Knute Buehler: Proposed Election Reforms
Today, across from Pioneer Courthouse Square in Portland, I announced my proposed election reforms. I chose this spot because I spent many hours at Pioneer Courthouse Square gathering signatures for the initiatives I’ve worked on.
I’ve worked for two decades on reforming our campaign system, from campaign financing to ballot access. We need to take concrete steps to empower more Oregonians, provide meaningful campaign finance reform, and ensure that Oregon’s election system is the best in the nation.
1) Campaign Finance Reform: We need to stop the financial arms race in our elections. Running for office is expensive, but Oregonians want to know that their candidates are not unduly influenced by campaign contributions from special interests. I support the following reforms:
• Voluntary spending limits in order to appear in the Oregon Voter’s Pamphlet. A candidate may choose to spend more, but by doing so they lose the opportunity to be in the top source of voter information, the Oregon Voter’s Pamphlet. Specific spending limits would be set through legislative hearings and would be indexed for growth from cycle to cycle.
• Increase transparency. I support enforcement of the transparency portion of Measure 47. The measure would have forced advertisements funded by independent expenditures to disclose the names and businesses of large donors. There is no reason the Secretary of State should not be enforcing this today.
• Make political candidates list their 5 largest donors on all television and print advertising.
2) Ballot Access: Provide greater access to the Primary Election for non-affiliated
voters and minor parties.
• Provide all minor parties access to the state sponsored May primary ballot through a ‘minor party ballot’ listing all candidates for the minor parties. All those registered with a minor party would receive the same ballot to decrease administrative costs.
• Facilitate an easy process for non-affiliated voters to participate in the major and minor party primaries, provided the parties elect to open them. This last election, I led the Republican Party to choose to open its primary, but the Secretary of State made the process of obtaining a ballot cumbersome for those qualified voters.
3) Independent Redistricting: We should end the days of politically motivated redistricting. A balanced, independent commission of citizens should draw Oregon’s legislative boundaries, not politicians. Our neighbors in California and Washington have successfully set up independent redistricting panels and provide good examples for how it can be done.
4) Ballot Initiative Reform: The Secretary of State should strive to help Oregonians
put initiatives on the ballot. Unfortunately, under Kate Brown, the opposite is true.
Today, it is so expensive that, for the most part, only corporations, unions and large
organizations can do it.
• Eliminate unnecessary ‘gotcha’ rules that have nothing to do with fraud such as the practice of discarding entire sheets of signatures for an error in the gatherer’s signature or date.
• Eliminate secretive directives and rule changes. All rules should be adopted by the proper administrative rules process, so citizens have input into them.
• Establish a mandatory “Chief Petitioner Boot Camp” to train chief petitioners to properly follow the laws and regulations.
• Create a system to provide free advice and support from the Elections Division for those campaigns that use it.
5) Audit Vote-By-Mail: I fully support Vote by Mail and will not get rid of it. We should also ensure that Oregon’s election system is the best in the nation. We should strive for 100% participation and 0% fraud. Concerns about voter fraud and voter access are constantly expressed. Regardless of the validity of the problems, many voters are losing confidence in our system. We should audit our elections system to find out, once and for all, if any problems exist. If any are identified, we will then know exactly what needs to be fixed. Some initial areas of audit focus would include:
• Conflicting laws and regulations that pre-date vote by mail
• ‘Secret shopper’ type voters that would test the system for vulnerabilities
• Ensuring Oregon laws are up to the standards set in the federal ‘Help America Vote Act’
I like all of these they are all great for our system. With our vote by mail system do they have to show proof of citizen ship to register to vote in Oregon. If not that needs to be one of the many things to improve our chances of no voter fraud. We don’t need outside influences like those that break our law to enter into the already difficult situation.
After reading your proposed election reforms, I am ALL IN! These reforms would bring power back to the people!!
Representative democracy is democracy when elected positions are filled by people who reflect the values of the people who vote for them. Since it takes money to win elections, It is a corruption of democracy when an winning an election is dependent upon money that comes from outside of the district they represent. For example, when Jason Conger was elected, over 85 percent of his campaign money came from outside our district. and about 50 percent came from out of state. This is not a criticism of Conger. The statistics were comparable for the incumbent he ran against and its typical of any race. Its a criticism of the system. And the problem is not as much that politicians are corrupted (or not) by campaign contributions; instead, the problem is that it has become increasingly difficult to elect anyone who does not reflect the values of the moneyed backers — and these interests can be different and even in conflict with the people they represent. Do you see this as a problem? What can we do about this?
I LIKE THE IDEA OF EXPOSING LARGE DONORS FROM OUTSIDE OREGON AND PUTTING SPENDING LIMITS ON CANDIDATES. SPENDING LIMITS HAVE TO START SOMEWHERE.
As Knute knows, Citizens United makes it impossible for us to have any spending restrictions in Oregon for “independent expenditures”. So 3rd party PACs can spend as much as they want whether the candidate likes it or not. The worst thing would be to restrict candidates but let corrupt influences like the Chamber of Commerce have free rein. If Knute is serious about campaign reform, he absolutely has to start with a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United. Otherwise it’s all up to Karl Rove and the Koch Brothers. I’m a big fan of measure 47, but as I’m sure Knute knows, it’s almost certainly unconstitutional in Oregon; that’s why it’s not enforced. I don’t know what his beef with the initiative process is, but thank goodness we finally stopped having all these absurd right-wing initiatives that always fail but cost millions of dollars to fight. I don’t want any more Loren-the -Dentist ideas about laws just because he can afford to hire a thousand petition carriers. The other stuff, not bad ideas.
Nothing undermines our democracy like fraudulent votes and a partisan Secretary of State who is willing to use their power to throw out valid votes, whether for an initiative or a candidate. It has happened over and over under Bradbury and Brown, and Oregon has suffered as a result! It is time for an independent minded, clear thinking conservative to bring some common sense and ethics to the office of Secretary of State and help the people of Oregon have faith in their electoral system once again. I know Knute Buehler is capable of doing this. Please vote for him this November. He has his priorities right…..God, family, country……and knows to whom he is ultimately responsible.
I hope you will support legislation to require proof of citizenship when registering to vote. Some (mostly Demcrats) claim there is no problem with illegal voting, but no one really knows what the extent is. It is now very easy for illegal aliens to vote, as registration is simply on the honor system, and no checking is done. Ruth Bendl examined voting in Washington County and found many illegal aliens had voted there.