Letter to Editor in Friday, March 3, 2006 Portland Tribune

Let’s get on with voter-owned elections
   Thank goodness voter-owned elections are safe for now. Portland residents weren’t fooled when PGE, Qwest, the Oregon Restaurant Association and developers dumped $350,000 into the effort to overturn a reform that increases accountability in government, creates fairer elections and reduces the influence of big-money contributors on City Hall.
   It’s not surprising that they missed the mark. They had virtually no grass-roots help with their signature-gathering process, so they relied heavily on paid signature gatherers who only had so many places to gather signatures.
   It’s hard to say what they will do next, but we know that businesspeople don’t invest $350,000 for nothing. Be on the lookout for another power grab by Portland’s financial elite.
   Meanwhile, let’s engage in the new, issues-based City Council races. May the voter-connected candidates win!
   Jamie Partridge
   Northeast Portland

The big-business special interest effort to repeal Voter-Owned Elections is still not on the May ballot indicating they couldn't convince enough Portlanders to give up fair elections for all.

"Special interests paid an incredible $8 per signature for this power grab, but the Oregon Restaurant Association, big utilities, developers, and big business interests still couldn't buy enough valid signatures to tilt our level playing field back in their favor," said Carol Cushman, president of the League of Women Voters of Portland.

"It is now time to move on to discussions of other city issues beyond this concern of special interest campaign contributors," said Cushman. "However, we won't be surprised if these deep-pocketed players come back again and our education and advocacy campaign will continue to ensure defeat of a repeal whenver it might appear on the ballot,"

The initiative to repeal Portland's Voter-Owned Elections reform may still end up on May ballot. A signature verification review is underway due to technological problems in the initial assessment.

So we can't let up our efforts to spread the word about how Voter-Owned Elections levels the playing field and keeps Portland politics fair for all.