Steve Novick, a lawyer who pursued Love Canal polluters on behalf of the Carter Administration and a longtime Oregon Democratic activist, may run against Sen. Gordon Smith (R-OR) in 2008.

Steve previewed possible campaign themes in a hard-hitting Willamette Week article that came out yesterday. In it, Steve takes Smith to the woodshed over his refusal to support raising the minimum wage, his pathetic effort at wrapping an out-of-step antichoice position in a fuzzy sweater, and most of all his desperate attempt to finesse his years of unflinching support for George Bush's war.

Local bloggers are talking about Steve's possible campaign (which could shift into gear as soon as the rest of Oregon's congressional delegation and Secretary of State/2002 candidate Bill Bradbury make up their minds.

As I'm sure most of you know, today has been designated a Fifty-State Turnout National Day of Action for Democrats. I spent a chunk of the day knocking on doors for Rob Brading, who's running for state representative in District 49 in the suburbs northeast of Portland, Oregon. Rob's opponent is Karen Minnis, the loathsome Republican speaker of the Oregon House for the last few years.

Oregon US District Judge Garr King has ruled that a lawsuit by an Oregon-based Islamic charity, the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation, against the federal government for its domestic spying program may proceed. In the opinion and order linked below, Judge King denied the government's motion to dismiss the case or for summary judgement (though he did rule that the government could withhold certain evidence the plaintiffs and the Portland Oregonian had been seeking).

http://newsroom.blogs.oregonlive.com/...

The Oregon Supreme Court today issued its long-awaited ruling in Li v. State, the marriage equality case. Basically, the court held that the Hate Amendment that passed as Measure 36 in the November election was superfluous, because Oregon law already banned same-sex marriage and Multnomah County (Portland)'s March 2004 decision to allow it was hence never legal in the first place.

Here's a link to Justice Gillette's opinion for a unanimous court:

http://www.publications.ojd.state.or.us/S51612.htm

The gist of the opinion is best summarized by the court. A quote after the break:

The reconstruction of the Democratic majority must start with state and local offices and House seats, agreed. But we also need some high-profile victories to begin building a sense of momentum for the big Democratic comeback in 2008.

Below the jump is my list of serious gubernatorial and senatorial pickup opportunities. I have also included seats we currently hold that we must defend. I am omitting races that seem outside our reach (e.g. Idaho gubernatorial) and races that seem safely ours (e.g. Oregon gubernatorial).

Calling all Portland-area Kossacks! Carry Oregon wants YOU to get briefed on our strategy for the final 24 days. Please come to one of the trainings listed below the cut.

THEN, once you've been to the training, please begin your GOTV work by showing up at the Donkey Stable (232 NE 9th Ave, Portland) at 1 pm, 2 pm, or 4 pm this Sunday to do your part in knocking on 90,000 Oregon doors as part of the nationwide million-doorknock day.

Many thanks, everybody.

I'm sorry, but I am getting a bit fed up with the over-the-top rhetoric about the potential downside effects of Kerry selecting Gephardt as his running mate. Yeah, I'm an Edwards supporter, but this is getting ridiculous. Are those of you spreading gloom and doom really such defeatists that you would withdraw your active support for the ticket if the VP choice wasn't your #1 preference? For gods' sake, GHWB's choice of Quayle was hardly well-received, yet he went on to trounce Dukakis.

There are plenty of reasons to oppose Gephardt in favor of a better VP candidate. But once the candidate is chosen, even if it IS Gephardt, there are NO good reasons to do anything other than lend the ticket our ardent support. Look at the alternative.

I haven't seen any other diaries on this yet. By a two-to-one margin, the Ninth Circuit today upheld Oregon's physician-assisted suicide law over Ashcroft Justice's campaign to destroy it. The panel majority continued in effect the permanent injunction entered two years ago by Oregon Federal District Judge Robert "Maximum Bob" Jones.

Multnomah County (Portland, Oregon) Circuit Judge Frank Bearden today issued his decision in the expedited lawsuit over the application of marriage law to same-sex couples in Oregon.

Judge Bearden had something to give everyone: a declaration that the marriage laws violate Oregon's Equal Privileges and Immunities Clause (article I, § 20 of the Oregon Constitution); a determination that a Vermont-style solution would be every bit as just as a Massachusetts-style solution; an injunction against Multnomah County issuing any more marriage licenses to same-sex couples until the Legislature has had 90 days from its next convening to address the situation; and, finally, an order to the state to recognize the 3000 or so same-sex marriages that have already been performed.

Of course, the last word belongs to the Oregon Supreme Court, who should be getting the case soon -- and the real last word, for better or worse, may well belong to Oregon's voters.

The AP is reporting that Donald Rumsfeld has said that catching bin Laden would not "change the problem" of global terrorism and that there is still a serious chance that bin Laden is injured or dead.

Great, I say! This is a quote to trip them up on if they catch him and start to gloat in the slightest. Indeed, even if they don't catch him, this is a great quote showing how abjectly BushCo has abandoned the quest for 9/11 justice in exchange for its preplanned imperial agenda.

I think we should hammer the Bush Administration on why it created an Iraqi Constitution with a Bill of Rights dramatically more progressive than any conception of the US Bill of Rights promulgated by Bush's domestic appointees. Just a few snippets from the new document:

Article 13(C): "the right to join associations freely, as well as the right to form and join unions and political parties freely, in accordance with the law, shall be guaranteed."

Can you imagine Bushites endorsing the writing of union organizing rights into our Constitution?

Multnomah County Circuit Court Presiding Judge Dale Koch denied same-gender marriage opponents' request for a temporary restraining order to block the county's issuance of marriage licenses today. No imminent threat to social order here.

Multnomah County (Portland), Oregon, will issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples starting tomorrow.

I am sitting here in my Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity class at Lewis and Clark Law School, where our professor just gave us the news.

I have never been prouder to be a Portlander.

The anti-family forces on the right are being tied down as surely as the Lilliputians tied down Gulliver.

As a law clerk these last two years at the Portland, Oregon office of the Federal Public Defender, I have come to specialize in habeas corpus. As a habeas geek, it has been one of the greatest privileges of my nascent professional life to work on a US Supreme Court case with former Southern Poverty Law Center legal director Dennis Balske. Unfortunately, we lost it today, 8-1 (Breyer opinion, Stevens dissent).

The (very) brief version is that our loss will make it harder for many state prisoners to get federal relief from unconstitutional convictions or sentences, even after they exhaust their state appeals, if they have not used exactly the right magic words in those state appeals. We did our best, but we knew after the oral argument in December that our 2-1 judgment in the Ninth Circuit was unlikely to survive. It was an honor to go, but this is a sad result.

Here's my call on which states are likeliest and least likely to vote for each party's presidential ticket this year -- and which 7 states I consider true tossups. How would you re-sort these lists?

My ticket assumptions are Bush/Cheney (which, of course, we shouldn't by any means consider a done deal, though I am beginning to pray that they keep Cheney on the ticket) and Kerry/Richardson. Obviously, were Bill Richardson not the VP nominee, New Mexico would slide considerably lower on the Democratic list. It's my position, though, that it would remain there, and that this notion that it is a true tossup is a false notion.

The lists are ordered from most to least likely to vote for each party.

The tossup list is ordered from most to least unpredictable.

Below is the lead Washington Post article released at a point in the 1992 campaign roughly equivalent to next Wednesday. Let's all remember to breathe. Even with a more front-loaded schedule than 1992, these things will take some time to sort out.

Okay. I am just not going to live in the pessimists' universe. This scenario is no less plausible than many of those being advanced, and it is more plausible than some.

Keeping in mind the multifarious dynamics in play, and setting aside for a moment the question of superdelegates, here is my forecast for the primaries and caucuses to come. All numbers are of pledged delegates only.

State  Dels     Winners          Cumulative
-----  ----   --------------   -------------------
IA     45     K-20,E-18,D-7    K-20,E-18,D-7

Gephardt drops out.

NH     22     K-8,D-6,E-4,C-4  K-28,E-22,E-13,C-4

Lieberman drops out. Gephardt sits on his hands for the nonce. Dean gets grudging comeback-kid buzz.

SC     45     E-16,K-11,C-8,D-6,S-4
OK     40     C-20,D-12,E-8
MO     74     C-30,D-24,K-12,E-8
DE     15     D-7,K-5,C-3
ND     14     D-7,K-4,C-3
AZ     55     D-25,C-20,K-10
NM     26     D-13,C-9,K-4

    After mini-Tuesday:  D-122,C-100,K-63,E-56,S-4

Kerry almost immediately begins to suffer money troubles again. Edwards burns at a slower rate so he doesn't have quite the same problems -- nor the same benefits.

WA     76     D-36,C-25,K-15
MI    128     D-60,K-40,C-28

                        D-218,C-153,K-118,E-56,S-4

ME     24     D-12,K-9,C-3

                        D-230,C-156,K-127,E-56,S-4

Dems. abroad
        7     C-4,D-2,K-1

                        D-232,C-160,K-128,E-56,S-4

TN     69     C-30,D-20,E-19
VA     82     D-40,E-24,C-18
DC     16     D-9,S-4,C-3

                        D-301,C-211,K-128,E-99,S-8

After having held out for the South to save him and doing so indifferently, Edwards withdraws from the race and does not immediately endorse anyone. Kerry doesn't quite make viability in any of the races and speculation begins to simmer as to whether he can revive his candidacy by Super Tuesday. What was formerly a trickle of former Gephardt supporters becomes a flood to Dean and Clark. The ABD mantle shifts irredeemably from Kerry to Clark.

NV     24     D-12,C-8,K-4

                        D-313,C-219,K-132,E-99,S-9

WI     72     D-40,K-20,C-12

                        D-353,C-231,K-152,E-99,S-9

HI     20     D-11,C-8,K-1
ID     18     D-10,C-5,K-3
UT     23     C-12,D-8,K-3

                        D-374,C-256,K-159,E-99,S-9

Super Tuesday:

Dean, fat with cash and with an unparalleled volunteer force, sweeps CA,NY,MN,MD,RI,CT,and VT. Dean fights Clark to a draw in OH. Clark takes GA and the second-place finish in CA,NY,MN, and MD. Kerry wins only MA and places second only in the New England states. Kerry, while refusing to concede the day after a victory -- if an eminently foreseeable one -- is essentially out of the race. Speculation runs rampant that Edwards will make a dramatic move but, No. 1 on everyone's VP list, he doesn't. By this point, Dean's lead among superdelegates has grown to near-majority proportions.

March 9:

Dean narrowly beats Clark, winning TX and FL to overcome any last bits of buyer's remorse. Kerry, having run a perfunctory campaign in the Southern states, concedes and endorses Dean.

March 10:

Following Clark's concession, Bill Clinton endorses Dean on national TV. Dean leads Bush outside the margin of error for the first time in every national poll.

November 2:

The Dean/Edwards ticket wins the White House by 319 electoral votes to Bush/Cheney's 219, taking the popular vote by 52%-47%-1% and winning the Gore states plus NH, NC, OH, WV, AZ, and NV.