2008 election: my take on the ballot initiatives

November 4, 2008, is approaching quickly. I've made my mind up on most issues, but have a few lingering tossups. For those still searching for information to help them decide, I'd suggest a site that I just found, Ballotpedia. Here's a rundown of the 2008 ballot measures from Ballotpedia, and here's the state's online voter guide.

In this post, I'm going to analyze some of this year's 12 Oregon ballot measures.

Ballot Measure 54
This is the easiest measure on which to make a decision, and it's kind of a cool story. High school students from Grant High discovered that the Oregon Constitution contained provisions (from 1948) requiring voters to be 21 years old and pass a literacy test before voting in school board elections. The students contacted the Oregon Secretary of State, and eventually the Oregon Legislature drafted this measure based on their concerns.

This provision has been completely ignored and unactionable since the 1971 passing of the 26th amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which lowered the state and federal voting age to 18. Furthermore, Federal court decisions have determined these type of requirements "violate the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution, and Oregon's Attorney General in 1972 held that the requirement is unenforceable." Finally, the literacy test hearkens back to Jim Crow-type laws that contributed to Oregon's history of racially-motivated disenfranchisement via literacy tests and the like as a condition for eligibility to vote, which were prohibited by the federal Voting Rights Act of 1965.

This measure is a technical fix of something broken for 36+ years; it's also an affirmative statement rejecting these relics of a more divisive era. No brainer: VOTE YES!

Ballot Measure 55
This measure is a fix for a problem that has occured during redistricting. During redistricting, the legislative districts in the state are rearranged to even out population representation (and political purposes), but this can result in situations in which districts can be altered such that sitting State Senators and Representatives may end up in wildly different districts than those from which they were elected; in 2001, for example, "one Representative elected in an urban district in the Willamette Valley was assigned to represent a rural district in Central Oregon."

The measure fixes this issue by maintaining old districts until a legislator's term is up, but establishing the new districts for nomination and election purposes. This should prevent a situation in which people are not represented by lawmakers that they never elected. VOTE YES!

Ballot Measure 56
I hate Oregon's "double majority" rule. It's a system that actively rewards nonvoters! Currently, bond measures must pass not only 50% support, but be voted upon by >50% of eligible voters in order to pass. Elections without major state & national races have, historically, very low turnout. The "double majority" requirement has killed 169 measures that achieved sufficient support, but didn't reach the turnout mark. If a story can be related in which a

popular measure easily won a simple majority but the 43 percent turnout doomed it. Just 500 more votes would have provided the "double majority," and even if all 500 of those votes had been "no," the bond still would have passed.

...you know the system is broken. Especially when opponents of a May 2007 police levy "urged others to refrain from voting, because it was easier to kill the measure by lowering voter turnout." The levy was supported by more than 78 percent of voters, but turnout only hit 42 percent and the levy failed.

Folks, if you don't want to support a bond measure, you should have to vote no. Overturn that bullshit. VOTE YES!

Ballot Measure 57 & 61
These two measures are competing directly against each other; Measure 57 has a provision within it that, if 57 & 61 both pass, allows only the measure with greater support to go into law. 61 is a hardline anti-property crime bill that creates mandatory minimum prison sentences for certain theft, identity theft, forgery, drug, and burglary crimes. It would also drastically increase the number of prisoners and amount of spending on law & order. 57 was created by Oregon's legislators as a watered-down option that only doles out mandatory prison time for repeat-offenders and provides additional funding for treatment programs (which 61 does not).

Both measures will come with a hefty price tag. What's interesting here is that a lot of organizations that would oppose 57 if it were on the ballot alone are supporting it in order to keep 61 from going into law. For me, I'm leaning towards the Oregonian's take:

Measure 57: No. This is one of two property crime measures on the ballot that are ill-conceived, poorly crafted and offer wildly expensive answers to the wrong questions. But any voter feeling compelled to vote for one of them should choose this one. It's half as dumb, and half as expensive.
Measure 61: No. This measure authored by Kevin Mannix is a craven assault on your fears. It calls for mandatory minimum sentences for first-time burglars, identification thieves and drug dealers. If passed, the measure might cost as much as $800 million to enforce over the next five years, and more than $1.3 billion in prison construction.

Those are some ginormous price tags. I can't help but be swayed by this, though: "Each dollar spent locking up violent criminals saves about $4.35...each dollar spent locking up property criminals returns far less: about $1.10...locking up drug criminals produces hefty losses: Each dollar spent returns only about 35 cents in value." VOTE NO ON BOTH!

Ballot Measure 58
Does Oregon really need a statute prohibiting English as a Second Language instruction beyond some mandated time? Shall we allow institutionalized xenophobia to potentially hamper the education of children? VOTE NO!

Ballot Measure 59
Most states don't allow deduction of federal income taxes on state income taxes, but Oregon currently allows residents to deduct as much as $5,500 in federal taxes (indexed to rise with cost-of-living). If 59 passes, Oregon will join Alabama, Iowa, and Louisiana as the only states to allow federal income taxes to be fully deductible on state income tax returns. This is a straight-up tax cut; a tax cut that may eliminate almost 9% ($1.3 billion ) of the 2009-2011 state general budget. The state is already in a budget crunch...I see no need to do that in a way that would only substantially benefit those making enough money to be on the hook for well over $5,500 in federal taxes. (A basic online tax calculator suggests that a single person earning ~$37,000 will be in the $5,500 range for federal income tax. This is approximately the median income of an Oregonian.)

A measure that will create a big budget strain with no benefit to about half of the state's tax payers (and relatively insignificant benefit to those not in the top brackets)? VOTE NO!

Ballot Measure 60
This measure would mandate under state law that:

Teacher pay raises and job security shall be based on job performance...pay raises for public school teachers shall be based upon each teacher’s classroom performance and not related or connected to his or her seniority. If a school district reduces its teaching staff, the district shall retain the teachers who are most qualified to teach the specific subjects, which they will be assigned to teach. A determination as to which teacher is most qualified shall be based upon each teacher’s past classroom experience successfully teaching the specific subject(s) or class, as well his or her as academic training in the relevant subject matter.

The bolded terms have deliberately been left undefined and the italics show the main impetus for the measure. I actually kinda like this idea...maybe it's my capitalist bent, but I dislike a system in which an employer is limited in hiring and firing employees because qualifications and performance history can be superseded by seniority.

The main argument against this measure is that opponents assert this will lead to greater emphasis on standardized tests and thus greater "teaching to the test," a claimed byproduct of things like No Child Left Behind. In my opinion, that this measure refuses to define the terms used is a strength, though: "test" appears nowhere in the act. If 60 passes, there appears to be sufficient flexibility in determining "performance" and "qualifications" that don't necessitate more testing. In fact, "past classroom experience successfully teaching the specific subject(s) or class" seems to allow seniority a qualified backdoor in a performance evaluation, as a history of quality teaching is undoubtedly worth consideration.

This measure is strongly opposed by unions in general and the teacher's union in particular. In their general concern, I sense that the unions are likely threatened by the possible weakening of one of their key tactics: instituting a "statute of limitations" on any manageable firing process such that the efforts to remove an underperforming employee of sufficient tenure become increasingly more difficult. I do think it would be best if the unions worked closely with the state to develop methods and metrics to properly evaluate a teacher's performance and quit hanging onto the outdated and counterproductive stance. I do recognize that Measure 60, if it passes, could have some negative effects, though. Perhaps it will increase testing. It will increase costs. I don't like that the language appears to prohibit cost-of-living increases.

I'm with the Oregonian here (in their recommendation against 60): "the current union system neither rewards outstanding performance nor penalizes mediocrity, nor protects promising young teachers during economic downturns."
In the end, Willamette Week captures my feelings: "Putting a stop to raises based largely on seniority could go a long way toward rewarding good teachers—and motivating others to improve" but the "measure is, to borrow a popular saying from Sen. Barack Obama, a meat cleaver when what we need is a scalpel." VOTE NO!

Ballot Measure 62
Divert 15% of Oregon Lottery proceeds to a public safety fund? Why?

Currently, the Oregon legislature is mandated to spend 44 percent of lottery funds on parks, bond payments and an educational reserve fund. The remaining 56 percent of Lottery proceeds are spent on a variety of programs, including K-12 education, and state and local economic development. This measure would reduce funds available for these programs. Under this measure, the legislature may not limit expenditures from the public safety fund. Additionally, the distributions to county district attorneys and sheriffs cannot be used to replace existing funding from other sources.

This shifts money around, from education and such to public safety, and creates greater restrictions on the use of that money. Sounds like it will create more budgetary red tape and funding problems for education...VOTE NO!

Ballot Measure 63
This measure would allow homeowners to avoid buying building permits for work on their own home up to a value of $35,000 each year. The idea here isn't so bad: there probably is plenty of red tape that could be eliminated in the home improvement field...but, as a measure opponent presciently states, "Thirty-five thousand can buy a whole lot of stupid when it comes to working on houses."

I'm not opposed to evaluating the current system for common sense changes that will allow greater freedom for property owners to improve their own land, however, given the safety concerns and insurance requirements relevant to proper permits & inspection, baby steps would be a better approach. VOTE NO!

Ballot Measure 64
Measure 64 is déjà vu all over again: we've voted on the same content in failed 1998 and 2000 initiatives, and similar initiatives failed to qualify for the ballot in '02, '04, and '06. Bill Sizemore really wants to end the use of payroll deduction for "political purposes," a term that includes "candidates, political committee or party, initiative or referendum committee, and supporting/opposing candidates or ballot measures (including signature gathering for petitions)."
One needn't be particularly cynical to note that unions are generally the strongest opponents of whatever Sizemore can get on the ballot, and unions generally collect a substantial portion of their operation funds via voluntary payroll deduction...What's sad, though, is that this initiative would probably have a negative effect on the funding of many non-profit charitable organizations (i.e., Muscular Dystrophy Association, United Way, Parent Teacher Associations, Oregon Humane Society, Oregon Food Bank, etc.) that have political lobbying efforts in their actions. VOTE NO!

Ballot Measure 65
This measure would create a "top two primary " in which the primary for a specific race would have all running candidates and be open to all Oregon voters. The top two vote recipients would be on the final ballot. Those arguing against warn that this will create final ballots in which your choices could only be two Democrats or two Republicans (though I'm skeptical that it will result in many unwarranted cases of this) and that small party candidates will be left out of the final race entirely.

Well, those may be limitations of the proposed system. But the current system sucks. A closed primary means that successful candidates are often more satisfactory for the party's fringe than the moderates, and it only allows one to vote in one's own party primary, completely leaving registered independents (like myself) out of all decision-making. As for third parties...well...improve your messages and get in the top two. VOTE YES!