Protecting voters' right to choose their elected officials

Almost everyone understands why friends and relatives of the parties facing a jury trial are not allowed to be jurors for that case. The full list of rules that prohibit  tainting a jury verdict with conflicts of interests is comprehensive and designed to promote public confidence in the justice system. The rules are strict;  an interest in just one of the questions to be decided by a jury requires a Judge to disqualify the ‘interested” person from serving on a jury.

By parity of purpose and parity of reasoning we should expect a local government committee created  to decide how we conduct county elections to be  free from conflicts of interest.   That is not the case in Lane County. Today, the county sets the boundaries of election districts in a manner that is upside down and backwards from how Oregon government normally tries  to avoid conflicts of interest.

It may be hard to believe but  to set election district boundaries Lane County uses an “all comers” committee and provides no disqualifications for conflicts of interest.  It should surprise no one that political activists served on the committee and created toxic district maps that  protect certain incumbents and afford certain candidates unfair advantages. Overall, The Committee’s work reflected a partisan political perspective despite the fact the county offices are by law non-partisan positions.

Of course,  the committee is called the Independent Redistricting Committee.  In no respect is the committee independent of political interests. The committee simply provides political cover for gerrymandering .  The committee design is so subject to corrupt practices that a paid political consultant for two county commissioners was a committee member and was credited with being the principal author of the polluted  map  adopted by the Commissioners in 2021. None of this distasteful  conduct is illegal under county laws, even though most people would regard it as wrong.

A county charter provision to address such corrupt redistricting practices is essential to having competitive and fair elections.  There is no clause in the Oregon Constitution that has been interpreted to prevent local government gerrymandering and the only state statute that does address gerrymandering has proved to be toothless in the courts. Do not confuse federal cases involving  the right to vote with anti gerrymandering cases that involve how we vote. The federal courts simply do not hear objections to incumbency protections and partisan advantages created by local governments. The only way to protect voters from the politically motivated redistricting is through charter provisions beyond the reach of county politicians.

I certainly understand the desire of politicians once in office, and their supporters, to have the opportunity to exert undue influence over the next election; “to the victor goes the spoils” is not a new idea but in the Oregon tradition of government it is immoral.

Voters should pick their elected officials, not the other way around. Schemes that allow politicians to choose who votes for them should not be tolerated for the same reasons we do not tolerate tainted juries. Saying  yes to measure 20-362 protects the sacred right of voters to  decide who they elect to county offices. 

I am a retired attorney and live in Eugene. While in private practice there I had many local governments as clients. I also served in state government in several different positions by appointment of both Republicans and Democrats. I served as Deputy Attorney General, Chairman of LCDC, Director of the Dept. of Commerce and President of SAIF corp. After my last assignment in government I worked in the insurance industry as a claims executive.