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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 8, 2018)
Thursday, November 8, 2018 OFF PAGE ONE MIDTERMS: The outcomes of the five measures reflect the urban-rural divide Page 8A East Oregonian Continued from 1A the 2019 session in January to hear from the people. The outcomes of the five ballot measures reflect the urban-rural divide — to a point. About 56 percent of Ore- gonians passed Measure 102 to allow local govern- ments to use public bond money for private hous- ing developments. Umatilla County voters said no with 57.7 percent of the vote and Morrow County with 58.2 percent. The majority of Orego- nians rejected Measure 103 to prohibit taxes on grocer- ies. They also rejected Mea- sure 105 and preserved Ore- gon’s sanctuary state status, and they rejected Measure 106, which would have banned public funding of most abortions. Morrow, Umatilla and Union county voters, predictably, passed each. State Sen. Bill Hansell, Republican from Athena, said the measures were con- servative, so it made sense they had traction in rural Oregon. Rural and urban voters, however, matched up bet- Staff photo by E.J. Harris Volunteer Norman Stabler, of Pendleton, center, works with other volunteers to remove ballots from their enve- lopes to prepare them for counting on Tuesday at the Umatilla County Elections Division in Pendleton. ter on Measure 104, which aimed to require a three- fifths majority in the Leg- islature to approve taxes to raise revenue. The measure failed state- wide about 65 percent to 35 percent. The margin was tighter here, with 52.3 per- cent voting against in Mor- row County, 51.9 percent against in Umatilla and 52.7 percent against in Union County. The measure failed in all but one of Oregon’s 36 counties. Lake County voters passed the measure 51.2 to 48.8 percent. Smith supported 104. He said the local outcomes came as a real surprise because Eastern Oregon voters are generally fiscally conservative. While he said he missed on this, he did not buy the notion Oregonians opposed the measure to make sure lawmakers had the freedom to do their jobs. Measure 102 amends the state Constitution, and 103, 104 and 106 would have as well. Conservative East- ern Oregonians were more willing to pass those mea- sures than liberal metro res- idents. Smith said he gets nervous when proposals try to add language to the Constitution. “I do think the Legisla- ture is the voice of the peo- ple,” he said, and issues such as grocery taxes don’t belong in the Constitu- tion and should remain the responsibility of state lawmakers. Hansell was on board with that. Constitutional amendments circumvent the legislative process, he said, and thus make it harder for lawmakers to do their work. However, they also could preserve certain priorities. He said perhaps local vot- ers were willing to live with that double-edged sword. DEMS: 40 representatives must be on the House floor in order for a vote to happen Continued from 1A but Democratic Gov. Kate Brown defeated her Repub- lican challenger, a victory she called “a slam dunk.” “I worried last night because of the celebration. Somebody lost last night, and they lost pretty good,” Courtney said in a telephone interview. “When you really beat someone and you really put them down, you know, you can train an anger and a hatred that’s so violent, that they’ll go to every extreme they can think of to stop you.” If Republicans lawmak- ers feel irrelevant, they could resort to sitting out votes, said Courtney, a Democrat who’s the longest-serving legislator in Oregon history. “It’s a very difficult situa- tion to have happen, you’ve got anarchy, you’ve got leg- islative anarchy,” Courtney said. Quorum rules say 20 sen- ators must be on the Senate floor and 40 representatives on the House floor for votes to take place, Courtney said. Democrats fell short of those numbers even though they’ll have at least 18 Senate seats and 36 House seats in the 2019 session. MARIJUANA: Oregon voters approved legalizing cannabis in 2014 Continued from 1A “Places like Klamath Falls, etc., have come to accept the fact that canna- bis is a major part of their economy and that ban- ning it is just ridiculous,” Morse said. “So they’re choosing to accept it and to get the tax benefits that come with it.” Oregon voters approved legalizing can- nabis for adults 21 and older in 2014. On Tuesday, voters in most cities, typically small and rural, appeared to keep or impose bans on recreational marijuana. Those included Dufur, Haines, Dunes, Culver, Imbler, Sisters, Shady Cove, Unity and Browns- ville. The city of Turner, in Marion County, voted to ban new recreational marijuana businesses. Morse said those com- munities imposing bans this year tend to dig in against cannabis for moral reasons. “It’s similar to when alcohol prohibition changed,” Morse said. “There were a lot of com- munities in Oregon that wanted to stay dry. It’s just going to be a matter of time before they hop on the bandwagon.” Taxing cannabis locally proved popular, though. In addition to allow- ing recreational canna- bis, Ontario and Klamath Falls voters also approved a 3 percent sales tax on cannabis. Voters in Lakev- iew, Turner, Hood River County, Coos County, Coquille, Cave Junc- tion, Grants Pass, Manza- nita, Gearhart, Josephine and Clatsop counties also voted to allow or impose local taxes on recreational marijuana. None of those areas currently ban recre- ational marijuana, accord- ing to records maintained by the OLCC. Three other cities approved taxes on mar- ijuana despite imposing simultaneous restrictions on it: Haines, Sisters and Turner. Haines voted to keep an existing ban on recre- ational marijuana busi- nesses; Sisters rejected efforts to allow recre- ational marijuana there; and Turner disallowed new medical and rec- reational marijuana businesses. Some results were very close as of Wednesday afternoon. Voters in Sumpter, in Baker County, appeared to reject a ban by just one vote, according to the lat- est returns. 73 voters said “no” and 72 said “yes.” And in the contest in another Baker County town, Unity, over whether to impose a ban on recre- ational marijuana, only 30 voters appear to have cast a ballot, according to the state. Twenty-one people voted in favor of a ban and nine against. According to 2017 census estimates, 69 people live in Unity. Reporter Claire Withy- combe: cwithycombe@ eomediagroup.com or 503-385-4903. Withy- combe is a reporter for the East Oregonian work- ing for the Oregon Capi- tal Bureau, in collabora- tion of EO Media Group, Pamplin Media Group and Salem Reporter. “It’s similar to when alcohol prohibition changed” — Don Morse, Oregon Cannabis Business Council House Speaker Tina Kotek said stronger Dem- ocratic majorities in the House and Senate will help Democrats focus on school funding, climate change and a housing crisis. The Democrats achieved a supermajority in the House when Rachel Prusak, a nurse, beat Republican Rep. Julie Parrish to repre- sent a district south of Port- land. Parrish had backed a ballot measure — defeated by voters in January — that would have eliminated a new tax to provide health care for low-income Orego- nians. Prusak ran for office “to protect the rights of her patients.” In southern Oregon, Democrat Jeff Golden, a river guide and public tele- vision production manager, edged Republican Jessica Gomez to take Republican Sen. Alan DeBoer’s seat, giving Democrats a super- majority in the Senate. Gomez had been DeBoer’s legislative aide. Courtney said he was relieved voters defeated a measure on Tuesday that would have amended the state Constitution to require a legislative supermajor- ity for bills that raise reve- nue through tax exemptions, deductions, credits or fees. Passage would have made it almost impossible to create a budget, Courtney said. In the 2019 legislative session, which starts in Jan- uary and runs to early July, Democrats will aim to pass a multibillion-dollar reve- nue measure to fund public education. Courtney said it would be a value added tax or a gross receipts tax, but not a sales tax. Having a supermajor- ity doesn’t mean Democrats will act in unison to pass tax bills, said Christopher Shor- tell, associate professor of political science at Portland State University. For exam- ple, Golden, who will be sworn in along with other winners on Jan. 14, will have to be mindful he’s from a fairly conservative district, Shortell said. “Any time you’re a Dem- ocrat in a seat that was held by a Republican ... if you come in and join the Demo- cratic supermajority to enact some tax bill that’s very unpopular with your con- stituents, that’s a problem for you,” Shortell said. “A supermajority does not guar- antee that all those Demo- crats will join in.” APP: The program is still in the beta testing stage independent study. Theriault said though he’s cific needs. had a few students who have “We were looking at a entered the app challenge Face API that uses Javas- before, he’s found that many cript,” Lemus said. “That schools in Eastern Ore- gon don’t have a was more on our computer science level of program- ming than most program. API. We were “In all fair- ness, we’ve only coming up with had one for two ideas to use it for, years,” he said. and we kind of Two years ago, agreed on our first another Hermis- idea.” ton student won Theriault said the challenge, and the students began traveled to D.C. programming in Theriault for a reception. the second week “When we got to D.C. of school. Though they bor- rowed code from someone the first year, we were one else, they had to learn how of a few public schools that it works and figure out how won,” Theriault said. “There to make it work for their own were a lot of tech schools app. and private schools.” “The code they stud- Theriault said he’s tried to ied showed how to compare find other opportunities for two specific faces,” he said. his students to develop their “They had to rewrite it so it skills. They participate in a would compare other faces, programming challenge at not just those two.” George Fox University. Still, They connected the app he said, because it’s in a big- to a small sample of photos, ger area, they’re often com- peting against kids with a to test if it worked. To make the app fully functional, Lemus and Orozco still need to upload the full database. There are currently photos of four missing people on the app now. “It’s still in beta testing,” Theriault said. “They down- loaded photos off of a web- site for missing people in Oregon.” The two only had a month to create the app, between the beginning of the school year and submitting it to the Con- gressional App competition. Theriault said the stu- dents are members of a quickly growing computer science program. “There’s a lot of inter- est, and it’s a growing pro- gram,” he said. “There’s an AP (Advanced Placement) class that feeds into this one, which now has 20 students.” Hermiston has several computer science classes, including intro to com- puter science, AP com- puter science principle, and Technology and Web Development, as well as an Continued from 1A Hermiston High School juniors Rogelio Lemus, left, and Ethan Orozco work Wednesday on a com- puter appli- cation they developed to find missing people by uploading a photo and comparing it with a nation- al database. Staff photo by Kathy Aney lot more tech experience, or parents who work at major technology companies. Though they were most focused on the technical aspects of the app, Lemus and Orozco had some fun with it, too. “It was pretty fun com- ing up with the name,” said Lemus. I wanted to come up with an acronym. Though there was some debate about the name — the term “non-authorized abduc- tions” made their teacher question what an “autho- rized abduction” would be — but they knew the name would help people recognize the app. “You’re not going to for- get it,” Lemus said. “I haven’t done anything like this before,” Orozco said. “It challenged my skills and I was pretty happy with the results.”
