Oregon Governor Signs SB 326

On July 22, Oregon Governor Ted Kulongowski signed SB 326, the bill that eliminates the “primary screenout” for independent candidate petitions, and also legalizes fusion. This is not really news, because the Governor said on July 9 that he would sign the bill. Still, it prompted this news story. UPDATE: actually the bill was signed on the afternoon of July 23, not July 22.


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Oregon Governor Signs SB 326 — No Comments

  1. Texas is the last, except that Nebraska has the restriction for independent presidential petitions, but no other types of petitions. The Nebraska Secretary of State’s office would like to eliminate the restriction on independent presidential petitions, but this year term limits were in effect for the first time in the Nebraska unicameral legislature, and the Secretary of State learned to his dismay that it is tough to get new state legislators to sponsor bills. They are still feeling insecure and don’t want to introduce bills.

  2. Problem in Texas is there is very little base of support for electoral reform. You have the Libertarian Party with some limited bargaining power and a couple representatives like Mark Strama who are willing to reform ballot access.

    On the whole, most Texan legislators want to retain their own power.

  3. “Source: Oregon Legislature news release”

    http://www.leg.state.or.us/press_releases/metsger_072209.html

    I would not refer to it as a news story.

    The real problem in Oregon is that they combine the partisan primary with non-partisan elections, including those for county and city officials and even ballot issues (in May 2004, there were 3 statewide ballot issues).

    In 2008, 75.8% of Democrats, 55.9% of Republicans, 29.4% of non-affiliated voters, and 32.6% of other-party voters participated in the May primary, which included the presidential preference primary for Democrats and Republicans.

    In the general election in November 2008, 89.1% of Democrats, 88.3% of Republicans, 76.0% of non-affiliated voters, and 77.1% of other-party voters participated.

    The effect is to skew turnout for the non-partisan races towards partisan voters. So 430,000 non-affiliated voters are effectively disenfranchised by politicians and the media who are told that they really aren’t wanted, even for non-partisan issues on the ballot, making this a de facto primary screen out.

    And many other voters are disenfranchised by the use of partisan primaries. In 2008, all 60 House seats were up for election. 43 (72%) were non-competitive (60%+ majority for one party), meaning that when there is an actual choice – usually when an incumbent retires or tries to run for a more prestigious office, the choice is limited to voters on one party.

    There were only 15 contested House primaries in May. 11 of the primary winners won in November, 7 of them in non-competitive races. Effectively, the representatives in these districts were chosen in a closed primary from which many voters were forbidden from voting, a de jure primary screenout.

    SB 2614 (2005) prevented someone who returned a partisan ballot in the primary from participating in the nomination process of a minor party or an assembly of voters, or signing an independent candidate’s petition.

    So it is more than a little disingenuous for Senator Metsger to claim, “Under the previous law, a citizen could not even vote on local tax measures or school board elections if they wished to sign a petition for a nonpartisan candidate to run to be their state representative, senator or even governor”.

    That would only happen if a voter voted a Democratic or Republican ballot, and skipped down to the local tax measure, ignoring all partisan offices. But in 2008, the Democrats and Republicans forbade non-affiliated voters from voting their primary ballots. The only option available for non-affiliated voters would be to vote the non-partisan ballot on which only issues such as local tax measures were available.

  4. The usual disincentive for an independent to vote in a primary is probably lessened in Oregon, where every registered voter automatically gets a ballot in the mail without even asking for one.

  5. #7 “The usual disincentive for an independent to vote in a primary is probably lessened in Oregon”

    In 2008, 75.8% of Democrats, 55.9% of Republicans, 29.4% of non-affiliated voters, and 32.6% of other-party voters participated in the May “primary”, which included the presidential preference primary for Democrats and Republicans.

    While the Democrat percentage was exceptionally high in 2008, that for non-affiliated voters was not particularly so. There has been a pretty consistent 25-30% less participation by non-affiliated voters in the “primary” election going back into the 60s and 70s.

    There appears to be a drop in the early 1990’s, but there was a classification change to distinguish between non-affiliated and minor party voters at that time. In 1990, 13.1% of NAV voters were reported as having voted, but 621.2% of other voters. If you combined the number of voters and registrants in the two categories it comes out to 27.3%.

    Senator Metsger appears to be misstating the effect of HB 2614 passed in 2005, since it specifically says that a voter has to vote a major party ballot to be disqualified from participating in minor party or independent nominations.

    But in 2008, a non-affiliated voter was not permitted by a combination of law and party policy from taking a major party ballot. They could still vote the non-partisan ballot that was sent to them, vote on local tax levies, and then participate in either minor party nomination process or sign independent petitions.

    In the long term, it appears that the effect of SB 326 will be to encourage voters to drop their non-affiliated status and switch to Republican and Democratic parties, so they can actually vote for their legislators and other officials. In the months before the 2008 primary, the Pacific Green party lost about 1/4 of its registrants, apparently voters who wanted to vote in the Clinton-Obama primary.

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