Oregon politics

I've heard political analyst Jim Moore speak after elections, but today was the first time I'd heard Moore offer up his take before an election.  Before Moore started his Salem City Club presentation, I told someone sitting at my table that I hoped Moore wasn't going to throw cold water on the chances of Oregon progressives in the upcoming mid-term election.  Thankfully, he didn't, as I'll explain below. But though I wish Moore's fingers in the photo I took of him were indicating how small Republican chances were, actually his gesture had some other meaning. (Or maybe no meaning.) Moore,…

Secretary of State Dennis Richardson is an Oregon anomaly: a Republican elected to statewide office. This probably helps explain why comparatively few Salem City Club members attended his talk about redistricting today, since most members lean leftward. Another reason might be that the recommendations of Richardson's pet project, a Redistricting Reform Task Force, have been politically dead ever since, well, six months before the Task Force issued its final report in October 2017. In April 2017 Oregon Democrats said Richardson's plan was dead on arrival. Which is sort of strange, given that the Task Force recommendations hadn't been released yet. …

Don't be fooled by the full page ad in today's Statesman Journal opposing HB 4005, a bill that would require pharmaceutical companies to disclose pricing information about drugs they sell.  The group behind the ad, Caregiver Voices United, is a front for the pharmaceutical industry. Sure, you won't save at the pharmacy counter as a result of HB 4005 because the bill doesn't directly regulate drug prices. Rather, it brings some much-needed transparency into the price-gouging that pharmaceutical companies are notorious for. Here's an excerpt from an Oregonian opinion piece, "Oregon should force Big Pharma to fork over pricing info."…

Here in Oregon there's only one thing on the January ballot, Measure 101. And it's a no- brainer: VOTE YES I say this after spending an hour today hearing both sides make their best cases for "Yes" and "No" at a Salem City Club meeting. Even though I came in expecting that Yes would have the better arguments, I was surprised how weak the No arguments were. Measure 101 asks Oregonians to decide if $210 to $320 million worth of assessments on insurance companies, some hospitals, the Public Employees Benefit Board, and managed care organizations go into effect, as passed…

Last Friday I enjoyed hearing Oregon State Senator Ginny Burdick and Sara Batterby, CEO of HiFi Farms and a founding chair of Women Grow, update a Salem City Club audience about what's happening with marijuana in this state.  West Salem Cannabis had a display set up in an adjoining room. Unfortunately they couldn't give out any free samples, nor sell anything outside of their store. I hugely enjoyed seeing fellow semi-staid City Club members browsing the cannabis offerings and talking about pot with the friendly West Salem Cannabis employees. Yes, Oregon, along with other legal weed states, has come a…