Oregon Politics: Who’s Hot and Who’s Not

Friday, August 29, 2014

Gus Wendel, GoLocalPDX Contributor

Portland City Hall, Cacophony - Own work. Licensed under CC BY 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

Every Friday, GoLocalPDX breaks down who's rising and who's falling in the world of Oregon politics. Check out who made the lists this week.

Hot

Oregon: The best state in America, given its lack of corruption. According to a study reported by The Washington Post, Oregon is the least corrupt state in the union, based on the rate of corruption convictions of public employees. According to the Post, “In Oregon, strong oversight and audit rules ensure that state officials keep their hands out of the cookie jar. Data from the Justice Department, compiled by political scientists at Indiana University at Bloomington and the City University of Hong Kong, show that over a period of 32 years, there were fewer corruption convictions in Oregon than in any other state when controlling for the number of state workers.”

Bravo Oregon!

City Club of Portland: Former Mayor Sam Adams has clearly been working hard since leaving office in 2012. As GoLocal’s Shelby Sebens reported, The City Club of Portland grew by almost 50 percent in just two years. “The trend in new members was remarkable when we hired Sam as executive director,” Kervin said. "He brought a lot of energy and a lot of new ideas to the City Club.”

Peter DeFazio: The congressman representing Oregon’s 4th district has held a whopping 19 town halls—the second-highest total of all 535 members of Congress—according to LegiStorm, which collects data about federal lawmakers. DeFazio was one of two Democrats and the only Oregon lawmaker to hold at least 15 town halls,

Three: The number of gubernatorial debates scheduled between Gov. John Kitzhaber and Oregon State Rep. Dennis Richardson until the fall election. The debates may be Richardson’s best shot at changing the perception that the odds are completely against him: Kitzhaber has raised significantly more money and solicited far more high-profile endorsements than Richardson, and recent polls show Richardson has a lot of catching up to do if he wants to take Kitzhaber’s place.

Ice Bucket challenge: The ALS research social media fundraiser has gone viral and even prompted an increasing number of Oregon’s elected officials to participate, including U.S. Sens. Jeff Merkley, and Ron Wyden, Gov. John Kitzhaber, Treasurer Ted Wheeler, U.S. Reps. Suzanne Bonamici, Kurt Schrader, Earl Blumenauer; Portland City Commissioners Steve Novick and Nick Fish; Multnomah County Commissioner Jules Bailey and County Chair Deborah Kafoury. Even Dennis Richardson, Republican candidate for governor, couldn’t resist the challenge.

So far more than $41.8 million has been raised for the ALS Association.

Jade Night: The first night of Portland’s new Jade Night Markets was a hit.

“We would have been satisfied with 1,000 people showing up,” said Jade district manager Todd Struble. “We got almost 6,000. We were thrilled not only with the large turnout, but with the diversity of the turnout as well. We considered it a huge success.”

The event takes place at the Southeast 82nd Street parking lot of the Fubonn Shopping Center. Additional parking is available across the street at the Portland Community College Southeast Center, and is free after hours.

The next Jade Night is this Saturday, Aug. 30.

Not

Charlie Hales: Portland is hot this summer, but its mayor is not. From a botched-from-the-beginning street-fee initiative, to a controversial courtship of Airbnb, to an attempt to teach the city’s white male staff about “diversity,” to a poor handling of the city’s settlement with Police Capt. Mark Kruger, the mayor could use some better ideas.

Maybe summer just isn’t the right season for Hales.

Oracle Lawsuit: Kitzhaber has endured a lot of heat for the failures of Cover Oregon, and Republican candidate Dennis Richardson has taken every opportunity to bring it up. Democrats are finally going on the offensive, it seems. Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum filed a lawsuit on Friday against Oracle, the technology company responsible for the failed online portion of Oregon’s new health care exchange. Shortly after, the Democratic Party of Oregon sent out a news release branding Richardson as “Oracle’s No. 1 defender.”

Monica Wehby: The campaign trail is not looking so hot for the Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate. As GoLocal reported, independent polling shows Merkley has a huge lead. The KATU/SurveyUSA poll found Merkley has 50 percent support to Wehby’s 32 percent among likely voters.

GMO Right to Know: The campaign to pass Measure 92, which would require the labeling of food products containing genetically modified ingredients, received a blow when the Citizens Initiative Review Commission voted 11-9 to oppose the measure. The vote, while narrow, took place after nearly four long days of debate and discussion among the panelists, who are randomly selected to represent the state’s demographics.

Adding to the consternation of Right to Know, the findings of the panel will appear in the Official Voter’s Guide this fall.

The National Organization for Marriage (NOM): NOM is good at losing. Like, really good. On Wednesday the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed NOM’s motion to intervene in Oregon’s consolidated marriage-equality case—Geiger vs. Kitzhaber and Rummel vs. Kitzhaber. “

We always knew NOM’s appeal was a long shot,” Basic Rights Oregon’s executive director Jeana Frazzini said.

Time to go home, NOM!

Steve Spinnett: Citing family business needs, the mayor of Damascus announced Saturday he will not run for another term. Spinnett will end his term as the city continues to struggle to get underway. A recently passed state law allows property owners on the boundaries of Happy Valley and Gresham to secede from Damascus. Moreover, city officials have long disagreed over a comprehensive city plan. The most recent “citizens plan” proposal was shut down when Spinnett refused to attend a special meeting at which a quorum was necessary to meet the deadline.

Portland Street Fee: Commissioner Novick’s and Mayor Hales’ initial proposal for the highly unpopular street fee was slated to cost some businesses as much as $2,600 a month. They have since scrapped their original plan and gone back to the drawing board, hoping to return with a new plan in November. On Monday, the city floated the possible modifications to the Street Fee proposal. One is a sunset clause that would ensure any new tax or fee doesn’t continue perpetually. The other is the possibility of referring the funding program to voters after three years.

White by Law: Portland’s racial makeup is relatively white compared to other cities. GoLocal reveals how the city’s government structure is partly responsible for this. Portland voters elect their leaders citywide, as opposed to nearly all other major US cities where politicians are elected by district or ward.

Cyreena Boston Ashby, director of the Portland African American Leadership Forum, accurately noted, “We’re just really missing sound leadership that understands race relations and just equity in a relevant way.”

Gus Wendel is a writer, organizer, and musician. Originally from Eastern Oregon, he now resides in Portland.

Related Slideshow: Top 100 Oregon High Schools

GoLocalPDX has ranked high schools across the state based on a method developed at Babson College, Mass. See below for the top 100 schools in the Beaver State.

Oregon Politics: Who’s Hot and Who’s Not

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Related Slideshow: Top 100 Oregon High Schools

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