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OSPIRG RATES
LAWMAKERS
Sen. Ron Wyden and Congressman Peter
DeFazio led the five out of seven members of
Oregon’s Congressional delegation who
voted “in the public interest” more than 80
percent of the time between Jan. 22, 2003 and
March 16, 2005, according to the annual
Congressional Scorecard for U.S. Senators
and Representatives
The tally on major public interest issues
was released last week by the Oregon State
Public Interest Research Group (OSPIRG).
The organization is releasing its annual
scorecard as part of its work with Congress to
“stop the dirty, dangerous energy bill that
threatens the coast, and to promote clean,
safe energy policy,” according to OSPIRG
Field Director Laura Etherton in a prepared
statement.
“These scorecards are a helpful tool to ed-
ucate the public about the voting records of
their elected officials and to help citizens
hold those officials accountable,” says
Etherton.
The scorecard tracks public interest votes
such as protecting the Clean Air Act; protect-
ing the Arctic Refuge from drilling; prevent-
ing unfair credit card practices; and increas-
ing access to affordable prescription drugs.
The tally also looks at campaign contribu-
tions, biographical data, past OSPIRG
scores, and accessibility.
Wyden scored 100 percent on the score-
card; Sen. Gordon Smith 32 percent;
DeFazio 95 percent; Rep Earl Blumenauer 90
percent; Rep. David Wu 86 prcent; Rep.
Darlene Hooley 81 percent; Rep Greg
Walden 0 percent.
“We especially applaud Sen. Wyden for
being a public interest hero,” says Etherton,
“We are particularly disappointed in Rep.
Walden’s consistent votes against the public in-
terest, which earned him a zero percent score.”
Nationally, 156 members of the House or
Senate scored 80 percent and above, of
whom 33 scored 100 percent, while 194
members of either chamber had scores at 10
percent or below, with 97 members scoring
zero. The complete scorecard is available at
www.ospirg.org/reports/scorecard.pdf
LABOR NOTES
• The Senate Revenue Committee last
week voted to invite Oregon’s working poor
to the front of the line for its first big tax-cut-
ting bill of the session. Despite pleas from
corporate lobbyists to add new federal tax
breaks for corporations to the state tax code,
the committee voted 3-2 for amendments to
House Bill 2542 that will expand the state’s
use of federal tax breaks for Oregon’s poorest
Jonesin’ for Marriage
By Matt Gaffney
ugene Weekly reader Dan O’Reilly didn’t just want to
say “Will you marry me?” to his girlfriend, Angela
Turner. He wanted to say “W_ _ L Y_ U _ _R RY M_?” to his
girlfriend, A _ G _ _ A T_ R _ _R.
Dan and Angie solve the Jonesin’ Crossword puzzle to-
gether every week in the Weekly, so Dan figured that instead
of simply going down on one knee and strapping a nice rock
to her finger, he’d ask Angie to be his betrothed
via their weekly crossword.
Dan got in touch with me (I’m the editor of
Jonesin’, which is written by Oregon native
Matt Jones), and I told him it sounded like fun.
Dan sent me details about Angie and her life,
and I forwarded them along to Matt Jones, who
crafted them into the Jonesin’ puzzle that ran in
EW June 23.
To 99.99 percent of the people who solved
that week’s puzzle in alternative weeklies across
the country, it just seemed like a normal cross-
word. But to one Oregon couple, it was filled
with hidden meanings. In addition to having AN-
GELA at 1-across (clued as “Tony’s housemate
on ‘Who’s the Boss?’”), the puzzle had
TURNER as the corresponding last across an-
swer in the grid (clued as “Spatula, essentially”).
In the center of the grid, two across entries
read WILL YOU and MARRY ME. In addition,
E
working families instead, ac-
cording to a statement from
the Oregon AFL-CIO. The
money saved from not
adopting the new corpo-
rate tax breaks will be
used to expand the state’s
Earned Income Tax Credit
(EITC), which is keyed to
the federal EITC.
• Farmworkers are opposing a
new bill that will provide tax credits to
farmers for minimum-wage jobs, but not for
jobs that pay more than the minimum wage.
The Senate Revenue Committee voted unan-
imously last week to adopt a new tax credit
for agricultural employers that is designed to
help them cope with future increases in the
minimum wage.
the grid included the hopeful groom’s name (DAN and
O’REILLY), as well as various other aspects of Angie’s life —
all of them clued in a straightforward, non-Angie-specific way.
How did the groom’s scheme go down? I’ll let him de-
scribe it:
Day started off with Angie arriving in Corvallis around 11
am, all prepared for a trip to the Rogue brewery for their sum-
mer garage sale. We took off for Newport, grabbed a bite to
eat at this hole in the wall restaurant called the Chowder
Bowl, then headed for the Rogue, where somehow I must
have confused the dates of the garage sale by a week. Not one
• Union volunteers will
reach out to Oregon’s
newest union members
when they join the
Working America can-
vass team in southeast
Portland this week. The
team will be canvassing
door-to-door in opposition
to a new Wal-Mart in the area.
CORRECTIONS/
CLARIFICATIONS
Jocelyn McAuley tells us her 6/30 letter
incorrectly stated that Ms. Killian “claims
Whole Foods pays living wages.” She notes,
“This is not Ms. Killian’s stance on Whole
Foods.”
to leave empty handed, we grabbed a 22 oz. bottle of some of
their finest to enjoy on the beach. After picking a spot, we laid
down a blanket and whipped out the EW to enjoy the cross-
word and the sunshine. First answer she got was 1-Across
“Angela.” We had completed about half the puzzle when she
worked on down to “Turner”, where she mentioned (this is
verbatim from her mouth), “Hey this puzzle has both of my
names in it, we should keep it when we’re finished!” It was at
this point that she was just as surprised to find both of my
names in the puzzle as well; must be a coincidence!
We worked on the puzzle for about a half-an-hour when
we started to slow down. I asked her if she was
done working on it and she said yes, to which I
replied that I didn’t think she was. At this point,
I’m looking straight at the puzzle where it says,
“WILL YOU MARRY ME” with my pencil
right next to the phrase. After not getting the
subtle hint, I told her that maybe I could help
her finish the puzzle, which is when I took a
Sharpie marker and circled the answers
ANGELA TURNER WILL YOU MARRY
ME. She was absolutely dumbfounded, almost
to the point of embarrassment that she didn’t
see it while we were working on it! After an ini-
tial whisper of “Oh my God,” her first complete
sentence was, “There never was a garage sale
today, was there!”
In case you’re wondering: She said a three-
letter word for “I agree.”
Matt Gaffney is the editor of Jonesin’ crosswords,
which is written by Portland resident Matt Jones.
JULY 14, 2005 9