Pronghorn antelope roam near Rome in eastern Oregon. Two proposed constitutional amendments before the Legislature would give rural residents more power to determine which initiatives make the ballot. (Photo by Laura Tesler/Oregon Capital Chronicle)
The premise behind two constitutional amendments proposed by Republican lawmakers is that it’s too easy to place an initiative on the ballot in Oregon.
Buried inside that premise is that idea that some Oregonians’ clout in the initiative process should count more than for others.
Both House Joint Resolution 3 and HJR 11 aim to change the number of petition signatures needed for initiative backers to win a spot on the ballot.
Now, Oregonians who want to pass laws at the ballot need to gather valid signatures from 6% of the total number of votes cast for governor during the last gubernatorial election — just more than 88,000 signatures. The threshold for citizen-initiated constitutional amendments is higher at 8%, or nearly 118,000 signatures.
HJR 11 would raise the initiative requirement from 6% to 8% — increasing the requirement by a third — and require the signatures be “divided equally” among Oregon’s six congressional districts. For citizen-proposed constitutional amendments, the requirement would rise from 8% to 10%.
HJR 3 would require initiative backers to collect signatures from 6% of voters in each of Oregon’s 36 counties — an even more difficult mark to reach in a politically polarized state.
A March 10 hearing on both measures showed widespread opposition and, at the Legislature at least, limited support. HJR 11 drew 104 testimony submissions, with just 24 in support (and two neutral). For HJR 3, 78 witnesses submitted testimony — all in opposition.
The level of criticism shouldn’t surprise, given Oregon’s historical background with ballot issues.
Oregon was one of the first states to adopt the idea of developing legislation or constitution changes directly to the public. Throughout the state’s history, voters have decided 881 ballot issues (almost a quarter of them related to taxes), but reaching the ballot has been no guarantor of passage. Fewer than half (411) of the measures won voter approval, which has evidently given no one a slam dunk at the polls.
The argument that it’s too easy to place an issue on the ballot might have some currency if the number of initiatives on the ballot has been exploding. But it hasn’t: In fact, the number continues to fall.
After a large number of initiatives presented shortly after the method was started, the number of initiatives slumped in the mid-20th century, then grew in its latter third, to 92 ballot issues in the 1970s, 73 in the 1980s and 105 in the 1990s. Then, in this century, the number has fallen steadily, from 86 in the 2000s, to 39 in the 2010s and just 13 so far in this decade.
Besides that, significant numbers of ballot issue campaigns fall short of the ballot qualification even under current rules.
The stronger support for these new resolutions — at least to judge from the amount of supportive testimony received — seems not to be for raising the overall petition signature level, but rather ensuring that every county provides significant support for it.
Sen. Todd Nash, R-Enterprise, argued for example: “This should be more representative from all of Oregon to gather those signatures. Right now, we’re not seeing that shape up that way. It’s coming from one concentrated area.”
Eastern Oregon rancher Katie Baltzor said many ballot initiatives, “are crafted by extreme groups that have a specific agenda that would be harmful to specific livelihoods, such as ours. Many conservative and moderate Eastern Oregonians feel they do not have a voice in the legislative or initiative process. It is too easy for these groups to gather all the signatures they need for a ballot initiative by going to a highly populated area.”
Some of this ties into the Greater Idaho protest, or the idea that eastern Oregonians aren’t being adequately heard in Salem — and there’s a good argument that they sometimes aren’t.
In Idaho, because of legislative action, rural votes do count more because of per-county signature requirements, which have reduced the number of initiatives that hit the ballot. That, of course, has come at the expense of urban and suburban dwellers.
The core problem the Oregon initiative limitation backers have is simply the large number of people in the more urban and suburban areas, mostly in the Willamette Valley: They’re outvoted. The only way around that is to weigh some votes (or petition signatures) more heavily than others.
Dan Meek of the Independent Party of Oregon offered an analogy: “If HJR 11 is a good idea, then let’s apply it to votes in the Oregon Legislature: In order to pass, a bill must be approved by members of the Legislature representing every CD. If the 10 state representatives and 5 state senators who represent districts within any of the 6 CDs do not provide majority votes in favor of a bill, then the bill fails. Thus, representatives and senators within each CD get to veto every bill. That is equivalent to the system proposed by HJR 11.”
People cast votes, and make other decisions in state politics. Land acreage doesn’t. Most likely, the Oregon Legislature will factor in those directions when it comes to these two resolutions.
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