If you're in Oregon and haven't voted--and it seems plenty of you haven't--do it. Blue Oregon tells you why:
We are down to the last days of a fight to protect funds for our schools, social services, and for public safety. By voting YES on Measures 66 and 67, we are asking that the corporate minimum tax be raised for the first time since 1931, to $150 from a meager $10, and for couples making over $250,000 to see a modest uptick in their tax rate. We’re in a fight for tax fairness, for the quality of our state’s infrastructure and for our children’s future. It is vitally important and will help define what Oregon will be for decades to come.
So, how is the vote going? Right now, only 40% of all ballots are in. It needs to be higher. Much, much higher.
What is a bigger concern, though, is what’s going on in the more progressive counties. Multnomah County, with the highest number of Democrats in the state, has a turn-out far lower than the rest of the state, with just 36% of the ballots in. In contrast, over 86% of Multnomah County citizens voted in the 2008 presidential election. Only one county, Morrow, with its 4,700 registered voters, has a lower turn-out -- 31%.
This election actually has some national implications, as evidenced by by its coverage in the NY Times yesterday. But as eugene (Robert Cruickshank) over at Calitics says, they didn't get the story quite right.
Unfortunately, they chose to do so from the perspective of Jackson County in southern Oregon, home to the cities of Medford and Ashland. Voters there are extremely rabid about their anti-tax politics, voting against proposals to keep libraries open, schools funded, and cops on the beat. Much of this is hypocrisy, since they expected ongoing federal timber payments to local governments would take care of funding these programs. "Welfare for me, none for thee" is the guiding fiscal principle in the region.
And yet it's no longer working. Southern Oregon's growth in the last decade was largely driven by its own housing boom, fueled to some degree by Californians taking their equity, settling down along the Rogue River, and joining locals in trying to keep taxes low. With the housing bust and the timber bust, southern Oregon's economic fortunes don't seem particularly strong.
Yet Jackson County only makes up a small part of Oregon's population, most of which is concentrated in the Willamette Valley from Eugene to Portland. Measures 66 and 67 will be decided there, particularly in the Portland suburbs. Recent polls showed the measures with a healthy lead, but like any special election this will be decided by who returns ballots in the state's all-mail election - and so far turnout isn't great. Multnomah County, home to Portland, had an 86% turnout rate in November 2008, but has had only 36% of its ballots returned as of late last week.
This election could demonstrate that there is a mood in this country for tax equity, for investing in what's important, in this case critical social and safety services as well as schools. It will help make taxing the wealthy a reasonable answer to making government work again. It will do so all the more because it will be the people deciding themselves on this solution.