Lowell Mill Girl

Back in Lowell, Mass, the first planned industrial city, they recruited farm girls to work in the textile mills.

To encourage the girls to stay out of trouble (not sure what trouble lurked in Lowell back in the early 1800's) and to give them opportunities to improve their mind and their character, they offered lectures that the girls could attend in their non-work hours.

Keeping up this tradition, the Oregon State Library offers lectures at the noon hour to those who happen to be around the capitol mall during the day. Which ends up being a lot of state employees. Today the Oregon Humanities offered us a "conversation" (their new style, instead of calling it a lecture as in the old days) about the Initiative Process in Oregon.

Factoids from today:
* Oregon ranks #1 in the number of initiatives over time (since 1904). Thanks Bill Sizemore!
* A book written in 1912 called out the good and the bad about initiatives, most of which is still relevant today: On the positive side, it allows citizens to influence our legal system, and provides for "direct democracy". On the negative side, it can allow a minority to influence and change the state constitution, can allow buying and selling of names and issues
* One-third of the initiatives have passed, cumulatively (so, 2/3 get defeated)
* Voter turnout is 3-8% higher in the 24 states that have an initiative system
* Womens suffrage - due to the initiative process (1912, a banner year)
* New this year - a Citizens Review panel (look for their comments in a Voters' Pamphlet near you)
* Oregon has the most open of any state initiative process. In other states crafty lawyers have to vet and review them. We allow an open process by the citizenry. Just like the western pioneering state we still think we are sometimes..

The process itself is interesting. The "ballot title" (what it is listed as in the Voters' Pamphlet and on your ballot) is written by the Attorney General. The Secretary of State is responsible for validity of signatures collected (by random sample, they don't check every name, and they work with the county elections offices). Interesting that both these positions are elected partisan positions. (Is this fair?)

Some initiatives of note:
Measure 60 (1998) - vote by mail
Measure in 1914 sponsored by the Socialist Party - would have guaranteed a job to anyone who wanted one. An actual third party got an initiative on the ballot!

Everything I need to know I learned in the widget factory

In manufacturing when product fails in the field we look for root cause.

Lets apply that to initiative petitions. Why are whole subassemblies (pages) tossed out for a few faulty components (duplicate or illegitimate signatures)?

The process of paper signature gathering was probably great in the 70's. Can we evolve? In Oregon we have a progressive vote by mail system. Word has it that turnout is up, fraud is down.

The next step I believe is online voting. Security needs to be worked out but if I can file my taxes with the IRS why can't I vote by mail? I refuse to believe the massive federal government is more technically adept than us Silicon Forest types.

How do you go from collecting voter signatures from a shopping mall to getting signatures by email, you may be thinking. Lets look at the next generation (for some the current generation): smart phones. There are African nations whose people conduct 100% of their banking transactions by smart phone. Again, I refuse to believe that Burundi is more technically adept than us Silicon Forest types.

Maybe an entrepreneur is listening and wants to be part of our evolution. Till then, the 70s had its fine points - I love my Eagles records.

Checks and Balances

Part 1 - U.S. Congress vs. the Executive branch
Score 1 - EPA vs. Congress (right to regulate greenhouse gasses)
This week, the "second stimulus" was being debated in Congress (not yet at Day 56, as has been pointed out, so just shy of the time spent in Gulf-spill-land, but coming very close). Close to complete deadlock in the Senate. But the Republicans took a shot at a slimmed-down-fully-paid-for Stimulus, which had some interesting provisions.

Things like - cut federal agency budgets by 5%, across the board (except DOD and VA). Also (with apparent hatred in their eyes for those fat-happy federal employees) cap federal pay, collect the $3B in back taxes owed by those federal employees.

So - does Congress have the power to regulate the executive branch? Didn't Obama already ask his agencies to draw up plans for 5% cuts (for the FY 2011 budget)? Is this some sort of power grab?

OK Congress does have oversight authority. OK Congress does appropriate the funds by which federal agencies are run. OK you could tie these things together. But wait - aren't these the same Republicans who want less government control over things? Is that only when someone else is in control? And now *they* want more control over things?

The 5% cap, when sought by Congress, sounds a bit like TABOR (taxpayer bill of rights, like what they enacted in Colorado - it sliced arms and legs off of local governments and school districts). Well, ok the Oregon constitution does have some very fundamental constraints - the size of local government can only grow by x%, where the percent is limited by population growth.

Yet, I fail to see how a slash and burn approach is really a legislative function.


Part 2 - Is the initiative system out of control - in Oregon - in California?
California's budget is broken, even schoolchildren will tell you that. The reasons cited are various. Some would say the initiative system has run amok and is responsible. Think back to Proposition 13, which limited property taxes in California (1978), then Measure 5 in Oregon (1980), followed by Measure 50 (1990s), which likewise limited property taxes.

With citizen initiatives, voted on by the public, each one is seen separately. So, unlike the state budget process where the legislature in its wisdom (or with initiatives, the citizenry in its wisdom) does not have the ability to see all the spending pieces of the pie at once. It is this initiative - yes or no - every voter gets a chance to decide.

Yet each initiative does have an impact on the state budget. In the Oregon voters' pamphlet, the cost of each initiative is stated (as formulated by the "price tag" committee).

Back to checks and balances. Citizen initiatives are the fourth dimension of politics in Oregon.

There are now new rules in Oregon which constrain the initiative process. Are they fair and balanced? Or are they too constraining? Have I heard them called anti-Sizemore constraints, and are they an attempt to derail the father of many of Oregon's initiatives? Perhaps they are laying a trap to get him out of this business altogether:
a) Convicted felons (of fraud) are no longer allowed to be chief petitioner.
b) Bill Sizemore has been a chief petitioner for dozens of initiatives. Which have garnered hundreds of thousands of votes, so this isn't a lone voice.
c) Lets make him a convicted felon. He is currently up on criminal charges of tax evasion, which is still to be determined in court - something about comingling of funds across a PAC and an educational 501(c)(3) prevented him from filing taxes (and we know how those funds hate to be comingled). As a result, he and his wife failed to file three years of state income taxes. This is the criminal charge.

Is it fair to derail the fourth dimension of Oregon politics? If they take him out, will others rise up? And why do they want to take him out in any case? Shouldn't the citizens of the state get a chance to decide whether they want these initiatives (like Measure 50)? Where will we be as a state without this additional check on our government?