Posted in2026 election National politics

Democrats now lead in redistricting battle. Take that, Republicans!

Revenge is sweet. That's how it felt to me last night as I rejoiced when Virginia voters approved a redistricting plan that is expected to result in a 10-1 Democratic majority in the state's 11 congressional districts, up from a 6-5 majority under the current plan. Is this fair in a purple state where the electorate narrowly favors Democrats? No. But Republicans have been happily gerrymandering in states that they control for decades, rejecting Democratic pleas to institute a national requirement for independent redistricting commissions to redraw congressional maps every ten years after a census. So after Trump demanded that…
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Posted in2026 election Homeless

Homelessness in Salem will be affected by the upcoming mayor and city council elections

Today the Salem Reporter published a great story about an important impact of the May election for mayor and four city council seats, "WHAT'S AT STAKE: How Salem city council races could impact local homeless policy." This is a summary of how the progressive and conservative slates of candidates differ in their approaches to homelessness. Candidates this year are largely divided between two philosophical approaches. In general, progressives describe the homelessness issue as a matter of affordability, particularly around rising rent costs and challenges finding housing. Conservatives point to addiction and a lack of personal accountability as the main drivers…
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Posted in2026 election Julie Hoy Vanessa Nordyke

Julie Hoy and Vanessa Nordyke agree on some things, disagree on others, in polite You Tube forum

I was hoping for some dramatic political fireworks, but mostly I got some mildly interesting sparklers. That pretty much sums up my reaction to a hour-long "mayoral debate" on You Tube featuring Julie Hoy and Vanessa Nordyke sponsored by What's Happening Salem and Capital Community Media. Which really wasn't a bad thing. Both candidates for mayor in the May election were polite with each other, frequently saying "I agree" to what their opponent said in response to questions posed by the moderators. Who did a very good job. The questions were thoughtful, and the production value of the You Tube…
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Posted in2026 election Donald Trump National politics

Tariff decision by Supreme Court could have helped GOP in midterms, but Trump is doubling down on tariff tax

When I checked my iPhone for the latest news upon waking this morning, my mood instantly brightened. Yay! The Supreme Court has ruled that most of Trump's tariffs were illegal. And not by a narrow 5-4 margin, by a 6-3 margin, so three Trump-appointed justices ruled against him. Up until now the Supreme Court has mostly been allowing Trump to pursue his authoritarian dreams with minimal pushback. But this was a big rejection of unfettered presidential power. Even three conservative Supreme Court justices realized that the Constitution gives Congress the power of taxation, and tariffs are a tax paid by…
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Posted in2026 election Julie Hoy Vanessa Nordyke

Mayor Julie Hoy chickened out on debating Vanessa Nordyke at Salem Reporter forum

I apologize to all the chickens in Salem for lumping you in with Mayor Julie Hoy, but "chickened out" just seemed like the best way to describe Hoy failing to agree to debate city councilor Vanessa Nordyke at a Town Hall event sponsored by the Salem Reporter. As described in the email message below that Salem Reporter editor and owner Les Zaitz sent to subscribers yesterday (I'm a subscriber), every other candidate for the four city council seats and the mayor position that will be voted on in the May election has agreed to participate in the event. Julie Hoy…
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Posted in2026 election Julie Hoy Vanessa Nordyke

Julie Hoy is acting like she doesn’t want to be reelected as Salem mayor

I'm beginning to think that Julie Hoy feels she would be happier if she wasn't the mayor of Salem, which entails putting in a lot of time for exactly zero money, the position being unpaid. I say this because while Hoy has filed for reelection, she's been making some dubious choices if she truly wanted to defeat Councilor Vanessa Nordyke in the May election. For example, (1) Hoy has declined to admit that she violated Oregon's public meetings law, even though the Oregon Government Ethics Commission determined that she was the instigator of prohibited private conversations with city councilors about…
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Posted in2026 election City Council

Once again, city council and mayor candidates in May election are divided into progressive and conservative tribes

In an ideal world, which for sure we don't have, political candidates would be judged on the basis of their unique individual qualifications and not on which political tribe they belong to. Maybe because they don't belong to any tribe, having foresworn membership in the Democratic, Republican, or some other party. But we live in polarizing times. And unlike a parliamentary system, our country has two enduring dominant political parties. So even though nationally unaffiliated voters are 47% of the electorate, with Republicans and Democrats at about 27% each, there's a strong impetus for candidates to identify as progressive or…
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Posted in2026 election Julie Hoy Vanessa Nordyke

Given Julie Hoy’s serious lie, her future as Salem’s mayor seems bleak

Four days ago I wrote a blog post about how Salem Mayor Julie Hoy lied to the city council president, Linda Nishioka, about how Hoy had supposedly learned that a majority of the council wanted the City Manager, Keith Stahley, to resign. After Nishioka passed that falsehood on to Stahley, he resigned -- setting in motion a fiasco that culminated in a recently-concluded investigation by the Oregon Government Ethics Commission. The investigation found that instead of a majority, five, of the city council members wanting Stahley to resign, actually just one did: Mayor Hoy herself. Yesterday I talked about Hoy's…
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Posted in2026 election Donald Trump National politics

If Trump tries to rip my mail-in ballot out of my hands, he’ll get a nasty paper cut

Hopefully the title of this blog post doesn't earn me a visit from the Secret Service. Guys, this isn't a threat against the president; it's a warning to Trump that if he messes with the much-beloved universal mail-in voting we have here in Oregon for every election, this will generate bad karma for him, possibly including a well-deserved paper cut. Trump's threat yesterday to issue an executive order banning mail-in voting is toothless, because the Constitution makes the states responsible for elections. Any changes to state election laws would have to be approved by Congress. Good luck getting that through…
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Posted in2024 election 2026 election Donald Trump

Why I’m going to look upon Trump’s second term as a political experiment

Progressives like me have a choice to make now that Trump has been inaugurated for a second term as president. How do we preserve our sanity during the next four years? I have Democratic friends who say that they're unable to pay attention to the news anymore, given all the crazy stuff the Trump administration will be doing. This doesn't appeal to me. I believe in staying informed, not ignoring what's going on. Another option is to remain in a more or less constant state of outrage as Trump dismantles valuable programs and policies from the Biden administration and institutes…
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Posted in2024 election 2026 election Donald Trump

Fellow Trump opponents, here’s what gives me hope

Election day was really depressing for me. While I knew that the race between Harris and Trump was a toss-up, I expected that Harris would pull out a victory. Heck, maybe even a fairly easy one. At the least, I thought the election would come down to narrow margins in a few swing states. So when it became evident that Trump was the victor before I went to bed around midnight out here in Oregon, my sleep was fitful. I couldn't stop thinking about the disasters that await our country and the world with another four years of Trump in…
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