Seven Days; Post Election Discussion on Measure 49 (prison work); Measure 50 (property tax cut measures)

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[Theme music] [Theme music] Hi, I'm Stephanie Fowler, and this is Seven Days. Our topic this week: Tuesday's election results and what happens next for schools, and state and local governments. Let's meet this week's panel. Harry ?Estev? is the capitol reporter for the Eugene Register Guard. Colin Fogarty is OPB's Salem correspondent. ?Hasso Herring? is the editor of the Albany Democrat Herald, and Mark ?Zusman? is the editor of Willamette Week in Portland. 56% of those who voted on Tuesday said yes to the legislature's revised version of Measure 41. Measure 50 won't cut property taxes as much as the original measure, but it is designed to withstand legal

challenges, and it does exempt rural hospitals and a Portland pension fund that would have been hit hard under Measure 47. Mark, was Measure 50's success on Tuesday a vote of confidence in the legislature and its rewrite of the measure? [Mark] I know it's hard to say that with a straight face. The answer is no, and to be fair to the legislature, I, in preparation for the show asked members of the legislature, bureaucrats, pollsters, anybody who I thought might have an informed opinion- everyone said, do not read this election as any increased a vote of confidence in the legislative process or the legislature. Do not also read it as any sort of vote of confidence in Bill Sizemore. I think you can read into this the overwhelming ignorance on the part of people like myself who have predicted that this thing would fail, and I think you also can read into the election the fact that, at least for the substantial minority of people who voted for 50, that those people really did pay attention. I mean, this was a measure that was pretty complicated, that in order to vote for, you really have to take some time and figure out what it was and what it was replacing. And I think at heart that's

probably the most important message that I got out of this election. [Man] Mark, that's a hard thing to really believe, because if anybody actually read this measure, he would've been so confused as to throw the thing in the trash. The language of the measure itself, as it was printed in the voter's pamphlet, that everybody- I suppose everybody got- was so dense, so convoluted that nobody could've understood what actually it said. So the only explanation for the support of the measure really has to be that people believe the explanation of it. Because if they read it themselves, I don't think anybody could have figured it out. And the explanation was that it would- that it made Measure 47 work. That the other- the other part that the original measure would not have withstood the court challenges, and in some parts and some cases, could not been carried out because it was so difficult. [Man] In many elections, people don't even pay attention to the explanation. The fact that people paid enough attention to a fairly complicated explanation of what 47 did, what 50 would do, and how it would clean up and grant some certainty of- from 47. [Man] Well, that's right. That's why it was so surprisingly really, because normally, you know, we all kind of believe

that the electorate generally doesn't believe anybody. But in this case surely a fair number of it, a fair proportion of it, must have believed the explanation. And the press for example... [Man] No one thought this would pass. [Man] I think though, that if it doesn't reflect a new trust in the Oregon legislature, which it probably doesn't, I think it reflects a kind of mood in the springtime that may be related to the seasons [laughter], but I think that that currently right now in the last few months there's not a real mood of anger and cynicism out there. I mean, it's always bubbling, it's always under the surface, but if you compare it to elections in November, where the rain's starting and where you've been deluged with political commercials that sort of make you cynical, I mean if you notice the whole two weeks that people were voting, the weather was incredible. [Man] This is the reverse seasonal affective disorder. [Laughter] [Man] I honestly think it made a difference. People were not so angry at the world in general. [Woman] But 60% of registered voters didn't vote [Man] Right, which is, I think,

shows that people were having a hard time understanding what this bill, what this measure did. How it would benefit them, how it wouldn't benefit them, and whether it mattered one way or another if they voted on it. Measure 47 and Measure 50 really aren't much different, except that there are some little- there's some key phrases in Measure 50 that does allow the counties and the state to figure out a way to make what Measure 47 requested actually take place. But beyond that it's really difficult to read any kind of unified message into that vote because everyone had different reasons for voting different ways. Two people could be voting the same way for just entirely polar opposite reasons on this one. Unless someone does some real detailed research, I don't think you're gonna be able to draw a conclusion. [Woman] I was gonna ask, that, do we know whether it was opponents of Measure 47 that passed it, or supporters of Measure 47? [Man] There is one bit of indication. The measure passed - correct me if I'm wrong - in every county in the state but two: Douglas and Colombia. And what's interesting is that those

two counties were the counties that had the highest percentage voting in favor of 47. So it would suggest, I mean you have to extrapolate a few ways, but it would suggest that it's those who opposed 47 who may have been the winning- this margin in voting for 50, as opposed to those who voted against. [Woman] And that would be the intuitive conclusion to make, because it does- I mean, the biggest change it makes, and beneficially, is to help local governments a little bit more, at least, than Measure 47 did. [Man] Such a tiny bit more though, I mean it really- it doesn't- local governments are not much better off. I mean they're still hurting, and they tried to pass some levies so they wouldn't hurt, and those got- [Woman] Well, their perception was that it would save them $200,000,000 over Measure 47. [Man] And it does save them some amount of money, and the other thing about the whole thing is that the measure had, until very- just before the election, had the support of public employee unions. Protection of the OPEU, the Oregon Public Employees Union. And that, and surely that- that union, and other groups like it worked hard to help pass it. [Man] I think that-

[Man] And you know one of the reasons why it may have passed was that people who opposed it, who favored Measure 47, really had no particular reason to vote again. Either way, they got pretty much what they wanted. I mean, if it failed they had 47. If it passed, they had pretty much the same thing in Measure 50. But because the effect of 50 was not quite as severe, people had a stake in how the local governments work, particularly, and how the state government works, and had a stake in pushing hard for it, and there was I think a good deal of pushing for that measure, along with a lot of local measures that kind of played into it. [Man] I was gonna get back to Colin's point. I'm not sure I agree with this sort of circadian rhythm theory of election, but I do think that there is a general, that there is less, slightly less cynicism about government and local government in particular, even from last November. Maybe it's the sun and maybe it's- you're right, maybe it's the economy, the continued strong economy obviously has an effect. And I do think that that people's generally good feelings

and slightly better feelings about elected officials may have pushed this in- [overlapping chatter] [inaudible] [Man] ...so much, but let's give people some credit for a little bit of brains also. I mean there was this other measure on the ballot also, Measure 49, that didn't get very much publicity, but it did get a good- it did get some explanation, and it was simply a measure to make another initiative work. If you wanted to vote on that thing at all, you had to kind of pay attention to what- what the thing would do, and then there's [Woman] That's the prison work program, just so we know what we're talking about. [Man] Well what it is is that it refined, and revised, an initiative that had been adopted in '94 having to do with the requirement that prisoners work 40 hours a week, or be educated, or be schooled 40 hours a week. Well, as it was, the measure would not have worked- that is, the original did not- and so the legislature put on a program that would, that made it work. It's very simple. Well, it wasn't exactly all that simple, but, but in order to vote for it, you had to be of the opinion that the legislature did a good thing, and that made it work. [Man] No. No. All you had to do was open your voter's pamphlet, and there was not one statement in opposition to the measure, which is not the case with Measure 50. [Man] I think that also, though, that- [Man] But the point is that, if you didn't vote for it,

the requirement would have been the same. [Colin] Well I think that part of it is that, Hasso you mentioned that the people who voted for Measure 47 didn't have any interest in really going out to the polls, or sending in their ballot and voting it, and I think the people who opposed Measure 47 also didn't really have that much interest in voting either, and I think part of the result of- that Measure 50 passed, is that they stayed home and didn't- didn't vote, because I think what happened was is that people just sort of cut through the fog of the complexity of it, and the morass of it, and decided that Bill Sizemore wrote a poorly bad- or, poorly-written measure, and this one, though I don't trust the legislature, is written by people at least who know tax policy. And I think that voters are able to cut through that fog and understand that one thing has written better than the other. The implications might be a little different but just, you know, people want good policy. [Man] Well, I think Colin, that's right, and that sort of kicks down the argument about springtime. I mean,

this- this is a rational decision. [Colin] I think there's no one reason for the- there's no one explanation for this, this success. [Man] Right. And so now we oughtta just take a look at what we have in front of us regardless of the reason people voted. And one of the- one of the ways it's been billed- that Measure 50 was billed as being better was that it's some sort of protection from lawsuits in the future, and that might be an overstatement from what I've heard. I mean it has the same inherent, potentially a legal flaw in that Measure 47 did and that is that eventually as this is allowed to carry out there's gonna be some real inequities in the property tax system. And that could end up throwing it into- into a court battle and perhaps being decided on some appeals court level. [Man] There's likely to be affect some time down the road when some of these inequities start becoming apparent. Much quicker than that we'll see that this it's not going to be quite as easy to carry out as, maybe- as some of us thought. The tax assessors, or at least ours in Linn County, has warned people that

the tax bills may be quite late this year, because first of all mechanism, really, for carrying out Measure 50 has not been decided. The legislature has not yet passed the implementing legislation, and from all indications, that measure, too, is gonna be fairly complex, and so there's going be a lot of education on the part of the tax assessors, and the tax collectors, because- before they figure out what they're supposed to do and how to get the money. [Woman] Well, isn't it possible it could change even further because the implementing legislation hasn't passed yet, and four days before the election they were already changing it, so people who had voted before the four days voted on something very different? [Man] Well this became my thought. This sort of- what persuaded me that this measure was not gonna pass, the fact that four days, on the 16th of May, Tom Brian, the revenue committee chair, passes an implementing bill which doesn't change the measure that we're voting on, but certainly created the perception that it was, and you could argue that it opened up some question about vote by mail, because i think some people felt that those who have already voted were voting for one thing, and then this

implementing legislation, which basically gave more money- will give more money back to voters, suggested that they were voting on something else. [overlapping dialogue, inaudible] That's not the reality, but that was the widely-held perception, and many journalists wrote it that way. [Man] Well, and that's because- [Man] That's the whole point, that's the whole point. [Man] Yeah, the other problem is that a lot of the numbers and the information about Measure 50 vs. Measure 47 were being presented in newspapers and in the media as solid, and they weren't, they simply weren't, and even the people who were coming up with those numbers were saying, "These ain't solid," and you oughtta print them with lots of caveats. [overlapping dialogue] And they still aren't, they're going to continue to change. [Man] The text of that measure is extremely solid. You can't change it, and it couldn't be changed, [overlapping dialogue] and it's not changed, and what it says is that there's to be a 17% statewide average property tax reduction from what would have occurred if these measures had not been enacted. I mean that is- that's what it says in the measure, and that's what the legislature is trying to achieve. It turned out that what they had- the implementing legislation that was on the table before did not quite achieve it. So shortly before the election, when that became obvious, that the legislative committee decided, Look we got to make sure

that we meet the requirements of the measure that's on the ballot. Unfortunately that was not the way it was reported in the papers that I saw. That was the most misleading information and headlines, and all over the place, that said that somehow the legislature was changing Measure Fifty as it was being voted on. [Man] Well, and the main problem, though- [Man] No wonder people were upset, and some of them called us, and the- [Man] Apparently not enough- not upset enough to- [Man] Well, many of them had already voted. [Man] Well, and the problem, really, when that happened, the problem had started early on, when they started making these predictions of how much money Measure 50 meant, and how much Measure 47 meant. I mean, these predictions were based on basic information that changes all the time, and they came up with two numbers: 804 million as what Measure 50 was worth, and 17%, and these two numbers, they found that Friday before the election, were in conflict. And in order to make this- they had to pick all right, do we want 804 million, or do we want 17%? They chose 17%. And it became- [Man] There was no picking. They had to do that. They had to do that exactly. [Man] You're right. [Man] They just had to carry out the measure, that's all it was, and if it had

been reported that way, nobody would have been confused, and nobody would have been angry. [Stephanie] Let's talk about another part of Measure 47 that turned out a little bit differently, I think, than people expected. The double majority, people had predicted that local taxing districts would have an extreme difficulty getting any money measures passed, and it turned out- what, that- [Man] About half. Twenty two of the districts who were asking for more money got it. [Man] We might revisit what the double majority means, for those of us who've either forgotten or- or don't know, which is the requirement in 47 that any- [Man] And 50- money - and (Measure) 50 - that any money elections not held during a general election have to be passed by a majority of the voters in a majority- that a majority of registered voters turn out, and the majority of those voters vote for it, which is very controversial. I have a question - and maybe this is too arcane - but Measure 50 was in itself a money measure, because if Measure 50 didn't pass, Measure 47 would have been in place, and in essence Measure 50 was a tax hike, because Measure 50 returns fewer dollars to my pocket than does Measure 47. So why didn't Measure 50 have to comport with a double majority rule? [Man] Well, [unintelligible] constitutional amendment

proposed by the legislature, and constitutional amendments don't generally have to meet that requirement. [Man] The double majority does not require- [Man] I think the language is pretty clear that it doesn't really apply to constitutional amendments, and it's interesting to note that the legislature is indeed addressing this issue and there's a bill coming out of the senate sometime that will ask voters to repeal the double majority aspect of Measure 50. [Woman] Will that pass the house? ?Lundquist? has said previously that he wouldn't allow something like that on the house floor. [Man] It's anybody's guess, really. Who know? But it also could be challenged in court and there's a good argument there, that it's undemocratic. [Man] It is undemocratic; it is and in some cases, in some rare cases as Colin- as you mentioned, it worked out but it did not work out easily. I mean, there were counties or election districts where extreme measures were taken to make sure to try to get some- a majority of the registered voters to cast a ballot and it turned out, for example in Linn County, that- where, at the

last minute, fifty- more than- way more than fifty percent of the voters did turn out on a very important law enforcement levee, that the margin of- the ratio of approval, then, of those people who vote was like five to one. I mean an unheard of margin of approval- a ratio of approval for a tax measure. So, in a way you could say that, you know, once you have this difficult requirement and you- and you force people to defend money measures in very forceful and then direct kind of way, and then people really get engaged, and they understand it, and they understand the complications- or the consequences of not passing the thing, that then you get all kinds of majorities for really important measures. I mean, I've never heard of a five to one majority approving a tax measure - a substantial law enforcement tax of several million dollars per year. [Man] Well anyway, the double majority aspect of Measure 50 worked as far as Bill Sizemore and those who support him are concerned. I mean, in our county -- in Lane County -- there were several money measures, most of which got

majority votes, but none of them passed, because there wasn't a big enough turnout in Lane County. It was only forty percent turnout. And that's exactly the kind of check and balance that Mr. Sizemore and his supporters want. [Man] And to explain the rationale there, I mean his viewpoint is that if you have a quorum in the legislature, then you should have a quorum among voters. And, you know it's a fairly logical argument. [Man] Well, it's not all that logical in the sense that, in this case you give everybody an opportunity to vote, you know? You send a ballot to somebody's house. It's not as though anybody has to be- not as though anybody is kept in ignorance, or it's not as though anybody is trying to hide the election. That was the rationale for that requirement, that otherwise local governments would pick some obscure date in March and put some big measure on the ballot and tell all their friends about it - and nobody else - and some tax would get enacted. And the idea was to prevent that. But you know with mail balloting, where everybody gets a ballot anyway, you just don't have that rationale. It doesn't make sense. [Man] You know, Stephanie, getting back to your original question, which is: Is this say something about the level of satisfaction with the legislature? I don't know how telling it is, but I spoke with Greg

Walden earlier today, who ran the campaign to the past (Measure) 50 -- himself a former legislator -- and he said that they went out and did some surveys and testing, when they decided to run the campaign because there were looking for what he called a "big dog", which is sort of nomenclature for someone to lash the campaign to. In other words, "Hasso Herring's got enormous credibility in the state, so Hasso, you go out and be the spokesperson for 50." [Man] [inaudible] [laughter] And he said he tested a number of people and there were no "big dogs". He said we couldn't find anybody who would act conceivably as a spokesperson for (Measure) 50 and they'd say "We're gonna vote it because of the credibility this person." He said the closest they came were a couple of middle-sized "dogs": and it was the governor, and there were school boards. And interestingly the governor did not campaign on this issue at all -- at least not in Multnomah County, that I saw of. And yet despite not having anyone to pass- to associate themselves with - and if you saw or heard any of the advertising for Measure 50, none of them said this is something that the legislature gave you, or this is something that Bill Sizemore is behind. I mean, if anything they were trying- the campaign tried to distance himself from the two authors of Measure 50, and yet it still passed. [Man] Yeah, well the message of the

campaign ads were simply, do you want to, you know, these lower taxes and do you want to be sure that you get them? If you do, vote for Measure 50. It's nice, simple, clear message and probably was fairly effective. [Stephanie] Given the success of the two legislative referrals or ?rewrites? of citizen passed initiatives, do think the legislature will be emboldened to do more tinkering or more just flat out referral of things that voters approved that the legislature doesn't like? [Man] Well, you would think that they wouldn't have had the guts to do this kind of thing to begin with, because all the evidence shows that- that legislative referrals either don't work or it just angers people. And the one thing that- we're going to see later on this year is the ballot measure to repeal ballot Measure 16 -- the assisted suicide law -- and any credibility that the legislature might have gained through Measure 50 and Measure 49, I think might be decreased by a referral of a bill to repeal something. I mean it's one thing to tinker with a bill, but I think voters are gonna get pretty angry about- about a bill that would repeal a law already voted on. [Man] There's another

measure that may- that we may see -- unless something's changed in the last day or so -- and that has to do with fixing the term limits. Now that would be a different kind of thing. It would be similar to what we've just gone through- where the legislature would try to repair something that- that would work a little better, that is, making term limits apply for 12 years at a time rather than from different periods in different chambers. It would not change the overall limit then people could make the argument that the voters' will would still be observed. But you're right, Colin. That is not the kind of thing that would- nobody in the legislature- or nobody- nobody would expect the legislature to approve a bill for to send the voters a bill to repeal term limits, for example. No- that just won't happen. [Stephanie] There was an interesting suggestion actually. It was in a survey in your paper, Harry, in the Register Guard, that suggested that maybe because of these referrals by the legislature, that might've accounted at least to some extent for the low turnout, and people were very- were disgusted by- by having to vote again on things that they already passed and thought, "My vote doesn't count." [Others agree]

[Man] That they are gettin', they are getting tired of voting and then having either a court overturned what they just voted on or the legislature try overturn it or the legislature sent it back for- "Maybe ya didn't get it right the first time. Try again." And- and that is causing a significant amount of dissatisfaction. Our survey wasn't in any way scientific. But it- the answers that we got were a little bit more virulent than we thought we would get. I mean that- [Stephanie] That's interesting- [Man] people were really steamed. And just about this point, I mean, they just think that they're not being listened to and their sacred rite of voting is- is kind of no more than a whim. [Man] The same thing comes out in letters to the editor to all the papers. And- but the answer to it is, Well, you know, if people do get steamed about this sorta thing, but the answer really is to pay a little more attention, I hate to say it, to the kinds of things we enact in the first place. I mean, there are always warning voices that- that tell us, that look this is not gonna work the way ya say it will or the that way the proponents say it will. They're drawbacks here and sometimes, as in the prison thing, it's just not gonna work that way as- as you say. You can vote all

day that the sun is gonna rise in the west. And no matter how often you vote it's not gonna happen. [Man] Isn't it clear though that the passage of Measure 50 is gonna mean a shorter legislative session than if 47 were in place now? [Man] Not necessarily. I mean, I- I asked a lot of people about that and some thought that might've been the case, but actually most said, it wouldn't've made that much difference that- that the work they had done to prepare Measure 50 would apply to the work they would have to do to get Measure 47 ready. Or they could've thrown up their hands and said, "Well, fine. We tried to fix it and you said, no, so we're just gonna let it be the law of the land," which it- which it was until Measure 50 passed and then there was a lot of other ramifications to that, such as attorney general's opinion and so forth. So I think what it did though is it really did give the legislators get a pat on the back and a break, even though we don't want to read into the fact that- that now citizens think the legislature is doing a great job. But it- but it did- it did kind of validate the work that they had done and the fact that they had gone and taken a somewhat risky approach, as Colin mentioned. [Man] [inaudible] [Stephanie] Does it clear the deck for

resolution of budget issues in the- the basic close of the [woman] legislature? [Man] Not necessarily. There's plenty of really big issues left to- and the big one being this standoff between the House and the Senate over the education budget and a couple other budgets. And whether Measure 50 would've gotten in the way of that or not, not, I don't know, but i don't think it did that much to it. But what it has done is really clear the way -- this long running argument over property taxes. I mean, once all the confusion is out of the way on Measure 50, the rates are set in place and people start getting their property tax bills, it's going to be a real, very simple way of dealing with taxes. I mean your assessed values will be down, and they cannot increase by more than three percent. You'll have a permanent rate in place so you'll know from year to year what your taxes are going to be. There's not going to be this big question mark each year. [Different man speaking] [inaudible] I think this is wishful thinking. I think there's going to be bond measures, there's going to be local option measures, there's going to be construction on your house, there's going to be rezoning in your neighborhood. But there is now. There's- there's that now.

[second man] But all those things and to the complexity now, and it is going to stay complex now. [different man] The big question mark, particularly in the Portland area, is you don't know whether, you know, the assess value of your house could double from year to year [Panelist agreeing] and that, and Harry's right, that has been eliminated. [woman] So is this lasting peace in the tax reform wars? [man] No way. [second man] Well, I think not overall tax reform. [first man] Yeah, I think for property taxes, it's a truce anyway but for overall taxes, the battle has just begun. [woman] But does this get -- does this basically kill any momentum for more general tax reform? [man] Well, I think not. I think it lays the groundwork for more work to be done on the whole tax picture. And frankly, and- as we've already read, the proponents that is this- the sponsors of these initiative measures are already at work with new measures that- that the cap the revenue of local governments in order to keep taxes down, that try to privatize some operations of state and local governments in order to do the same thing. So, I think this is going to be a permanent fixture in the Oregon politics to debate. I mean, as it has been for the last 30 years that I know of, to debate taxes. [different man] I think you're going to

see a kind of battle brewing between tax revolt and tax reform, and that the tax reform angle is going to be looking at more of the, the- where the balance of the taxes are. Who's paying taxes and how much and whether they're progressive enough or- and whether or not the schools in particular are again some sort of stable source of funding. And then on the other hand, you can have the Sizemore and other tax revolters now taking aim at income taxes and other ways that the state has a raising revenue, and those two are going to... [different man] The governor has made pretty clear that he wants as part of his reelection campaign, to be viewed as sort of the general of the tax reform side of the battle and so I think we are going to see coming from his office, some real attempt to really sort of rearrange the landscape. [different man] But Bill Sizemore has hinted that he may run for governor and of course his whole agenda has to do with taxes, so if that happens, we may actually get a real campaign about the tax issue, which might be quite educational to Oregon voters. And I think, I think though that you know, Measure 50 and the budget impasse going on right now and all of these issues that we're talking about, I mean they get at a fundamental debate going on in

Oregon and throughout the country, which is sort of generally defined as liberal and conservative. On one side, you have people who say "We want services, we want government to provide them, and we're willing to pay for them." And on the other side, you have the group saying "We don't want to pay taxes, government needs to be efficient," and you know, "we just don't like government getting in our faces all the time." And these- this- these two sides, these two camps, will be fighting each other for as long as this state will be a state, and I don't think we're ever gonna solve this impasse. It's always going to be an argument and it's always going to infiltrate every legislative session and every initiative campaign. [woman] Any likelihood that initiatives will be harder to get into the ballot, legislature will do anything? [inaudible] [man] The legislature seems to be backing way off of the early session promises to go in and delve into the initiative process. There may be some sort of bill that comes out that would allow initiatives to go through some sort of screening or oversight process by legal experts so they can tell the- the chief sponsor, "You know, there are some constitutional problems in this that may want to look at, but you don't have

to if you don't want to, you can still put it on the ballot as." And that's about the only thing. No, you don't- Collin, you hearing anything else? Yeah. Okay, we're out of time. Harry [name], Colin Fogerty, [more names], thanks for joining us this week on Seven Days and thank you for watching. Good night. [music; credits] [music; credits] [music; credits]