NORTHWEST OREGON
LABOR COUNCIL
2016 General Election
Endorsements
SERVING ORGANIZED LABOR IN OREGON AND SOUTHWEST WASHINGTON SINCE 1900
OREGON STATEWIDE
Governor: Kate Brown
Secretary of State: Brad Avakian
Attorney General: Ellen Rosenblum
State Treasurer: Tobias Read
Measure 97: Increase the Corporate Minimum Tax
Measure 98: Career & Technical Education in High Schools
CLACKAMAS COUNTY
NORTHWEST
LABOR
PRESS
VOLUME 117, NUMBER 20
PORTLAND, OREGON
IN THIS ISSUE
FIVE LIES AND TWO TRUTHS What
corporations are saying about M97. | Page 5
ELECTRICIAN FOR STATE HOUSE IBEW’s
Ray Lister has a fighting chance. | Page 3
Union-built courthouse p. 2
Meetings p. 8
OCTOBER 21, 2016
County Chair: Jim Bernard
Commissioner: Position 4: Ken Humberston
Measure 3-494: Clackamas Fire District, Annexation of
Boring RFPD #59 boundaries into Clackamas Fire District #1
COLUMBIA COUNTY
Commissioner: Position 1: Margaret Magruder
CITY OF GLADSTONE
Mayor: Tammy Stempel
Councilor: Position 2: Bill Osburn
Councilor: Position 4: Neal Reisner
Councilor: Position 6: Frank Hernandez
CITY OF HILLSBORO
Mayor: Aron Carleson
CITY OF LAKE OSWEGO
Mayor: Jon Gustafson
Councilor: Theresa Kohlhoff
Measure 97 would increase funding for schools, health care and senior services by raising taxes on the top 0.25 per-
cent of corporations doing business in Oregon. It qualified for the ballot thanks to the efforts of over 6,000 volunteers,
and above all Oregon schoolteachers, who collected 85,238 of the 130,000 signatures the campaign submitted on
May 20 (above).
CITY OF PORTLAND
MEASURE 97: The Game Changer
Commissioner, Position 4: Steve Novick
Measure 26-179: Affordable Housing Bond
CITY OF WEST LINN
Mayor: John Carr
METRO
Measure 26-178: Clean, Safe, and Healthy Water
MULTNOMAH COUNTY
Commissioner: District 4: Amanda Schroeder
Oregon Senate
(Within Northwest Oregon Labor Council’s jurisdiction)
Dist. 18: Ginny Burdick; Dist. 21: Kathleen Taylor;
Dist. 22: Lew Frederick; Dist. 23: Michael Dembrow;
Dist. 25: Laurie Monnes Anderson
Oregon House
(Within Northwest Oregon Labor Council’s jurisdiction)
Dist. 26: Ray Lister; Dist. 27: Sheri Malstrom; Dist. 29: Susan McLain;
Dist. 30: Janeen Sollman; Dist. 31: Brad Witt; Dist. 34: Ken Helm;
Dist. 35: Margaret Doherty; Dist. 36: Jennifer Williamson; Dist. 37: Paul
Southwick; Dist. 38: Ann Lininger; Dist. 40: Mark Meek; Dist. 41: Karin
Power; Dist. 42: Rob Nosse; Dist. 43: Tawna Sanchez; Dist. 44: Tina Kotek;
Dist. 45: Barbara Smith Warner; Dist. 46: Alissa Keny-Guyner;
Dist. 47: Diego Hernandez; Dist. 48: Jeff Reardon; Dist. 49: Chris Gorsek;
Dist. 50: Carla Piluso; Dist. 51: Janelle Bynum; Dist. 52: Mark Reynolds
Authorized and paid for by the Northwest Oregon Labor Council, 9955 SE Washington, St., Suite 305, Portland, OR
After decades of legislative
failure to solve the state’s rev-
enue problem, union-sponsored
Measure 97 will make a better
Oregon — by asking giant
corporations to pay their fair
share. And that could lead to
similar efforts around the
country.
By Don McIntosh
Associate editor
Twenty-six years ago, Oregon
voters passed Ballot Measure 5,
by 52 percent. Measure 5 lim-
ited property taxes to 1.5 per-
cent, and shifted school funding
responsibility from local school
districts to the state. Many who
voted for Measure 5 in 1990 felt
property taxes were too high,
and wanted the Legislature to
find other sources of revenue.
But voters rejected the 5 percent
sales tax that lawmakers sent to
the ballot in 1993 — by a three-
to-one margin. That was fol-
lowed by measures 47 and 50 in
1996 and 1997, which reduced
“assessed” property values by
10 percent, and limited future
increases in as-
sessed value to
3 percent a
year regardless
of how much
market value
increased.
It’s been 20
years.
To-
gether, the
property tax limitation measures
fed a long slow decline in
schools, along with occasional
acute budget crises. Today, Ore-
gon has the nation’s third-largest
class sizes, the fourth-highest
high school dropout rate, and
some of the nation’s shortest
school years — on average two
weeks shorter than the 180-
days-per-year national standard.
Oregon today has one guidance
counselor for every 549 stu-
dents, one school librarian for
every 674 students, and one
school nurse for every 4,635
students. And pinched school
districts have deferred and de-
ferred building maintenance —
a backlog that reached $7.6 bil-
lion statewide
by 2014.
“Drive by
any school and
take a look,”
said Portland
Public Schools
IBEW Local
48 union rep
Donna Ham-
mond. “We’re talking superglue
and bandaids.”
Only once in the last two
decades has the legislature tried
to come up with additional rev-
enues to offset the reduced prop-
erty taxes: Measures 66 and 67,
which voters passed. Pitched as
rescue measures in 2010 during
the height of the recession, 66
and 67 slightly (and in some
cases temporarily) increased in-
come taxes on corporations and
on the top 2 percent of income
earners. That might have been
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