "progressive nativism"). I imagine that I will find places to critique my own coalition as well as alerting you and all to the scurrilous propaganda of our enemies.

For instance, the powers that be have decided on the slogan "Don't Silence Our Voice." Not much different than the "Oregon Families Need a Voice" that Lips and I came up with, which is kind of scary given the state we were in when we thought up that slogan (hint: It wasn't Idaho). I'm not in love with the fact that they have chosen to make the main web address for this campaign http://dontsilenceourvoice.com which is hardly intuitive. http://noon64.com seems available, so I am not sure why they went with the more-complicated-to-remember address. (Although http://noonmeansure64.com redirects to dontsileceourvoice.com). And I know that Google magic will eventually happen, but right now searching for "no on 64" or "no on measure 64" on Google doesn't get you anywhere near this website, even if you add the word Oregon.

Anyway, first of many, I suppose. Since one of our authors is a ballot initiative expert, one is a local politics expert, and one of us deals with state legislatures for a living, we should be able to have a nice little discussion, no?