Where’s the outrage?

Gov. Kate Brown signed a bill today that effectively cancels petitions signed by thousands of Oregonians calling for a public vote on the Democrats’ $2 billion business tax (HB 3427).

In Oregon, that’s called democracy in action. In the rest of the country, that would be called dirty politics.

In June, the Governor signed a $2 billion $2.6 billion business tax bill (HB 3427).  Distressed Oregonians responded by starting a referendum petition (Petition #301) that would have put the tax on the ballot. The Democrat supermajority in the State Legislature cut off the nascent effort at the knees by passing a bill (HB 2164) that retroactively changed the language and wording of the original tax, canceling out the petition to that point because it referenced the original text.

“HB 2164 is designed to look like a cosmetic language change to a 40-page tax bill, but it contains poison words designed to murder the voter campaign to pass petition #301 (the repeal petition),” the Taxpayer Association of Oregon said on July 17. “….it is borderline criminal to rob the people of their right to vote on matters they care about. Politicians should not be able to subvert and void the people from using their initiative process to petition their government.”

“This subversive tactic of changing the laws in the middle of the process while people are trying to change the laws has never been done before in modern Oregon political history,” the Taxpayer Association said today.  “This subversive and vote-canceling attack can now be used to stop ANY petition effort that the public might wish to bring to the ballot.” (bold in original)

Having achieved a supermajority in the 2019 Legislative session, the Democrats have ignored their ethical responsibility to Oregonians and abused their power

“What kind of fool do you take me for?”, asked one of the Three Stooges in Saved By The Belle. Oregon voters should be asking the same thing of Democratic legislators and Gov. Brown.