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October 11, 2007

Measure 49 Process Reveals True Colors

If you ever wondered why the rabid right-wing right is so rabid, all you have to do is look at Measure 49. As Nigel Jaquiss explains, the measure's proponents – those who have been fighting continuously since 2000 to undo Measure 7 and the subsequent Measure 37 – "orchestrated a strategy to get Measure 49’s backers the ballot title they wanted." In other words, those who have spent so much time criticizing ballot title shopping shopped around for the best possible circumstances in order to control the measure's ballot title and thereby ensure its passage. Apparently, they recognized that Bill Sizemore has been right all along about the importance of ballot titles.

Tim Nesbitt, who was supposed to be acting in a fair manner, joined up with Bob Stacey, the director of 1000 Friends of Oregon, "to make sure any prospective ballot title would reflect proponents’ views, rather than neutrality," as Jaquiss explains. They polled and ran focus groups. They tested the language of proposed ballot titles to see which language would get them the best outcome. They made certain it was biased.

None of these options are ever available in the initiative process. The only option available in that process is to engage in ballot title shopping. The process is, in a sense, a dance with the Attorney General's office and the Oregon Supreme Court. Sometimes bias affects the titles, but in comparison to the effort Measure 49 proponents undertook, the traditional ballot title process seems exceedingly fair.

Steve Novick's involvement in this effort is particularly disturbing because back in 2000, he was very outspoken in his opposition to ballot title shopping. At the time, I am sure supporters thought that opposition was due to a desire to ensure ballot titles were fair and neutral; in retrospect, it would appear that those rabid right-wingers were right – Novick's (and others') opposition to ballot title shopping is that it prevents them and their allies in government from prejudicing the ballot titles.

Not only did Measure 49's proponents bypass the normal process and word the ballot title language to ensure it would lead voters to believe it reflected their desires, they also chose to bypass the normal process for writing the Explanatory Statement and deliberately tried to make the summary so long that it would be left out of Voter Pamphlets, thereby ensuring that their carefully crafted ballot title would be the only official explanation available to most voters. Voters would, then, vote based on ballot title language they knew was biased because they had intentionally biased it, and would not be able to understand the implications of the vote they were making. In the end, the summary was shortened for inclusion, but the specific effort to prevent it's printing reveals much about the motives of Measure 49 proponents.

The Democratically-controlled Legislature passed the package out to the voters on a party line vote after a lengthy process during which Republicans and property rights advocates were denied any legitimate participation. This after spending the past session griping about Republicans doing the same sort of thing to Democrats and promising things would be different when they were in charge. Well surprise, they aren't any different.

Greg Macpherson, who led the Democrats' effort to overturn Measure 37 (or, to be more socially acceptable, to "fix" Measure 37), says he believes the ballot title is accurate and fair. This is belied by the fact that proponents themselves said in communications to each other throughout the process that the title was biased in their favor. It is frightening to me that Macpherson is now running for Attorney General, where he would be in charge of writing all future ballot titles for initiatives. This is precisely the sort of bias that should not be allowed to taint that position.

Now I know I'm going to get some negative comments from people I respect telling me I'm overly-conspiratorial and that the Democrats would never do any such thing, but I am convinced they, like so many right-wingers, are simply unable to see the problem when it is their own side engaging in it. Jaquiss points out a classic example of this in a quote from Gov. John Kitzhaber when he vetoed a Republican effort to bias a legislative referral back in 1995:

I think it is important to preserve the right of Oregonians who may disagree with the Legislature to challenge the proposed ballot title in court.... It is never appropriate to avoid the appeals procedure in an effort to thwart court scrutiny and bypass citizens who may have an alternate point of view on the objectivity of the proposed ballot title.

I wonder what Kitzhaber would say about the Measure 49 ballot title process. Considering his own role in undermining and overturning Measure 7, I would not be surprised to see some cognitive dissonance exhibited by the man and his supporters.

This would all be outrageous enough if it stopped with bias in the ballot title, but it doesn't. The measure itself contains language that could very well change Measure 37 in ways the voters would not realize and would not want. That is why the ballot title had to be biased.

In fact, through the subtle use of specific terms and the knowledge of the process that is unfamiliar to most voters, legislators were able to draft a measure that sounds like it is fixing Measure 37 when in fact it is overturning it. Take, for instance, the voters are being told property owners could regain up to ten home sites unless located on "high value farmland," where they can only have three home sites. My guess is that few realize that most of the affected land is defined as "high value farmland," meaning very few people would get the ten homes. But worse, as it turns out, very few - if any - would even get the three homes because, according to Measure 49, residences cannot be built unless existing regulations "prohibit" them outright. Oregon law doesn't "prohibit" homes on farm land – it "restricts" them based on certain tests being met. In other words, the language of the measure is such that it will look like it is doing one thing, but in actuality will be doing another.

And don't even get me started on the misleading advertising.

The Measure 49 crowd is practicing elitism at its worst. They believe they know best, they have worked to overturn the will of the voters who, they believe, did not understand what they were doing, and now that they have the capacity to manipulate the situation they are ensuring that they fool the voters into undoing what they have already done – twice – because it is for the best.

Really, I'm so disgusted by the entire process I don't even feel like talking about politics anymore. It seems there just aren't any good guys left.

Posted by Becky at October 11, 2007 04:17 PM