Vote NO on Oregon Ballot Measure 64
If Oregon Ballot Measure 64 looks like something that Oregonians have voted on many times before, that’s probably because it is. Measure 64 prohibits money collected with the use of public resources from being used for political purposes, except elections, official voter pamphlets and most lobbying. “Political purpose” is defined as: candidates, political committee or party, initiative or referendum committee, and supporting or opposing candidates or ballot measures.
Oregonians have faced this same question four times in the last decade. This is a pet project of former Oregon resident Loren Parks and Serial Signature Gatherer Bill Sizemore. On the face of the measure, it looks like an attempt to keep the state from endorsing any political causes. In reality, the state does not generally spend money on any political causes, since that is not the role of the state government.
The reality is found in a section of the proposed law that defines “any state money” to include the minuscule cost of making payroll deductions from state employees. The cost of doing this is really very small, as it is something that happens in any company that makes any sort of payroll deductions for its employees, as a regular part of preparing the payroll. However, since a few minutes of state employee time is used to record these deductions, they would be prohibited under this law.
Why would anyone care about this, anyway? Well, the issue is that many charities and labor unions hire people to lobby politicians to pass laws that are beneficial to that charity or labor union. This is a perfectly normal function of these organizations. The point of the law is that the sponsors of the ballot measure want to spend thousands or millions of their own dollars to hire their own lobbyists to affect laws as they would like to see them changed.
So the sum total of this is that one man has sponsored this ballot measure in an attempt to silence the voices of organizations that might oppose him. This has nothing to do with the state endorsing particular political stances. This has nothing to do with saving money in the office that processes payroll for state employees. This has everything to do with one man from Nevada who wants to try to affect legislation in Oregon by denying state employees the right to have payroll deductions voluntarily made from their paychecks for Union Dues or Charitable Contributions.
The name of the committee that was formed by Bill Sizemore to collect signatures was named the “Ban Public Money for Politics Committee”. This is a misnomer, since no public money is actually being used for politics, other than the usual expenditures for conducting elections. The law actually attempts to make it difficult for public employees to spend their money as they see fit. There is a big difference between the state itself and the private lives of it’s employees.
Bill Sizemore and Loren Parks think they are going to pull a trick on us by trying to get the public to pass a new law that is not quite like they describe it. This law would be completely unnecessary, and would serve to restrict the rights and voices of state employees. Join me in voting NO on Oregon Ballot Measure 64.
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