Stop Lane County political gerrymandering

Lane County “voters” should choose the members of the Lane County Board of Commissioners. A member of the Board of Commissioners should not be allowed to choose his or her “voters.” Ballot Measure 20-362 does just this. It does this by prohibiting the Commissioners or their allies from drawing the boundary lines for their own districts for their benefit.

Drawing boundary lines to give a politician an advantage in an election is called gerrymandering. It is immoral and anti-democratic. Ballot Measure 20-362 will stop gerrymandering.

Prior to the 2022 election, the Board of Commissioners at that time created a partisan and conflicted committee to redraw voting boundary lines. Many of the members of the committee were hand picked by the Commissioners and had gross conflicts of interest. As it turned out, several members of the committee were cronies of the Board of Commissioners. For example, Kevin Cronin (a local political consultant who was paid $106,526.57 by Commissioner Buch and former Commissioner Berney) was appointed by the Commissioners (including Buch and Berney) to serve on the committee. Not surprisingly, Mr. Cronin had a direct hand in drawing the boundary map that was selected by the then Board of Commissioners. Even less surprising, the new district for Heather Buch’s district (East Lane County) suddenly had 1,500 new voters from liberal South Eugene. This increased the odds that a liberal leaning candidate like Commissioner Buch would win in the upcoming election in 2026 in conservative leaning East Lane County. The new boundary map also took 700 votes out of liberal South Eugene and put them in the Springfield district.

It is sad and almost hard to believe that the League of Women’s Voters for Lane County oppose Ballot Measure 20-362. Why do I say that? Because Ballot Measure 20-362 is almost identical to Oregon Initiative Petition 14 that is supported by the League of Women Voters of Oregon. If you compare Ballot Measure 20-362 and Initiative Petition 14 you will note, except for changes made to take into account one measure is statewide dealing with Representatives and Senators and one is countywide dealing with Commissioners, the measures are almost word for word.

In the McKenzie River Reflections Guest Viewpoint (10/17/24), Tammy Parker, President of the League of Women Voters of Lane County, states that having this County Ballot Measure take effect before the 2026 election “is a non-starter for the League. It is highly unusual and costly.” Ms. Parker must have forgotten to read her own statewide measure because it also takes effect before the 2026 election. See Initiative Petition 14, paragraph 1, Section 6(1). In fact, the author of Ballot Measure 20-362 got the idea of making Ballot Measure 20-362 effective before the next election after reading the League of Women Voter’s Initiative. And it makes sense. Why wait until the election in 2032 to get rid of the corrupt gerrymandering that took place by the Board of Commissioners in 2021.

Let’s take away the power from our Commissioners to choose their own voters. Let’s stop gerrymandering. Please vote YES for Ballot Measure 20-362.

Dale Riddle is a local attorney who specializes in good government cases. He was the Managing Attorney in the Rob Handy case that stopped Open Meeting Laws violations by the Lane County Board of Commissioners in the last decade.