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3A THE DAILY ASTORIAN • WEDNESDAY, JULY 18, 2018 Oregon sanctuary repeal qualifies for ballot State law was passed in 1987 By PARIS ACHEN Capital Bureau An initiative petition to repeal Oregon’s sanctuary law has qualified for the Novem- ber ballot. More than 86 percent — 97,762 — of the 111,039 sig- natures submitted in favor of Initiative Petition 22 were validated. Only 88,184 were needed to land the measure on the ballot. Meanwhile, the Oregon Department of Justice contin- ues to investigate allegations from voters that they were tricked into signing “Stop Ore- gon Sanctuaries.” The Oregon Pamplin Media Group An initiative petition that would repeal Oregon’s sanctu- ary law has qualified for the November ballot. Secretary of State’s Office received 39 complaints with similar allegations. The statewide sanctuary law prohibits the use of state and local resources to enforce federal immigration law, when a person’s only crime is being in the country illegally. Earlier this year, the U.S. Department of Justice threat- ened to yank federal law enforcement grants from sanc- tuary states, including Oregon. Gov. Kate Brown’s office said last week that officials have not received any recent com- munication from the justice department on that matter. IP 22 was sponsored by Oregonians for Immigration Reform and three Republican state lawmakers — Greg Bar- reto of Cove, Sal Esquivel of Medford and Mike Nearman of Independence. Last week, Oregonians United Against Profiling, launched an official oppo- sition campaign against the measure. More than 80 busi- nesses, labor organizations, faith and civil rights groups and law enforcement lead- ers have joined the coalition against IP 22. Oregon lawmakers passed the sanctuary law in 1987 in response to a spate of racial profiling of immigrants by police. In one high-profile case in 1977, Delmiro Trevino, a U.S. citizen of Mexican descent, was arrested at a restaurant in Independence because police suspected that he was undoc- Consult a PROFESSIONAL Initiative petition would connect public worker pay to private sector By CLAIRE WITHYCOMBE Capital Bureau SALEM — Supporters of a new initiative petition want to amend the state’s constitution to require that public employ- ees receive roughly the same pay and benefits as private-sec- tor workers in similar jobs. They claim public employ- ees receive greater total com- pensation — including retire- ment, health benefits and leave — than many private sector workers. The chief petitioners on the measure are Kim Sordyl, an education activist, and Erica Hetfeld, the executive direc- tor of Priority Oregon, a self- styled government watchdog group. Priority Oregon, a nonprofit formed in early 2017, has been in the headlines before for pro- ducing ads critical of Gov. Kate Brown, a Democrat up for re-election this year. The group contended Tues- day, in announcing an initiative petition that could put the issue before voters in 2020, that cur- rent compensation packages prevent limited state resources from going to “classrooms and other essential services.” The petition would change the state’s constitution to require public employee com- pensation to be between 95 to 105 percent of compensation for comparable jobs in the pri- vate sector. In cases where a job — such as a police officer — doesn’t have a suitable equivalent in the private sector, the amend- ment would direct the state to set compensation based on sim- ilar jobs in neighboring states. ‘If Gov. Brown isn’t going to take the appropriate steps to make government employee compensation equal to that of similar jobs in the private sector, the people should decide that issue.’ Erica Hetfeld, executive director of Priority Oregon The initiative petition comes weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that pub- lic employee unions couldn’t require nonmembers to pay fees to cover collective bar- gaining costs. The outcome of the case, Janus v. AFSCME, is likely to diminish the financial and political power of public-sec- tor unions. Hetfeld said the petition was not influenced by the Janus decision. “If Gov. Brown isn’t going to take the appropriate steps to make government employee compensation equal to that of similar jobs in the private sec- tor, the people should decide that issue,” Hetfeld said. Detractors, including some of the state’s largest public-em- ployee unions, expressed skepticism about the petition Tuesday. “This does not appear to be well thought out,” said John Larson, a Hermiston teacher and president of the Oregon Education Association, in a prepared statement. “When considering education and experience, professional edu- cators already earn 20 percent less than the private sector … if you followed (Priority) Ore- gon’s logic, you would actually see dramatic increases in pay for educators across the state.” Priority Oregon, as Larson acknowledged elsewhere in his statement, is targeting not only wages, but benefits and other compensation such as paid leave. Melissa Unger, execu- tive director of SEIU 503, dismissed Priority Oregon’s efforts Tuesday as an attempt to stir up publicity ahead of this year’s election. Brown’s main rival in her re-election bid is state Rep. Knute Buehler, R-Bend, whose platform includes pension and spending reforms. “This is not about 2020,” Unger said. “This is about 2018, and making teachers and firefighters and so many other people the enemy during the election cycle.” The state, cities, counties and school districts continue to struggle with escalating pub- lic pension costs, a dilemma that prompted Brown to con- vene a task force to find ways to reduce the unfunded liability of the pension system last year. Petition supporters touched on that problem as well. “The average Oregon gov- ernment employee receives benefits that most people can only dream about and it’s draining money from our schools,” Sordyl said in a pre- pared statement. Meanwhile, state gov- ernment is facing a wave of impending retirements, which are poised to create succession planning and recruiting chal- lenges, particularly in a strong economy with a historically low unemployment rate, top officials say. That’s all the more rea- son to offer competitive bene- fits packages, union supporters contend. “Any further reductions in educator compensation and benefits at the current salary levels would make it extremely difficult to attract and retain the most talented teachers and other educators at a time when school districts across Ore- gon are already struggling to fill a variety of important posi- tions,” Larson said in a writ- ten response to questions. “If that were the case, it would cause significant harm to the classroom learning of students across Oregon.” In April 2017, as part of a package of cost-containment measures, Brown signed an executive order requiring the state Department of Adminis- trative Services conduct a mar- ket study of the state’s employ- ers every even-numbered year and to use that information in collective bargaining. Merkley, Wyden protest judicial nominations Senators object to Bounds By ANNA GRIFFIN Oregon Public Broadcasting Oregon U.S. Sens. Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden and other Senate Democrats spent three hours Tuesday night pro- testing the Republican Party’s approach to confirming fed- eral judges — and one Ore- gon lawyer’s nomination in particular. They were objecting to the nomination of Ryan Bounds to serve on the influential 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and, more broadly, to what they describe as GOP efforts to pack federal courts with extremist jurists. The Senate has tradition- ally not proceeded with judi- cial nominations without the support of a potential judge’s home state senators. But Sen- ate Republicans have pushed ahead with Bounds’ nomina- tion despite Wyden and Merk- ley’s concerns. “This deed of putting for- ward this nomination on this floor tonight changes 100- year tradition of comity in the U.S. Senate, and a recogni- tion that the home state sena- tors have something important to say about the integrity of the individual being put forward,” Merkley said as the unusually long session kicked off. The Oregon senators say they weren’t adequately con- sulted about the Bounds nom- ination and that the White House pushed the nomina- tion through quickly despite their requests to slow down. And they have raised ques- tions about inflammatory writ- ing Bounds, an assistant U.S. attorney, did while in college at Stanford University and whether Bounds was upfront about those writings later. Other senators objected to how Senate Republicans have handled other nominations and to the role groups such as the Federalist Society have played in coming up with lists of potential nominees for the Trump administration. It’s unlikely Senate Demo- crats can block Bounds’ nomi- nation, but they hope to slow it as a form of protest. Q: What should I use to clean my baby’s teeth? baby’s teeth are A: Remember not only important but part JEFFREY M. LEINASSAR DMD, FAGD 503/325-0310 1414 MARINE DRIVE, ASTORIA www.smileastoria.com LEO FINZI A green dot appears next to all files backed up. Anytime Anywhere Access can be used to view and download uthorized backed up files on any Internet- computer. You can view Arbonite connected copies of your backed up data and gent restore them through Carbonites web M-F, 10-6, Closed this Sat. & Sun. interface on any computer. 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Cleaning baby’s teeth can be done by gauze, a finger swipe, or a small brush. Make it quick and fun!! Remember that a night-time bottle with milk has lactose ( milk sugar) and juice has fructose or sucrose (sugar) and if it sits on teeth day after day problems are going to develop. Baby teeth are small with thin enamel so they are important to keep clean. Q: How can I WANTED Call me ti Any umented. He later filed a class-action lawsuit. His law- yer, Rocky Barilla, won elec- tion as a state representative in 1986, marking the first time a Latino was elected to that position in the state’s history. He introduced the legislation that enacted the sanctuary law, which passed with bipartisan support. The Capital Bureau is a collaboration between EO Media Group and Pamplin Media Group. 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