Democracy Reform Oregon

Common Cause has opened a new office in Oregon led by Janice Thompson, former executive director of Democracy Reform Oregon, an organization that will close with its work continuing as Common Cause Oregon.

“We welcome Janice to Common Cause and appreciate all the past work of Common Cause Oregon staff and board members,” said Bob Edgar, Common Cause President. “We haven’t had an active presence in Oregon for several years and look forward to building a new board and tackling a wide range of democracy reform projects.”

Reactivating Common Cause Oregon is accompanied by release of an extensive report, Improving Voter Participation: Oregon Challenges and Opportunities. Work on this wide-ranging analysis was conducted by Democracy Reform Oregon with support from the Carol and Velma Sailing Foundation. Follow up educational and legislative efforts will be carried out by Common Cause Oregon and its national partner the Common Cause Educational Fund in consultation with stakeholders and allies.

Improving Voter Participation: Oregon Challenges and Opportunities is a comprehensive analysis of opportunities to increase and improve civic engagement and voter participation in our state. The report discusses a wide range of Oregon-specific options to facilitate voter registration, keep Oregonians accurately registered, make elections meaningful and expand opportunities for providing more information for voters. Multiple actions to improve voter participation are justified by the goals that underlie this report: that democracy is best served by an engaged populace and robust voter participation. The executive summary is available here and at this site there is also a link to see the full report.

Future work of Common Cause Oregon will build on past successes of Democracy Reform Oregon and previous Common Cause efforts in Oregon including ethics reforms, enactment of Voter-Owned Elections in Portland, and adoption of online voter registration. “The solid policy development and research work of Democracy Reform Oregon will be the basis for more victories,” said Kappy Eaton, chair of the former steering committee of Democracy Reform Oregon.” “Future efforts will be enhanced by increased organizing capacity as Common Cause Oregon.” Eaton and other members of the former Democracy Reform Oregon’s steering committee will be the first members of a new Common Cause Oregon board.

One piece of the campaign finance reform puzzle in Oregon are contribution limits that won't run into problems in federal courts. Democracy Reform Oregon has prepared HB 3009 with this goal in mind and the bill was heard in House Rules last Friday. It is fair to be skeptical about legislative interest in this topic, but we prefer to be optimistic. In conjunction with the hearing we released a major report, Money in Oregon Politics: History, Trends, and Reform. The press release outlines key findings or read the full report here. Check out news coverage here.

Two improvements for voters have passed out of the Oregon House and head to the Senate. One bill allows online voter registration, a secure process that will facilitate registration particularly by young people whose lives are increasingly web-based. Check out this factsheet.

The other legislation calls for Oregon to join an interstate compact to use the Electoral College in a way that ensures that presidential candidates receiving the most votes wins. Read Democracy Reform Oregon's statement distributed to House members.