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.
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A: Remember
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DMD, FAGD
503/325-0310
1414 MARINE DRIVE,
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of their health and development.
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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requiring investigation by
A: Deaths
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resulting from injury, while on the job or
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