At noon on Friday, March 14th, Lane County Commissioner Pete Sorenson and Gary Blackmer, auditor of the City of Portland, will speak to the City Club of Eugene at the Eugene Athletic Club on 10th and Willamette on Voter-Owned Elections. Commissioner Sorenson is the principal author of The Oregon Voter Owned Elections Act, proposed for adoption by the 2009 Legislature.

The one hour presentation will be recorded and broadcast by KLCC Radio, 89.7, the Eugene Public Radio outlet, on Monday, March 17, from 6:30 pm to 7:30 p.m.

On Wednesday, the Commissioner and his committee will appear at the Davis Restaurant, Broadway and Olive in Eugene, in a public meeting to address community concerns with the proposed legislation. All are invited.

Commissioner Sorenson has a doctorate in law, has served on the faculty of the law school at the University of Oregon and has been involved with politics all his adult life. He has served multiple terms as Oregon State Senator, has been a gubernatorial candidate, and more recently has spent several terms as Lane County Commissioner. In writing the proposed law he has enlisted the assistance of the Oregon law community, including members of the faculty at the University of Oregon.

The legislation faces the sincere opposition of The Oregonian, the Portland newspaper that passes few chances to complain about the government of Portland. That puts the Oregonian at variance with much of the nation’s press, which views Portland as a model city and the place to be emulated. The Oregonian has some problems with their opposition. Initially they thought Portland’s requirements for participation were too stringent, that the voter-owned option would be ignored by candidates. They were dead wrong. Candidates readily complied with the requirements and face the city with funding several Voter-Owned candidates. The candidates themselves point out that their petitions for positions on the ballot literally fly out of their hands; people seem starved for politicians free of special interest funding. Now the Oregonian says it’s simply a waste of taxpayer funds. Shades of Grover Norquist!

On March 13th The Oregonian printed a news article, remarkably like an editorial, attacking Portland’s Voter-Owned law, augmented it with an editorial lambasting voter owned campaigns, plus an editorial lamenting the lack of Republicans on the ballot. The problem, they said, was at least partly the terrible cost of campaigns these days. Karen Minnis was described as a candidate for the Oregon House of Representatives in a campaign in which she spent $870,000 to defeat her Democratic opponent – who spent only half that. The Oregonian noted that an average race for the Oregon House costs around $80,000, an improbably large sum for the position.

The Oregonian failed to note any kind of a solution to the problem. In states where voter-owned campaigns are authorized, political analysts find that election costs are declining, the number of candidates seeking election is increasing, and that legislators that are Voter-Qwned are much happier. Raising the kind of money reported in the Karen Minnis race, and even the races much less dramatic than that, are overwhelming legislators who rely on special interest funding. Legislators are reporting up to six hours of every day spent on the telephone, pleading for funding. Not Voter-Owned officials. They have more time to spend on their basic jobs of keeping in contact with constituents and thinking about the legislation they are supposed to be considering.

Voter-Owned is publicly financed campaigning, and idea that’s been around for easily a century – Teddy Roosevelt proposed federal campaign financing in his State of the Union Address in 1907. The measure has been adopted in four states, is facing adoption in 30 more states. One of the big questions is how to pay for it – there are competing claims on public funds. But another way to look at it is in terms of cost and benefit. How much is it worth to you or your family to vote for candidates free of special interest funding? Fifty cents a month, a dollar a month?

The suggested funding level is $2.05 per registered voter as an initial disbursement to a qualified candidate. That’s less than a dime a month on a two year term, less than a nickle a month on a four year term. Who shall pay it? The general fund? Or surcharges on court ordered fines, as practiced in Arizona? The Oregonian is terrified that expenses may exceed the initial disbursement, because Voter-Owned implies additional funding to keep up with excessive spending by an opponent. But when matching funds are promised as needed, the attempt to outspend becomes pointless. Arizona and other states operating a voter-owned system report funding levels decreasing, in the face of a national increase in spending levels. Portland is facing an explosion of candidates this season, attracted by Voter-Owned. funding. The managers of Portland’s system say they can handle it. Portland voters get a broader choice. That’s bad?

If a candidate is to feel indebted to donors, letting them be the constituency instead of a possibly distant and self-interested entities seems attractive. Leaving the elected official free to discharge his or her duties rather than dial for dollars a major part of every day is attractive.

So what’s the problem, other than the Portland Oregonian? One hundred percent of elected officials in Oregon, other than the Portland City Council, are now traditionally funded. Voter-Owned would tend to admit new faces, those who simply will not endure the requirements of raising huge sums of money from private sources. Voter-Owned is entirely non-partisan. There is nothing in the legislation about party affiliation – it’s a non-issue. Party discipline may suffer as a result, something the present political structure might be wary of.

But it seems a good deal for the voter. Residents of Arizona, Connecticut and Maine seem to like it just fine. We’ll see if the Portland Oregonian can kill the idea in Portland, we’ll see if they can kill the idea in Oregon. I suspect they’ll find it tough to do.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 13th, 2008 at 2:17 pm and is filed under Elections, General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.