The Reading of the Bills in the Oregon Senate reminded me of the Running of the Bulls, but instead of trying to speed up the bull, so to speak, legislators try to slow down the bill.
See this news story (among others) for example: “Oregon Senate Republicans protest COVID restrictions with delay tactics,” by Dirk VanderHart (OPB), April 28, 2021.
So, a little Oregon history, in Three Parts (the last being the most interesting one):
The Psilocybin Service Initiative of Oregon is expected to appear on the 2020 general election ballot.
(If you want to know more about psilocybin, read Michael Pollan’s 2018 book, “How to change your mind.” See also books about LSD microdosing (e.g. Ayelet Waldman’s 2017 “A really good day.”) Compare with Jill Bolte Taylor’s 2006 book (and her TED talk), “My Stroke of Insight,” and her description of how the world looked from her right brain (while her left brain was incapacitated due to a massive stroke.) There is also the Psilocybin Wikipedia page and the Denver, CO, psilocybin ballot measure.)
You can also read the full text of the Psilocybin Service Initiative of Oregon LC (legislative concept) at the Initiatives, Referendums and Referrals database (from the Oregon Secretary of State, Voting and Election website).
The Ballot Measure Archive Project (BMAP) is invaluable for anyone researching Oregon legal history. You can find the digital archives at:
Portland State University (PSU), Special Collections & University Archives. (Currently, find the direct link under “More Collections.“)
Brief Description:
We heard a good-news update on the Oregon Ballot Measure Archive Project, which founder and leader Joshua Binus says is alive and well.
From Joshua:
“The biggest news to report of late has more to do with the movement of the collection into a permanent repository. Portland State University’s Special Collections has formally adopted BMAP and has been working to organize it for public access over the past year. We will do some media outreach once it’s ready.
“The CIR is an innovative way of publicly evaluating ballot measures so voters have clear, useful, and trustworthy information at election time.”
The Oregon Citizens’ Initiative Review Commission (aka CIR) website can be found at the Healthy Democracy Oregon website where you can read about CIR’s origins. (But they clearly need a year-round blogger 🙂
If you want to track initiatives that will appear on the November 2012 ballot, use the Oregon Secretary of State Election Division’s Initiative, Referendum, and Referral Search engine. You can search measures from 1998 to the present, but you’ll need to get a little more creative if you want to find the text of pre-1998 measures.
1) The Oregon Constitution has been wikified, but not just here (or the Ballotpedia version or this Indopedia version) but also by the good people at WikiProject Oregon who are wikifiing the Oregon Constitution, creating a Wikisource edition.
2) How to Find the Most Current Additions to the Oregon Constitution:
a) Given our rather interesting (you can’t make me use those other adjectives that spring to mind) system of amending the Oregon Constitution, I thought a few remarks on finding the most current version of the Oregon Constitution might be in order:
b) The version at the Oregon Legislature’s website does not now (as of this date) include changes to the Constitution made in Special Sessions. For example, as of today, the Oregon Legislature’s Constitution is dated 2007. However … there were changes in the 2008 Special Session.
Final recount results are in, here.
Of course, there is also this:
Official Count from the Oregon Secretary of State’s election web page (which hasn’t been updated since the 11th, or so it says – it’s a mystery).
I’m thrilled to report on this story (librarians have weird wish-lists) from the Salem Statesman Journal:
Project seeks to gather history of Oregon measures
‘PORTLAND, Ore. — Within the marble walls of the State Archives Building, it’s all there—almost. Every word officially spoken by and to Oregon legislators since 1859 has been recorded, itemized and stored.But something is missing, and the Ballot Measure Archives Project hopes to help plug the hole, the paper trail left by Oregon’s other lawmakers — the citizens, who have passed laws and amended the state constitution through the initiative system since 1904. “The Ballot Measure Archive Project is arguably a political version of the Human Genome Project,” said donor and supporter Phil Keisling, a former secretary of state who recently turned over his collection from the 1998 initiative he promoted that created Oregon’s vote-by-mail system.Keisling said he’s encouraged by the progress so far and hopes others with old boxes of ballot-measure campaign documents will make them available for historians, researchers and others….’ (link to full story)
Oregon Legal Research Blog