Oregon's Outdoors In the News

Only 32 percent of state's 2 million ballots have been turned in

STEVE LAW and PETER WONG
Statesman Journal

November 4, 2007

Preserving Oregon's farmland and scenic beauty. Protecting property rights.

Extending health insurance to 100,000 youths. Raising taxes for smokers.

Measures 49 and 50 put weighty issues on Tuesday's statewide ballot -- issues that long have aroused residents' passions.

Yet voters don't seem enthusiastic, despite hefty TV advertising for both measures and record spending by tobacco companies.

The state Elections Division reported Friday that only 32 percent of Oregon's 2 million registered voters had turned in ballots by the close of business Thursday. Participation reached 34 percent in Marion County and 37 percent in Polk County.

It's too late to mail them, but Oregonians have until 8 p.m. Tuesday to hand-deliver ballots to county elections offices or other designated drop sites.

Both ballot measures were championed by Gov. Ted Kulongoski and Democratic legislators, with little Republican support. The Democratic-controlled Legislature lacked enough votes to pass both directly in the 2007 session, so lawmakers put them on a special-election ballot.

Measure 49 would roll back the nation's most extensive property-rights law, which voters passed in 2004 as Measure 37. It seeks a compromise in Oregon's three-decade-long fight over land use by making it easier to build a limited number of homes on rural land, but blocking more extensive development allowed under Measure 37. It also would allow transfer of development rights.

Measure 50 would increase cigarette taxes 84.5 cents to $2.02 per pack, with similar tax increases on other tobacco products. The money goes to extend health insurance to uninsured children and youths, and to expand anti-smoking programs.

Many political analysts rate Measure 49's prospects for passage as better than Measure 50's.

For one, environmentalists, wineries and other Measure 49 supporters raised more than twice as much as timber companies and others who oppose it. Both sides combined have raised $7 million.

In contrast, the two largest cigarette makers, Philip Morris and RJ Reynolds, raised a record $12 million in hopes of defeating Measure 50, more than three times the amount raised by health advocacy groups, public employee unions, health-care providers and other backers.

The other advantages were there from the start.

Measure 49 supporters began with a leg up. Democrats used poll-tested language to go on the ballot, bypassing the normal procedure that allows legal challenges.

"By virtue of their masterful manipulation of the process, they got the ballot title they wanted," said Pat McCormick, a veteran consultant on past ballot-measure campaigns, although he's not involved with either of Tuesday's measures. "I haven't seen the 'no' side mount a very successful assault on that so far."

Opponents have been left to complain about the process, although the Legislature has written its own summaries for other ballot measures in the past decade.

Measure 49 supporters also started early with advertising and a get-out-the-vote campaign.

"We are knocking on doors all day long through Tuesday," said Jeremiah Baumann of Environment Oregon, one of the groups in the pro-49 campaign. "We had canvassing crews start our final push on Friday, and we have people on the phone."

Although early returns were greater from rural counties, where opposition to Oregon's land-use program has been strongest in the past, the Oregon Farm Bureau Federation has backed Measure 49. It took no position on the earlier measure, which passed in 35 of Oregon's 36 counties.

Dave Hunnicutt, president of Oregonians in Action, said property-rights advocates were outspent in their 2004 victory and expected to be outspent this time. He said the opposition to Measure 49 is counting on continued help from timber companies and rural voters.

Supporters of Measure 50 faced an extra hurdle. The only way Democrats could get the measure approved was to ask Oregonians to amend the state Constitution. That move lost some Republicans, including state Rep. Vicki Berger of Salem, who would otherwise have supported the governor's Healthy Kids Plan.

Oregonians have amended their constitution more than voters in 45 other states -- 238 times since statehood in 1859. But tobacco companies have seized on that issue in their record-setting ad barrage.

"We have happily voted for cigarette taxes in the past, but the constitution part of this is just a real cross to bear for the campaign," said Jim Moore, a political scientist at Pacific University in Forest Grove.

Oregon voters approved tobacco-tax increases in 1996 and 2002, although neither increase was as much as proposed in Measure 50.

Moore and others note that the backers of Measure 50 got a later start in putting ads on television. That allowed the freer-spending tobacco companies to set the terms of the debate.

Tobacco ads have exploited Oregonians' fears about government mismanagement, said Courtney Dillard, a professor of rhetoric and media studies at Willamette University.

"They are following a very effective, very well-utilized approach, which is to create uncertainty," she said.

When campaigns raise confusion, and have ample money to put out negative ads, that can lower voter participation, McCormick said.

slaw@StatesmanJournal.com or (503) 399-6615; pwong@StatesmanJournal.com or (503) 399-6745