Big Term Limits (Measure 45) News
Money - Polls - Media Buys - Lobbyists Hiring California Consultants
For starters
For starters
The Good Guys (TL's supporters)
I have a poll that was conducted on September 5th by the Rasmussen polling firm that shows Oregon Term Limits way ahead. The question:
An initiative will be on the ballot this November to place term limits on state legislators so that no one could serve more than six years in the State House or eight years in the State Senate. Do you favor or oppose placing term limits on state legislators
The answer? 61% favor and 32% oppose with 7% not sure. Any consultant worth his salt will tell you that that is a landslide.
Yet that is not all! I have learned that the committee formed to pass Term Limits has recently placed $1.2 MILLION dollars in the bank account. That is amazing in that the opposition has targeted raising just a little over a million themselves (from the lobbyists of course). Once again any consultant worth his shot will tell you that you can't stand toe to toe financially with an opponent that is 29 points ahead of you in the polls. More on the lobbyists efforts in a bit.
Yet, still, that is not all! You see even with a 29 point lead and a fundraising lead, the "Restore Oregon's Term Limits," committee is not resting on their laurels. They just made a massive radio ad buy! My sources inside the Oregon media tell me the current buy is well over six digits. Ouch!
The Bad Guys (Lobbyists and California Consultants)
We have learned that the TL's opposition has employed the services of "Schubert Flint Public Affairs," in Sacramento California. California? Now aint that special... It is even more special if one is to do a google search on the goings on of Mr. Jeff Flint.
However it is nice of Flint to share the advertising commissions with Pat McCormick who has agreed to forgo a retainer. I wonder if Mark Nelson knows that when the lobbyists in California tried to defeat Term Limits they spent $11 MILLION dollars to "pro" side's $1 MILLION. Will Mark Nelson tell Oregonians that Mr. Flint actually WORKED TO PASS Term Limits in California?
We learn here that this is not the only time Jeff Flint has been on both sides of an issue. Here he is in a picture from a blog in California that discusses Mr. Flint's new found loyalty to a tax increase he had recently worked to defeat.
Ironic that after beating back Flint's troops - actually, crushing them at the polls - he's now in the lead role as the consultant behind the county's bid to renew Measure M...
So when I asked how he got the profitable gig selling Measure M after irking the county by running a fierce campaign on Measure D, he chuckled and said, "I worked my ass off."His eyes went wide when I wrote it down...but oh well, he didn't utter the magic words...off the record...
Curiouser and curiouser. I have been told that Mr. Flint is a notorious SoCal dirty trickster and that if we were to somehow dig into the 1995 and 1996 LA Times and Orange County Register we may find some fun stuff on Mark Nelson's new hero from California. However it is late and I don't know how to do a search on the newspaper's websites. Perhaps others can do that.
We have also learned that a union has committed $50,000 to the campaign and Mark Nelson is working really hard to raise the necessary funds to catch up to the Good Guys. Now one wonders if it is even worth it to him. What with the serious funding separation combined with poor polling numbers.
Ok... well it is late and there is more. However this is plenty for now. My neck hurts. All in all the future looks bright for Restoring Oregon's Term Limits law.
So in summation Nelson is starting basically 30% down in the polls. He is going to be facing a one to one funding ratio. He has hired a California mercenary to mastermind the campaign. We would really appreciate if any of our talented readers can find a way to enlighten us on the LA Times backstory.
yip yip
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14 comments:
The lobbyists are the bad guys? Hah! At least we know who they are.
Who are the creepy ones who fund Term Limits? And more importantly, why do outsiders care about term limits in Oregon?
Spare me the shamefull atacks on Mark Nelson.
Mark Nelson is not on the ballot.
How about the issue.....what States have passed term limit legislation and what have the results been?
An honest answer for an avowed opponent of Term Limits.
Florida passed term limits 6 years ago (I could be off on the time line, but if I am, it's not by much.)
Florida has one of the strongest economies in the country and one of the most effective, get result legislatures in the country.
Part of that, however, is due to two things.
They meet annually, in sessions that are constitutionally limited to 3 months. (mid Jan to mid March).
And, the committees are called into session the first week of each month, December and April excepted.
The advantage of doing that is that the committees have hammered out the legislation that they want to propose. On opening day, they hit the floor running, voting on a plethora of bills.
Instead of doing like Oregon does and spending the first month trying to figure out the difference between their asses and a hole in the ground.
(hint, the hole in the ground doesn't have hair growing around it.)
And here's the question that term limits folks have never answered...if we're supposed be running the state more like a business:
Who in their right mind would invest in a $12 billion company that every year was forced to put "fresh" (inexperienced) members on its board?
Not me!
And where do you get the number of years? what was that based on? seems arbitrary to me.
Anon1019,
The folks at US Term Limits have been around forever. They were asked by the local people to help.
AFTER the politicians and the lobbyists played rope-a-dope with local TL supporters for the last 15 years.
The first TLs measure? Received more yes votes than any other citizen initiative in the history of Oregon. Guess who voted for it?
OREGONIANS
Guess who conspired to overturn it? Lobbyists like Mark Nelson.
OREGONIANS have provided over 400,000 signatures on petitions over the last 5 yeard in an attempt to get the measure back before the people.
It is OREGONIANS who have signed the measures and OREGONIANS who lobbyists like Mark Nelson oppose.
Mark Nelson is an issue and will become more of an issue as time goes on. Because the anti TL folks have always said that "lobbyists love term limits." They supposedly derive power from such laws.
Well they have put their money where their mouth is. Again.
Anon1049,
Actually most corporate boards do have some sort of Term Limit.
Although you may find some, you will certainly be hard-pressed to find any real large corporations that have leadership hang around for more than 14 years.
Heck you don't find many people working for the same company for that long, let alone the leadership.
You act like representing your neighbors in the legislature is brain surgery or something. Well "experience" is only needed because over time and because of the people involved in the system, it has become more complicated than it should.
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Now back to the real crux of the story.
The measure is ahead with a massive lead. The opponents are having trouble raising money and even if they are able to meet their goal it will only end up about MATCHING what the proponents already have sitting in the bank.
Knowing all that, any objective observer, regardless of their position on the measure, will have to admit that it will pass... Again.
That said, how long do you think it will take the politicians in Salem to come to grips with TLs?
Coyote:
If your going to make this campaign about Mark Nelson, you loose.
The name Mark Nelson apears no where on the ballot or the explanitory statement.
How about discussing term limits.
We could discuss dozens of bad legislators who were sent packing last time we did this.
As a citizen activist, I found doors to legislators open more often after we cleaned house.
I think you can win on the issue, when you resort to personel attacks, your just become politics as usual. Which is what people don't like.
I'd call it snatching defeat from the jaws of victory on what should be a winning issue.
Hope your not paying much for the campaign strategy you've adopted.
Almost all of the money the Oregon term limits people have "raised" has come from US Term Limits. Why, you ask, would US Term Limits want to dump more than a million dollars into Oregon?
Well, the answer is really quite simple. Oregon is one of the few places they have to dump it. Despite what the Coyote will try to tell you, term limits is a dying idea. It seems Oregon is one of the few places the people are still stupid enough to want to try the idea.
US Term Limits hopes that if they can pass term limits in Oregon it will reenergize their campaign and get term limits going in other states. The Oregon term limits effort is a last chance, out of state production.
Let's hope this time that Oregon voters are smart enough to see through the pro-term limits arguments. Let's hope Oregon voters send US Term Limits, and their hired stooge Paul Farago, packing for good.
Term Limits a dead or dying idea? I don't think so. Term Limits are popular almost everywhere in the country. The idea that a legislative body ought to be comprised of citizens with real jobs and not professional politicians is fundamental to the American form of representative government.
Besides, anyone familiar with the process has observed the change that citizens undergo after they have been in the legislature for too long. They begin to see everything fromthe government's perspective. There are only a few exceptions.
And whoever called Paul Farago a paid stooge is uninformed about who Paul Farago is. He is the opposite of a paid stooge.
Actually, Coyote, most corporate boards don't have hard term limits for it's members.
In most recent cases of Chairmen stepping down, it wasn't due to term limits, it was because of faltering profits.
When you have a Lee Iacocca, who turns your corporation around and turns it from a money hemoraging boondoggle to a cashcow, you don't dismiss them
You allow them to keep doing the magic that they do.
If they are unable to turn a company around, or turn it from a cashcow to a money hemoraging boondoggle, you give them the axe.
One of the more notable names that comes to mind is Max Schmelling, former German boxer. He sat on the Board of Coca-Cola from sometime in the late 40's/early 50's until his retirement in 2002.
As much as everyone wants to make the comparisson "government should be more like business", the reality is that no wants that.
Politicians, even the good ones, are viewed as some kind of pariahs. Lepers, who are a necessisity, tho generally despised.
The arguments for Term Limits are convuluted, at best.
"Your right to vote is already curtailed in nine different ways, what's one more?"
"No one, no matter how effective, should be allowed to make public service a career."
"Term Limits will help us get rid of the Representatives that we don't like, but can't beat at the ballot box."
The single issue that is always glossed over is that the majority, somewhere in the 60% to 70% range, of people when polled who support term limits say their guy (or gal) is the good one. It's the others who suck.
Basically, "My rep does a good job, it's the others that need to go."
Same argument for government schools, "Well, my kid goes to a good school, it's the other schools that are failing."
Hell, we are posting on a blog about Oregon hosted by a resident of Washington. Thanks for supporting a ballot measure that ultimately has no effect on you.
Term Limits will pass. 65% to 35% (give or take a few points).
Life's a bitch, then you marry one.
i find it humorous that someone would describe as "shameful" the use of an opponent's name in a political campaign. while it's true that mark nelson's name will not be on the ballot, voters are going to be made to understand who he is and that a vote for measure 45 is a vote against the very people who are causing the problem in salem.
Anon711,
You are right and you are wrong.
First I am not the campaign. Perhaps I should have said that this blog will make Nelson more of an issue. The campaign, if you listen to the ad that I put in the post, is making a case for TLs straight up.
However, the poll that I referr to also questioned voters as to their feelings on "lobbyists." OK maybe not Nelson personally, but if somehow by mid October the campaign turns to be about "lobbyists," then you can ad at least another 10 points on that 60+ percentage point figure.
However, as Non-O mentioned this thing is cruising to victory as it is and there probably will be no need for the campaign to travel down that path.
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Anon825,
Bill covered much of what I was going to say. That is that TLs is not a dying idea in fact virtually every state that has the initiative process STILL has a TLs law that was passed by the people.
The reason you are seeing it in Oregon right now is that this is one of the few states that had the legislature, executive and the judicial branch hardwired to overturn what was the most popular citizen initative in the history of the state.
Since then others have tried twice (mostly with in state funds actually) to get it back on the ballot. However the Oregon Sec. State has been extremely hostile to the initiative process. And don't just take my word for it, you can ask Lloyd Marbett, Dan Meek, Bill Sizemore and maybe now Phil Keisling.
Actually there was an effort just this year to overturn TLs in Kansas and it was trounced by over 20 percentage points.
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Non-O,
Certainly you can find a few examples of long term leadership in the private sector just like you can find a few examples of true citizen legislators in public office.
However you will be hard pressed to find corporate leaders of today going much beyond 14 years.
Most either move up or out.
Hey! Sounds like a good idea for the legislature!....
yip yip
Coyote: Would I want my neighbor to manage the state's $12 billion budget?
No, I'd want someone who knew what they were doing.
No, I'd want someone who knew what they were doing.
I don't think so. You'd want long-term incumbents who do whatever their chummy lobbyists tell them to do.
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