Dude, who even knows.
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So thanks to its Progressive Era western state heritage, Oregon has particularly strict and toothsome balanced budget requirements.
Oregon also has a decade-old Democratic legislative lock, teetering on supermajority. But Oregon also has a two-thirds state Senate quorum requirement, which means that a coordinated mere third of the body can go truant and render the body null – not quite an exploding Diet (the case there was a failed vote voided the entire legislative session, including matters already passed), but close.
And the Republicans have so coordinated; they may lack leverage under regular order, but thus they have established that Oregon can legislate – and budget – on terms acceptable to the Republican Party or not at all.
There’s those toothsome requirements though, it seems state operations would not continue even to the degree federal ones do under “shutdown”, the state might be closer to a federal post-“fiscal cliff”; the reference point I think of is when in the 90s the Portland school district ran out of money one year and the school year just ended a few months early
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Also, Oregon won the right to be the respondent in the next case that makes new 2nd Amendment law
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Seen at least 2 mutuals marvel at how anyone could vote no on the Oregon resolution to amend the constitution to prohibit slavery. Well, I did, so here goes:
Like, no one’s legally holding chattel, I understood the question as “should we change up systems of prison labor and subject them to general wage labor laws intended for the circumstances of the outside” and had not been convinced that would usefully create a better world.
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Anonymous asked:
So who takes the governor's race? Do the democrats keep a lead that seems pretty culturally solid or does Drazan turn the rest of the state against the metro?
Genuinely up in the air. Ballots have already arrived (we’re a vote-by-mail state), do the lingering 11% of Betsy supporters go back to their ancestral Democratic home? Do they use her as a stepping-stone to not voting blue no matter who and supporting Drazan as a Massachusetts-style R governor in a D state? I’m not even sure who I’ll vote for myself!
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Even the mainstream Democratic gubernatorial candidate Tina Kotek’s ads are shit-talking predecessor Kate Brown, first openly bisexual governor in America and the lowest-polling one in the country.
Which is pretty much because Oregon is so white that the Civil Rights Movement never led to a realignment so a lot of the state Democratic Party was still on a “white working class from rural areas with extractive economies” basis that are getting restive with an state party that’s increasingly nationally-aligned in service to a Portland-based professional class that more and more didn’t even come from Oregon
Which creates the situation where I say “even the mainstream Democrat” ‘cause there’s a third party “Democrat Like The Old Times” (like Bill Clinton in Arkansas!) in this race, Betsy Johnson
Recent polling suggests she’s in 3rd, from a respectable short-of-30% down to 11%, but the defection of her constituency could leave the Republican in 1st. I have sensed a more conservative vibe from her lately, which I don’t read as “mask off” so much as appealing to Republicans as a way to license herself to Democrats as not a spoiler
Even so, Phil Knight, head of Oregon’s flagship corporation Nike, who underwrote much of her campaign, has switched to Republican Christine Drazan, as well as backing Republican state legislators to “bring balance” to the Salem statehouse, which was evenly split when I arrived merely a decade ago. Oregon has no political contribution limits, and between him and timber money it’s clear if the Dems continue their pivot away from being resource-state backslappers there’s a war chest for realignment.
Photo reblogged from ANIMALS TALKING IN ALL CAPS with 617 notes
YOU SHOULD PROBABLY JUST STAY IN THE CAR. THEY FOUND OUT THE STITCHES THEY USE WEREN’T FAIR-TRADE OR CONTAIN MODIFIED SOY OR SOMETHING SO THE ENTIRE STAFF WENT OUT LOOKING FOR NEW ONES.
WELL, EXCEPT FOR THE THREE THAT WENT TO MAKE PATCHES AND STICKERS ABOUT IT.
A COUPLE OF THEM WANTED COFFEE TOO, SO IT COULD BE A WHILE.
Went riding down to Reed today; they were having some thing. Explored the neighborhood, passed this place. Played some pinball. Always play some pinball.
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Portland v2 of 0
You know when someone says “I must’ve died and gone to heaven”? I always thought that was just a stock phrase.
Portland is so perfect that I am finding it hard to believe that it exists in the same world I’ve lived in up to now.
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Holy fucking shit, Portland
Holy fucking shit.
This city is perfect in ways I did not think that actual cities could be.