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Transcript

Oregon's Trans Agenda · Crosstabs

0:00
SPEAKER_01: We talked a lot about the trans agenda, and I know you know a lot about the trans agenda.
0:04
SPEAKER_01: Specifically, transportation is what we talked about there.
0:07
SPEAKER_01: If there's another trans agenda, I'm not sure what that's about.
0:10
SPEAKER_01: We're clear to engage.
0:11
SPEAKER_01: Time on target.
0:13
SPEAKER_01: Five mics.
0:13
SPEAKER_03: Out.
0:35
SPEAKER_01: welcome back to crosstabs with brian iverson and reagan knope we are the batman and
0:42
SPEAKER_01: robin of oregon republican politics i'll leave you to decide who's batman who's
0:48
SPEAKER_02: robin oh that's clear that's clear reagan who's batman and robin in this scenario
0:55
SPEAKER_01: i'm i am your young ward no you're
1:01
SPEAKER_02: It's clear to me you're Batman and I'm Rob.
1:03
SPEAKER_01: Oh, I was going to say, I didn't necessarily think it was up for debate.
1:09
SPEAKER_01: I sort of look at you as Batman.
1:10
SPEAKER_01: You're the grizzled veteran who's been crime fighting out there for years.
1:17
SPEAKER_01: You know, I'm here now just to learn.
1:20
SPEAKER_01: But, you know, I appreciate you saying that I'm Batman.
1:22
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think I think it was more like Wolverine.
1:29
SPEAKER_02: You know,
1:30
SPEAKER_02: we're kind of both our thing and maybe you're more Deadpool and I'm more Wolverine
1:34
SPEAKER_02: because you're kind of a jokester and.
1:37
SPEAKER_02: You like to laugh and have some fun.
1:39
SPEAKER_02: You don't drop as many F-bombs as me.
1:43
SPEAKER_01: I did see Deadpool and Wolverine over the weekend and it was good.
1:48
SPEAKER_01: It wasn't like the best Marvel movie ever, but it was funny.
1:53
SPEAKER_01: But it's sort of...
1:56
SPEAKER_01: It's uncomfortable territory for Marvel because they don't usually have R-rated movies.
2:03
SPEAKER_01: And this one was definitely R-rated, but kind of cartoonish violence.
2:06
SPEAKER_01: But speaking of uncomfortable situations, I'm here, not in my office.
2:13
SPEAKER_01: Listeners won't be able to see that,
2:14
SPEAKER_01: obviously,
2:14
SPEAKER_01: but I'm working in my wife's office as we're doing some rearranging.
2:20
SPEAKER_01: I so I'm going to sell my 1500 Ram 1500 pickup and I bought a 2500 Chevy, not a Chevy GMC Sierra.
2:32
SPEAKER_01: so I can tow if I need to tow stuff.
2:34
SPEAKER_01: I don't have anything to tow yet, but that's, that's in the plans there.
2:37
SPEAKER_01: So we're,
2:37
SPEAKER_01: you know,
2:38
SPEAKER_01: we're making,
2:38
SPEAKER_01: you gotta make some moves sometimes Brian and,
2:40
SPEAKER_01: uh,
2:41
SPEAKER_01: and get some things,
2:42
SPEAKER_01: uh,
2:42
SPEAKER_01: get some things done.
2:43
SPEAKER_01: Well, I'm glad that you finally bought a real pickup truck.
2:48
SPEAKER_02: Yep.
2:48
SPEAKER_02: Yep.
2:48
SPEAKER_02: Everybody has been telling me that everybody get into the three quarters.
2:52
SPEAKER_02: I mean, a half ton just doesn't make you a man Reagan.
2:55
SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
2:56
SPEAKER_02: People, they buy a little F-150 or, in your case, a 1500 Dodge or something and think they have a truck.
3:02
SPEAKER_02: I'm like, well, we tend to call those pizza trucks.
3:06
SPEAKER_02: I mean, they're great for making deliveries, but, you know.
3:08
SPEAKER_01: It was a diesel, Brian, but it was an eco-diesel.
3:11
SPEAKER_01: So, I feel like that, you know, takes away a little bit of the diesel credibility there.
3:16
SPEAKER_01: It's tough.
3:17
SPEAKER_02: Eco-diesel is almost like an oxymoron.
3:20
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
3:21
SPEAKER_01: It's like the Prius of trucks is what you're telling me.
3:24
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
3:25
SPEAKER_02: I think, you know, heck, my Super Duty, we have a couple of Super Duties.
3:29
SPEAKER_02: And I do have an F-150, but we call that my town car.
3:33
SPEAKER_02: Because nothing else fits in the parking garages or anything.
3:37
SPEAKER_02: Vicky's truck.
3:38
SPEAKER_02: Vicky's got a bigger truck.
3:39
SPEAKER_02: Well, no, I got an F-350.
3:41
SPEAKER_02: Hers is a 250.
3:42
SPEAKER_02: But hers is taller than mine.
3:44
SPEAKER_02: But I might have to jack mine up now a couple inches just to make sure that my truck's bigger than hers.
3:53
SPEAKER_01: well um you know what else uh is uncomfortable brian is this conversation about
4:01
SPEAKER_01: transportation and i wouldn't say it's uncomfortable for um you know the it will be
4:08
SPEAKER_01: uncomfortable for the legislature but it's also really uncomfortable for taxpayers
4:12
SPEAKER_01: i think because
4:14
SPEAKER_01: Oregon,
4:15
SPEAKER_01: you put this in the notes,
4:16
SPEAKER_01: Oregon transportation leaders say they may cut 1,000 jobs if the legislature
4:21
SPEAKER_01: doesn't approve more money.
4:23
SPEAKER_01: And of course,
4:23
SPEAKER_01: we know that in the legislature,
4:26
SPEAKER_01: you can never take money that's already going to something in the general fund and
4:30
SPEAKER_01: move it to a priority.
4:32
SPEAKER_01: You always have to add new revenue,
4:33
SPEAKER_01: or at least that's what they try to do,
4:36
SPEAKER_01: is they're always trying to add new revenue to solve new problems instead of
4:39
SPEAKER_01: deprioritizing things we don't care about
4:42
SPEAKER_01: defunding them and moving the money.
4:44
SPEAKER_01: But I'm so frustrated by this whole transportation discussion,
4:49
SPEAKER_01: as I know a lot of the people on this joint transportation committee have been and
4:54
SPEAKER_01: all the people involved.
4:55
SPEAKER_01: But, you know, take us through a little bit of this on on transportation.
5:00
SPEAKER_01: What what's like the current state of play?
5:02
SPEAKER_02: Well, I think the current state of play is this
5:09
SPEAKER_02: incredible PR campaign by ODOT and the commission to basically
5:18
SPEAKER_02: strong arm the Oregonian taxpayer over the course of these public transportation meetings,
5:25
SPEAKER_02: these drip of stories that they're clearly pushing out there from a,
5:31
SPEAKER_02: I'm sure they're probably paying a PR firm 20,000 a month to do this plan.
5:37
SPEAKER_02: Because really the idea is to go out there, tell everybody the grid is horrible.
5:43
SPEAKER_02: It won't get any better.
5:45
SPEAKER_02: And here's a grim outlook unless your legislature acts and gives us money, basically.
5:51
SPEAKER_02: And then that's gonna force the legislature into a strategy that they're gonna have
5:57
SPEAKER_02: to come up with additional funding
6:00
SPEAKER_02: Or else you're going to have, you know, the roads over the past not plowed again.
6:05
SPEAKER_02: And the new one, a thousand jobs are going to be cut.
6:08
SPEAKER_02: You know what I say?
6:09
SPEAKER_02: Cut the dang thousand jobs.
6:11
SPEAKER_02: I guarantee we can do without a thousand more state workers doing nothing but
6:16
SPEAKER_02: standing there holding a slow stop sign for $72 an hour.
6:19
SPEAKER_02: Cut them.
6:22
SPEAKER_02: That's what I would say if I was the legislature, cut them because you know what?
6:26
SPEAKER_02: You don't just get more every time you whine and complain.
6:30
SPEAKER_02: And my other thing that I would tell ODOT,
6:32
SPEAKER_02: and I really want to ask Reagan on this one,
6:35
SPEAKER_02: who's in control of ODOT?
6:38
SPEAKER_02: Is it the governor's office?
6:39
SPEAKER_02: Why is the commission out running rough shot on this?
6:43
SPEAKER_02: And why isn't the governor's office talking about transportation?
6:47
SPEAKER_02: I don't see them anywhere around this process.
6:50
SPEAKER_02: They're kind of hiding behind the commission saying, we're gonna wait to see their budget.
6:54
SPEAKER_02: Well, I guarantee what their budget is a heck of a lot more than it is now.
6:59
SPEAKER_02: And they're just coming up with, you've got to fund us, fund us, fund us.
7:02
SPEAKER_02: Otherwise, we're cutting services.
7:04
SPEAKER_02: And I just kind of think it's a bunch of crap.
7:06
SPEAKER_02: And you know the worst part about it, Reagan, I see it as?
7:11
SPEAKER_02: They so try to pit the urban rural divide in this article and also the tone coming out of there.
7:20
SPEAKER_02: And it's basically like, well, what we're going to do is we're going to cut all of rural Oregon first.
7:27
SPEAKER_02: And then we'll worry about the other stuff.
7:29
SPEAKER_02: But we know you're getting it first.
7:31
SPEAKER_02: And that's their way of basically telling Republican legislators,
7:34
SPEAKER_02: you better freaking give us money or you're not going to get crap.
7:39
SPEAKER_02: And I think that's where we at our rural legislators got to call bullshit on this.
7:44
SPEAKER_02: and this agency and this commission headed up by Lee Beyer.
7:48
SPEAKER_02: He knows that he's, you know, he's a former Senator.
7:51
SPEAKER_02: He knows the game.
7:52
SPEAKER_02: And, and I think he knows how it's being played and they did this last winter.
7:57
SPEAKER_02: If you, if everybody remembers need $18 million, otherwise we're not plowing roads.
8:03
SPEAKER_02: And I think we,
8:04
SPEAKER_02: most of us over on the East side of the state could probably do without going to
8:07
SPEAKER_02: the West side of the state.
8:08
SPEAKER_02: So in my mind, I'm like, you know what?
8:11
SPEAKER_02: Don't see what happens.
8:13
SPEAKER_02: Like, don't give them the money.
8:15
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, I was there for that.
8:17
SPEAKER_01: That was a conversation that happened after the long session, I think.
8:21
SPEAKER_01: And basically what ODOT was like,
8:23
SPEAKER_01: we want a guarantee from all the legislative leadership to support $20 million or
8:28
SPEAKER_01: something like that,
8:28
SPEAKER_01: $19 million in the short session to pay the overtime to plow the roads and
8:33
SPEAKER_01: materials and stuff like that.
8:35
SPEAKER_01: And what I don't think legislative leaders had insight into really at that time
8:43
SPEAKER_01: was how bad the ODOT problem was going to be.
8:47
SPEAKER_01: And I think ODOT saw an opportunity to patch a hole in their budget and move them
8:52
SPEAKER_01: along another six months to a year by taking 20 million from the legislature.
8:56
SPEAKER_01: So they took it.
8:58
SPEAKER_01: And I think that ultimately this is a failure of leadership.
9:03
SPEAKER_01: I can remember in the 2013 and 2015 sessions,
9:07
SPEAKER_01: Senator Knope was not serving on transportation,
9:10
SPEAKER_01: but I would just hear that ODOT was a mess,
9:14
SPEAKER_01: that they were wasting taxpayer money,
9:18
SPEAKER_01: that they were really struggling as an agency.
9:22
SPEAKER_01: They were not well-run.
9:24
SPEAKER_01: There were a lot of problems there.
9:26
SPEAKER_01: And I think,
9:28
SPEAKER_01: and this is just my own opinion,
9:29
SPEAKER_01: and I don't necessarily have like all the facts to,
9:33
SPEAKER_01: I couldn't hand you a one-page paper that says this is why,
9:35
SPEAKER_01: but my assumption is if we got into it,
9:39
SPEAKER_01: that ODOT has been so poorly run
9:42
SPEAKER_01: for so long that now that they're coming to the legislature and basically saying
9:46
SPEAKER_01: the gas tax is not going to cover our transportation needs for the next 10 years.
9:53
SPEAKER_01: Because we kind of do this every five to seven years.
9:55
SPEAKER_01: We do a transportation package that covers the next 10 years or so.
9:59
SPEAKER_01: The last one was 2017.
10:02
SPEAKER_01: It included a gas tax increase, largest tax increase in Oregon history.
10:06
SPEAKER_01: And
10:09
SPEAKER_01: a bunch of projects and maintenance in that.
10:11
SPEAKER_01: One,
10:11
SPEAKER_01: they haven't even finished all the projects from the 2017 package,
10:15
SPEAKER_01: including Rose Quarter,
10:18
SPEAKER_01: which is like an interchange,
10:19
SPEAKER_01: I guess,
10:20
SPEAKER_01: up in Portland,
10:22
SPEAKER_01: right?
10:23
SPEAKER_01: By Rose Garden, stuff like that.
10:25
SPEAKER_01: And we looked at and tried to do Columbia River Crossing now as the I-5 bridge replacement project.
10:33
SPEAKER_01: And that barely moved forward.
10:36
SPEAKER_01: In fact, probably took some steps backwards, right?
10:39
SPEAKER_01: So there is this... We've been basically stuck for a decade on transportation, not moving forward.
10:48
SPEAKER_01: And now...
10:51
SPEAKER_01: Because they no longer have the funds to be able to waste money, they're just going to threaten us.
10:57
SPEAKER_01: But here's the thing, too.
10:58
SPEAKER_01: You know this.
10:59
SPEAKER_01: Whenever a government is low on dollars,
11:03
SPEAKER_01: the things they don't cut first,
11:05
SPEAKER_01: they don't cut middle management.
11:07
SPEAKER_01: They don't cut admin.
11:08
SPEAKER_01: They don't cut HR.
11:09
SPEAKER_01: They don't cut DEI.
11:11
SPEAKER_01: They always cut frontline people.
11:14
SPEAKER_01: Oh, police and fire.
11:15
SPEAKER_01: Oh,
11:15
SPEAKER_01: we got to cut,
11:17
SPEAKER_01: you know,
11:17
SPEAKER_01: in Oregon's budget,
11:18
SPEAKER_01: it's teachers,
11:20
SPEAKER_01: it's state police,
11:22
SPEAKER_01: it's people who are keeping the prisons open.
11:25
SPEAKER_01: Those are the people they cut first.
11:26
SPEAKER_01: And you are exactly right.
11:28
SPEAKER_01: You said they're going to cut rural transportation first.
11:33
SPEAKER_01: They will ensure that everything in Portland runs smoothly, that everything in Eugene runs smoothly.
11:44
SPEAKER_01: But it'll start to get bad in Pendleton and Medford and Redmond and all over the
11:50
SPEAKER_01: state where they're not 100% bought in on the leftist agenda.
11:55
SPEAKER_01: So now...
11:58
SPEAKER_01: one of the real problems.
11:59
SPEAKER_01: So let's take all that aside.
12:01
SPEAKER_01: We'll say ODOT's a very poorly run agency.
12:04
SPEAKER_01: There's some significant changes that need to happen there.
12:07
SPEAKER_02: I'll stipulate on that point.
12:09
SPEAKER_01: Okay, great.
12:11
SPEAKER_01: I know.
12:11
SPEAKER_01: You're a hard sell on that.
12:15
SPEAKER_01: We do have one real problem, which is
12:18
SPEAKER_01: The gas tax, they said, I think in 2027 or 2026, that's going to be peak gas tax revenue.
12:26
SPEAKER_01: After that,
12:27
SPEAKER_01: fuel efficient vehicles and EV sales will be to the point where gas tax revenues
12:31
SPEAKER_01: will begin to go down.
12:33
SPEAKER_01: They're not going down yet, but they project they will go down in the next two years.
12:36
SPEAKER_01: Now, is this a...
12:38
SPEAKER_01: Is this like the world's going to end in the next two years,
12:41
SPEAKER_01: climate change type of prediction,
12:43
SPEAKER_01: which never turns out to be true?
12:44
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
12:45
SPEAKER_01: I'm not enough of an expert.
12:46
SPEAKER_01: But let's say that in two years, gas tax revenue starts to trail off.
12:50
SPEAKER_01: We do need to find a way to fill that gap on funding or reduce what we're spending, right?
12:59
SPEAKER_01: That's a real problem that does need to be solved.
13:02
SPEAKER_01: The Transportation Commission is interesting to me.
13:05
SPEAKER_01: You mentioned Lee Beyer, who sort of ends up being the spokesperson for them.
13:09
SPEAKER_01: He's actually the vice chair.
13:11
SPEAKER_01: The chair is a woman I have not met, but her name is Julie Brown.
13:17
SPEAKER_01: She's the general manager for the Rogue Valley Transportation District for 16 years.
13:22
SPEAKER_01: So, you know, the buses in Medford and Ashland, basically.
13:27
SPEAKER_01: So...
13:29
SPEAKER_01: I think the commission and the governor sort of work hand in hand here.
13:34
SPEAKER_01: The commission really...
13:36
SPEAKER_01: We have this with the EQC,
13:37
SPEAKER_01: the Environmental Quality Commission that runs the Department of Environmental Quality,
13:41
SPEAKER_01: where they sort of set up this commission.
13:43
SPEAKER_01: And the idea is you're going to have these people from all over the state with
13:46
SPEAKER_01: different viewpoints that help manage this big aspect of government instead of just
13:50
SPEAKER_01: the governor and her agency director.
13:53
SPEAKER_01: I would say the idea is good, but in execution, it does not seem to really improve outcomes very much.
14:01
SPEAKER_02: You have agencies that...
14:03
SPEAKER_02: You've got the Admission, you've got ODF and W Commission.
14:06
SPEAKER_02: They've done nothing but be another spot to go land former representatives and
14:11
SPEAKER_02: senators with jobs and in a way to be relevant in a specific industry.
14:16
SPEAKER_02: And then it gives them cover.
14:18
SPEAKER_02: It gives the governor cover in regards to, oh, well, that's the commission.
14:22
SPEAKER_02: Oh, well, you know, and I think the governor's done her best job when it comes to these agencies.
14:28
SPEAKER_02: But this is...
14:30
SPEAKER_02: This is another one of those,
14:31
SPEAKER_02: you know,
14:32
SPEAKER_02: and I don't mean to interrupt you,
14:33
SPEAKER_02: but I just I can't help myself on these commissions,
14:37
SPEAKER_02: which drives me crazy.
14:38
SPEAKER_02: I put in for the Ag Commission, Reagan, like four times over the last, you know, five years or so.
14:44
SPEAKER_02: And I've never even gotten a response.
14:49
SPEAKER_02: You know, so they don't want somebody with a deferring opinion.
14:53
SPEAKER_02: They want somebody with their opinion.
14:55
SPEAKER_02: on these commissions.
14:58
SPEAKER_02: They coordinate.
14:59
SPEAKER_02: There's no doubt in my mind that there's not coordination happening.
15:03
SPEAKER_01: well, you're the governor.
15:04
SPEAKER_01: And so you get to reward your friends with these positions.
15:07
SPEAKER_01: Right.
15:08
SPEAKER_01: And so what happens is if the governor,
15:10
SPEAKER_01: since we've had,
15:11
SPEAKER_01: you know,
15:11
SPEAKER_01: 40 plus years of Democrat control,
15:14
SPEAKER_01: the Democrat has generally Democrats generally rewarded environmental activists over,
15:19
SPEAKER_01: you know,
15:20
SPEAKER_01: more moderate or even conservative interests,
15:22
SPEAKER_01: except for as you know,
15:25
SPEAKER_01: to prove that they're bipartisan.
15:26
SPEAKER_01: They're like, oh, we'll appoint a Republican.
15:28
SPEAKER_01: But the majority will always be liberal Democrats.
15:30
SPEAKER_01: Right.
15:31
SPEAKER_01: They never allow
15:32
SPEAKER_01: any type of true balance on these commissions.
15:35
SPEAKER_01: And I think that's a real problem.
15:38
SPEAKER_01: You need somebody you need.
15:39
SPEAKER_01: And this is the thing where I don't quite understand is Democrats never seem to
15:43
SPEAKER_01: want to take advantage of Republicans and what we do best.
15:47
SPEAKER_01: Like you mentioned, let's cut the head count, right?
15:51
SPEAKER_01: Why doesn't the legislature
15:53
SPEAKER_01: make ways and means a bipartisan committee,
15:57
SPEAKER_01: a truly bipartisan committee,
15:59
SPEAKER_01: so that Republicans can force some cuts through.
16:02
SPEAKER_01: Because you know what's going to happen, Brian?
16:04
SPEAKER_01: They're just going to blame us for the cuts anyway.
16:07
SPEAKER_01: So if I'm a Democrat, I'm like, great, I get to pass a budget that balances.
16:11
SPEAKER_01: We'll have more revenue for the stuff we want to do because it's not getting wasted
16:15
SPEAKER_01: because Republicans are cutting the waste and we're going to blame them for cutting
16:18
SPEAKER_01: the stuff we like.
16:20
SPEAKER_01: What's not to love about that, Brian?
16:21
SPEAKER_01: I think I just knew a hack.
16:24
SPEAKER_01: The majority leaders,
16:25
SPEAKER_01: the president,
16:26
SPEAKER_01: the speaker,
16:27
SPEAKER_01: please hire me to help you take advantage of Republicans and also let us cut the
16:31
SPEAKER_01: budget at the same time.
16:32
SPEAKER_01: Help us help you.
16:36
SPEAKER_01: That would be smart.
16:37
SPEAKER_01: But they never seem to take advantage of that, really.
16:40
SPEAKER_01: They want to control the agenda for the most part.
16:43
SPEAKER_01: But that means that you own all the failures.
16:45
SPEAKER_01: That's the thing is,
16:47
SPEAKER_01: None of these failures, they try to blame them on the Republican majorities in the 90s.
16:50
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, the 90s, I'm starting to feel it, Brian.
16:53
SPEAKER_01: The 90s were a long time ago.
16:55
SPEAKER_01: And they've been in control for most, you know, most of the last two decades.
16:59
SPEAKER_01: So all these problems are on by them.
17:02
SPEAKER_01: The transportation failures are owned by them.
17:04
SPEAKER_01: And they don't want to,
17:05
SPEAKER_01: you know,
17:06
SPEAKER_01: what they don't want to do is they don't want to punish EV buyers because they want
17:10
SPEAKER_01: to try to make it so they can,
17:11
SPEAKER_01: they're subsidizing EVs.
17:12
SPEAKER_01: They're literally creating this problem.
17:14
SPEAKER_01: Gas tax revenues would be in better shape if we didn't subsidize electric vehicle purchases.
17:20
SPEAKER_01: But they're continuing to push the policy that causes this problem.
17:24
SPEAKER_01: They don't want to call,
17:25
SPEAKER_01: they don't want,
17:26
SPEAKER_01: you know,
17:27
SPEAKER_01: Representative Shelly Bossert-Davis,
17:29
SPEAKER_01: my neighbor,
17:29
SPEAKER_01: at one of the meetings in Portland,
17:31
SPEAKER_01: She just threw out there, you know, charging tolls to bikes that go on the I-5 bridge.
17:37
SPEAKER_01: I thought that was awesome.
17:39
SPEAKER_01: Everybody freaked out when she said that.
17:40
SPEAKER_01: I was like, well, why not?
17:42
SPEAKER_01: The bikes are using it.
17:42
SPEAKER_01: Maybe they don't pay the same toll as the car, but the bikes are using it, too.
17:45
SPEAKER_01: They just expect that we're going to build all this expensive infrastructure for
17:49
SPEAKER_01: bikes and walking and then we're not going to charge bikers and walkers.
17:53
SPEAKER_01: It's unreasonable.
17:54
SPEAKER_01: They have unrealistic, unreasonable expectations.
17:57
SPEAKER_01: They don't want to pay fees.
18:00
SPEAKER_01: The EV owners, oh, we pay higher registration fees.
18:03
SPEAKER_01: Well, you know what you should pay?
18:04
SPEAKER_01: A fee on your charging, just like fuel, and make it equivalent.
18:09
SPEAKER_01: That'll fill all the chargers.
18:11
SPEAKER_01: That'll help fill the bucket a little bit on transportation funding.
18:16
SPEAKER_02: Wouldn't they already be paying...
18:19
SPEAKER_02: taxes on those specific power fees, PGE fees.
18:23
SPEAKER_02: I mean, but it's just not getting allocated to,
18:27
SPEAKER_02: The power company doesn't delineate the difference between you turning your lights
18:30
SPEAKER_02: on and you charging your electric vehicle in your car.
18:33
SPEAKER_02: So they don't.
18:34
SPEAKER_01: I'm specifically thinking about like the charging station.
18:38
SPEAKER_01: You wouldn't be able to tell.
18:39
SPEAKER_01: I don't want more smart meters.
18:40
SPEAKER_01: But if you're charging at a station,
18:42
SPEAKER_01: might as well treat it like it's gas station and charge a tax on top of your
18:47
SPEAKER_01: whatever fee you're being charged to levy that.
18:50
SPEAKER_02: That or if you buy an electric vehicle,
18:52
SPEAKER_02: then you can do the mile thing,
18:55
SPEAKER_02: track all the EV drivers around the state of Oregon all day long and just know when
18:59
SPEAKER_02: you buy that Tesla,
19:02
SPEAKER_02: you sign a form that says that the state is going to track your crap and you're
19:05
SPEAKER_02: going to pay.
19:06
SPEAKER_02: And the rest of us, we already pay gas taxes, so we don't have to do the mile thing.
19:11
SPEAKER_02: What they want to do is they want to put the mile thing on everybody.
19:14
SPEAKER_02: So then us gas guzzling diesel driving pickup drivers over in rural Oregon and now
19:19
SPEAKER_02: in Linn County with my friend Reagan's new purchase.
19:24
SPEAKER_02: Now we're paying on top of all of that.
19:26
SPEAKER_02: So we get to pay the gas tax and get to pay a mileage tax, which just isn't fair.
19:32
SPEAKER_02: Again,
19:32
SPEAKER_02: to your whole point of let's not let's not toll the bike riders because what
19:37
SPEAKER_02: they're doing is good for the country.
19:39
SPEAKER_02: It's good for the earth.
19:42
SPEAKER_02: You know, they so they want to use that as an agenda to drive their agenda.
19:46
SPEAKER_02: And then they say, I mean, even in this article, like what they say here in our rule settings.
19:53
SPEAKER_02: Right.
19:53
SPEAKER_02: So they say during extreme weather events like snowplows can't run at night
19:59
SPEAKER_02: impacting school bus schedules.
20:01
SPEAKER_02: and during wildfire season it can mean the state doesn't have the staff to open and
20:06
SPEAKER_02: close freeways like you know what if you have an extreme weather event that the
20:12
SPEAKER_02: governor declares a state of emergency that means you drop your stupid stop sign
20:18
SPEAKER_02: and you get in a truck and you go help close close and open the freeways when you
20:22
SPEAKER_02: work for odot you don't need another person that's hired that they're sitting on
20:27
SPEAKER_02: their ass doing nothing
20:28
SPEAKER_02: And then they got to go close and open a freeway only in the summertime.
20:32
SPEAKER_02: Like, what are those crews doing?
20:33
SPEAKER_02: Maybe they can stop paving for a little bit and go help a wildfire that's happening,
20:38
SPEAKER_02: that's destroying I-84.
20:41
SPEAKER_02: Like, this stuff happened before.
20:44
SPEAKER_02: Like, we had wildfires before, Reagan.
20:46
SPEAKER_02: And guess what?
20:47
SPEAKER_02: We actually had snow before.
20:49
SPEAKER_02: And this stuff happened before we had all of this big budget.
20:52
SPEAKER_02: And guess what?
20:53
SPEAKER_02: Those buses still actually got kids to school.
20:56
SPEAKER_02: Surprisingly, we figured it out in rural Oregon.
20:59
SPEAKER_02: And I would go back to,
21:00
SPEAKER_02: again,
21:01
SPEAKER_02: why don't you just give it to the county and get the hell out of the way then?
21:04
SPEAKER_02: Give them the money that whatever money you have, give it to them and we'll figure it out.
21:09
SPEAKER_02: You know,
21:10
SPEAKER_02: we'll figure out how to make sure our buses that are on snow routes now,
21:14
SPEAKER_02: because remember that Reagan?
21:15
SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
21:16
SPEAKER_02: You probably remember that they used to have buses on snow routes.
21:19
SPEAKER_02: They would take two different routes,
21:21
SPEAKER_02: one for when it was snowing and one for when it wasn't,
21:24
SPEAKER_02: because they couldn't go down roads that wouldn't what they wouldn't get plowed.
21:29
SPEAKER_02: so it's like we know how to do things you know in the areas where we get snow we're
21:33
SPEAKER_02: not babies out here like just stop with the i just hate the threats man the threats
21:40
SPEAKER_02: are just it's annoying is all get out and it's all threatening to the point and you
21:45
SPEAKER_02: guess who doesn't have extreme weather events portland and eugene it's mild they
21:51
SPEAKER_02: don't have a you know and that's the part that in your to your whole point earlier
21:56
SPEAKER_02: These guys are like, oh, well, nothing changes in Portland to Eugene.
22:00
SPEAKER_02: That's all going to be fine because we're going to make sure we take care of our people first.
22:05
SPEAKER_02: And the rest of you, go suck off.
22:08
SPEAKER_02: And I think that's the part that just really upsets me about this whole transportation conversation.
22:16
SPEAKER_02: And then I just and the last thing on just this article for we even pivot with some
22:20
SPEAKER_02: more transportation stuff I want to talk about is I,
22:25
SPEAKER_02: I just get upset about this nuance of this agency and you touched on a little bit
22:34
SPEAKER_02: in 2017.
22:36
SPEAKER_02: We gave,
22:37
SPEAKER_02: we spent more money,
22:38
SPEAKER_02: the largest tax increase in state history,
22:40
SPEAKER_02: I think up until that point,
22:43
SPEAKER_02: probably before the Student Success Act was enacted.
22:46
SPEAKER_02: But I think the largest tax increase came in all these incredible projects,
22:52
SPEAKER_02: like we're gonna make,
22:53
SPEAKER_02: we're gonna have the best grid in the country and blah,
22:55
SPEAKER_02: blah,
22:55
SPEAKER_02: blah.
22:56
SPEAKER_02: They have failed so miserably at those projects to the point to where why aren't, why isn't somebody,
23:06
SPEAKER_02: Standing up and saying, can I get a list of all the projects that aren't done from 2017?
23:13
SPEAKER_02: And if they are,
23:15
SPEAKER_02: which ones got done that have failed because now they're smaller in scope than when
23:21
SPEAKER_02: you you said you were going to do because now you don't have the budget.
23:24
SPEAKER_02: You talked about the Rose Quarter.
23:25
SPEAKER_02: They have no money left to pay for that damn project.
23:28
SPEAKER_02: That thing ballooned, you know, to an 18th degree of that whole that whole area.
23:35
SPEAKER_02: And I think it's because they really don't they didn't really want to start it.
23:39
SPEAKER_02: I think they really didn't want to do it.
23:40
SPEAKER_02: I think it was like almost like,
23:43
SPEAKER_02: you know,
23:44
SPEAKER_02: this,
23:44
SPEAKER_02: I don't know,
23:44
SPEAKER_02: smoking technique to get us to approve all of this new money that's now gone.
23:50
SPEAKER_01: Yeah,
23:51
SPEAKER_01: and it was the truckers especially that go through that Rose Quarter area who need
23:56
SPEAKER_01: those lanes to be clearer because when a truck sits in traffic,
24:01
SPEAKER_01: an 18-wheeler that's hauling stuff,
24:03
SPEAKER_01: that costs those businesses money,
24:05
SPEAKER_01: right?
24:06
SPEAKER_01: And it's worse for the environment.
24:08
SPEAKER_01: So if that area could be cleared up – I mean, you know that area going up into Portland, especially –
24:14
SPEAKER_01: You know, in the afternoons, it's just horrendous.
24:16
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it takes you an extra hour to get to Vancouver, basically.
24:20
SPEAKER_01: And even going the other direction just gets all jammed up.
24:23
SPEAKER_01: Same thing with 205.
24:24
SPEAKER_01: Same thing with all these areas.
24:25
SPEAKER_01: But I think you're totally right.
24:26
SPEAKER_01: I think that was a give that they a project they actually didn't want to do.
24:30
SPEAKER_01: They gave it so they could get the votes and then they just decided we're not going to do the project.
24:35
SPEAKER_01: And frankly, that's offensive.
24:37
SPEAKER_01: I think that people should be fired for that,
24:39
SPEAKER_01: if any of them are still there,
24:41
SPEAKER_01: because that's not the Oregon way.
24:44
SPEAKER_01: That's not the way we're supposed to do things.
24:45
SPEAKER_01: We're supposed to be able to rely on people's words,
24:49
SPEAKER_01: and people should be able to keep their words and actually follow the law.
24:51
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
24:52
SPEAKER_01: this project was in the bills that was passed,
24:54
SPEAKER_01: which means it's part of the law,
24:56
SPEAKER_01: and we should be following the law.
24:58
SPEAKER_01: And if there was a legitimate problem or an expectation there was going to be a problem,
25:02
SPEAKER_01: it should have come up way sooner than
25:05
SPEAKER_01: 2024 for our 2017 transportation package.
25:08
SPEAKER_02: So Reagan,
25:09
SPEAKER_02: the other thing to transition just on transportation,
25:12
SPEAKER_02: the last thing I want to touch on,
25:14
SPEAKER_02: and we got some other things and that we want to get,
25:17
SPEAKER_02: get to,
25:18
SPEAKER_02: but I was listening to a podcast and I forget the name.
25:23
SPEAKER_02: I should have wrote it down because I hate to reference another friendly podcaster.
25:28
SPEAKER_02: But they had the co-chairs of transportation on, which is in the House.
25:34
SPEAKER_02: That's McLean,
25:35
SPEAKER_02: Representative McLean out of Cornelius area,
25:38
SPEAKER_02: Hillsborough,
25:40
SPEAKER_02: and Senator Gorsuch out of Gresham.
25:43
SPEAKER_02: And McClain,
25:44
SPEAKER_02: you know,
25:44
SPEAKER_02: and I was in there listening and just kind of listening to what they had to talk about.
25:47
SPEAKER_02: Well, she starts talking about revenue, like how do we pay for this?
25:51
SPEAKER_02: Well, she brings up what she really likes is a new bill out of Minnesota.
25:58
SPEAKER_02: So this passed and it went into effect July 1st.
26:03
SPEAKER_02: So it's a 50 cent fee will apply to all delivery purchases of $100 or more.
26:12
SPEAKER_02: So if you order Uber Eats or anything,
26:15
SPEAKER_02: and it's more than,
26:16
SPEAKER_02: they started with all deliveries of 50 cents or more.
26:22
SPEAKER_02: But they had to, I think, to get some other people on board, they added the $100 minimum.
26:30
SPEAKER_02: And then so any Amazon package you order, anything that comes in via a delivery, you're paying a fee on.
26:40
SPEAKER_02: So I think what happens is they said, well, this is all going to go towards maintenance.
26:48
SPEAKER_02: So they found another revenue, but it's not a revenue that Amazon's paying.
26:54
SPEAKER_02: It literally will show up on your bill service fee, 50 cents for delivery.
27:00
SPEAKER_02: So it's literally a direct pass on to the consumer, which is you and me.
27:08
SPEAKER_02: for every time we buy something from Amazon,
27:10
SPEAKER_02: any,
27:10
SPEAKER_02: anything that,
27:13
SPEAKER_02: that we get delivered wine that you order from,
27:18
SPEAKER_02: you know,
27:18
SPEAKER_02: your,
27:18
SPEAKER_02: your wine that's coming in on your monthly thing from the great wineries trying to
27:23
SPEAKER_02: make it happen.
27:23
SPEAKER_02: So now it's 50 cents more every time.
27:27
SPEAKER_02: And then of course, you know, they tried to exclude.
27:28
SPEAKER_02: So we took out, uh,
27:31
SPEAKER_02: You know, I don't know what it was.
27:32
SPEAKER_02: It was like some of the medical things.
27:33
SPEAKER_02: Right.
27:34
SPEAKER_02: We pulled that out and baby products like I don't even know how you delineate.
27:38
SPEAKER_02: So what if I buy diapers from Amazon and then I throw on some office paper?
27:45
SPEAKER_02: What do I pay?
27:45
SPEAKER_02: Fifty cents or not?
27:47
SPEAKER_02: Well,
27:48
SPEAKER_01: so Brian,
27:49
SPEAKER_01: I went to the State of Minnesota Department of Revenue website,
27:53
SPEAKER_01: which is a very nice looking website.
27:55
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to send you this link.
27:56
SPEAKER_01: It has all the details about this.
27:59
SPEAKER_01: And I actually had no idea this was a thing, so I'm just learning about it now.
28:03
SPEAKER_01: And so here's how it goes.
28:07
SPEAKER_01: To calculate the $100 threshold...
28:10
SPEAKER_01: It's a transaction that meets or exceeds $100.
28:15
SPEAKER_01: All charges that are part of the sale price, not including the retail delivery fee.
28:19
SPEAKER_01: So if they tax,
28:20
SPEAKER_01: so if like you said,
28:21
SPEAKER_01: Uber Eats,
28:22
SPEAKER_01: if their fees that are tacked on there makes it go over $100,
28:25
SPEAKER_01: then it's applicable to the 50 cent fee.
28:30
SPEAKER_01: So here is the things that are not, that are excluded.
28:35
SPEAKER_01: Drugs, medical devices, accessories, and supplies.
28:39
SPEAKER_01: Oh, food ingredients or prepared food or food.
28:42
SPEAKER_01: So maybe Uber Eats is exempt.
28:44
SPEAKER_01: Certain baby products.
28:46
SPEAKER_01: And this is hilarious.
28:46
SPEAKER_01: There's a list of which ones.
28:48
SPEAKER_01: Subject to the sales tax.
28:50
SPEAKER_01: Breast pumps and bottles.
28:52
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
28:53
SPEAKER_01: Baby swings and baby wipes and bottle sterilizers.
28:58
SPEAKER_01: Sorry.
28:59
SPEAKER_01: Breast pumps are not subject to sales tax.
29:01
SPEAKER_01: Baby swings and baby wipes are.
29:04
SPEAKER_01: Car seats, yes.
29:05
SPEAKER_01: And I'm looking at this list and basically they exempted breast pumps because they
29:11
SPEAKER_01: thought that would be negative.
29:13
SPEAKER_01: And then everything else...
29:16
SPEAKER_01: like strollers and car seats, which are the expensive things that you have to buy.
29:19
SPEAKER_01: They're like,
29:20
SPEAKER_01: nope,
29:20
SPEAKER_01: we're definitely going to charge a tax on that because those are going to be over
29:22
SPEAKER_01: $100 in a lot of cases.
29:24
SPEAKER_01: Here's what I will do, Brian, if this were ever a thing.
29:27
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes my wife and I,
29:29
SPEAKER_01: you know,
29:29
SPEAKER_01: usually what we'll do is we'll add things over the week to the Amazon cart and then
29:33
SPEAKER_01: we'll buy it.
29:33
SPEAKER_01: I'm just going to start making those individual purchases,
29:37
SPEAKER_01: which is actually,
29:38
SPEAKER_01: you know,
29:38
SPEAKER_01: to keep I would do that to keep it under $100.
29:40
SPEAKER_01: And that's going to create literally more waste than it is for me to put them all together in one sale.
29:47
SPEAKER_01: And they're going to lose more.
29:48
SPEAKER_01: Great.
29:49
SPEAKER_01: Congratulations.
29:49
SPEAKER_01: You charged a 50 cent fee.
29:51
SPEAKER_01: You got us there.
29:53
SPEAKER_01: We're just going to ruin the climate more by ordering stuff in 50 different
29:57
SPEAKER_01: transactions instead of one big box.
29:59
SPEAKER_01: That's what's going to happen here.
30:00
SPEAKER_01: They don't think these things through.
30:02
SPEAKER_01: We might be adding you the gas tax.
30:06
SPEAKER_02: There they go.
30:07
SPEAKER_01: That's the trip.
30:09
SPEAKER_01: This is going to increase the gas tax by 10%.
30:13
SPEAKER_02: Amazon will be out of Vancouver and so they won't even matter because they'll be in Washington.
30:18
SPEAKER_02: They'll say, oh, we're in Washington.
30:20
SPEAKER_02: We don't have to pay that.
30:21
SPEAKER_02: So who knows?
30:23
SPEAKER_02: There's so many problems,
30:24
SPEAKER_02: I think,
30:25
SPEAKER_02: with the coming up with new fees and everything when they're not even looking at
30:31
SPEAKER_02: reductions first.
30:33
SPEAKER_02: And when they look at reduction,
30:34
SPEAKER_02: they always look at like service reductions,
30:36
SPEAKER_02: not like you said,
30:38
SPEAKER_02: middle management,
30:39
SPEAKER_02: cut the fat.
30:40
SPEAKER_02: Where can we find trim?
30:42
SPEAKER_02: And guess what, folks?
30:43
SPEAKER_02: We're heading into a recession.
30:45
SPEAKER_02: I think we're already, you know, and I think I have a complaint.
30:49
SPEAKER_01: I have a complaint to lodge.
30:51
SPEAKER_01: You know, a couple of weeks ago, you were bragging about how great Dutch Bros stock was doing.
30:56
SPEAKER_01: Last night at 10.48 p.m., their trading name is Bros, which is great, honestly.
31:03
SPEAKER_01: You get four letters and they got Bros.
31:05
SPEAKER_01: That's impressive.
31:07
SPEAKER_01: Bros is down 11.2% in overnight trading.
31:11
SPEAKER_01: So I start seeing these alerts and stuff like that.
31:15
SPEAKER_01: You know what's a bad sign, Brian?
31:17
SPEAKER_01: When the stock market isn't open and stocks are tumbling 10 plus percent.
31:22
SPEAKER_01: That's a bad sign.
31:24
SPEAKER_02: It is.
31:26
SPEAKER_02: I sold all my debts for us when I brought that up on.
31:29
SPEAKER_01: And I get zero heads up.
31:31
SPEAKER_01: Zero heads up.
31:32
SPEAKER_01: I can't believe it, Brian.
31:33
SPEAKER_01: You hung me out to dry.
31:35
SPEAKER_01: That's it.
31:35
SPEAKER_01: You're fired as my investment coach.
31:38
SPEAKER_01: I'm done with you.
31:38
SPEAKER_02: Reagan, you're under 30.
31:40
SPEAKER_02: That's a buy and hold for you long term.
31:42
SPEAKER_02: I'm all about making money at this point.
31:45
SPEAKER_02: I'm coming up to retirement.
31:50
SPEAKER_02: I hear him.
31:51
SPEAKER_02: I think I hear a parallel on the other end.
31:53
SPEAKER_02: There he is.
31:54
SPEAKER_02: What's going on, guys?
31:56
SPEAKER_01: Hey, Jake.
31:57
SPEAKER_01: All right.
31:57
SPEAKER_01: So welcome.
31:58
SPEAKER_01: the program jake pelroy listen uh we we have a lot of guests and i've been working
32:04
SPEAKER_01: for a long time to get uh you know some of these guys on these in-demand
32:09
SPEAKER_01: consultants there's a few of them and they're pretty busy about this time of year
32:12
SPEAKER_01: not brian and i we're not in demand but there are some in-demand consultants and
32:16
SPEAKER_01: they're they're pretty busy but we've got one of them on the line right now jake
32:20
SPEAKER_01: pelroy
32:21
SPEAKER_01: He lives in Lane County at an undisclosed, safe, you know, location.
32:27
SPEAKER_01: The Libs will egg his house if we tell them where he lives.
32:32
SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the program, Jake.
32:34
SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
32:34
SPEAKER_01: I appreciate it.
32:35
SPEAKER_01: Thanks for having me on.
32:37
SPEAKER_01: You're welcome.
32:38
SPEAKER_01: And we're jumping in here.
32:40
SPEAKER_01: We're going to do a quick rundown on ballot measures because the Secretary of
32:44
SPEAKER_01: State's office put out a list of the ballot measures.
32:49
SPEAKER_01: And then after I emailed them saying there was a problem with the list, they sent a correction.
32:53
SPEAKER_01: So we have the official numbers now.
32:59
SPEAKER_01: um for these ballot measures so uh hjr 16 which was a constitutional amendment that
33:07
SPEAKER_01: creates an impeachment process for statewide elected officials and you have to have
33:12
SPEAKER_01: a two-thirds vote of the house and the senate to impeach they have a process now
33:16
SPEAKER_01: that's going to be ballot measure 115.
33:19
SPEAKER_01: SJR 34,
33:21
SPEAKER_01: which is a constitutional referral from the legislature to create an independent
33:26
SPEAKER_01: public service compensation commission that will determine salaries for a bunch of
33:31
SPEAKER_01: elected officials.
33:31
SPEAKER_01: It includes all the statewides.
33:33
SPEAKER_01: I think it includes DAs.
33:34
SPEAKER_01: It includes the legislature.
33:36
SPEAKER_01: And it's going to eliminate the legislature's ability to set their own pay.
33:41
SPEAKER_01: House Bill 2004, ranked voting.
33:44
SPEAKER_01: That's going to be Measure 117, the one before I was talking about, Measure 116.
33:50
SPEAKER_01: Measure 117, ranked voting.
33:53
SPEAKER_01: We'll be getting into that shortly as the campaign starts to heat up.
33:57
SPEAKER_01: And then there's IP17 that people have been hearing about.
34:00
SPEAKER_01: It increases corporate minimum taxes and then redistributes the money to every
34:05
SPEAKER_01: Oregonian with a $750 check.
34:08
SPEAKER_01: It does a lot of other stuff,
34:09
SPEAKER_01: too,
34:09
SPEAKER_01: that's really negative,
34:10
SPEAKER_01: like it puts the state on the hook to reimburse individuals for any federal
34:15
SPEAKER_01: benefits they lose if that $750 pushes them out of getting any benefits from the
34:20
SPEAKER_01: federal government.
34:22
SPEAKER_01: And then there's IP 35,
34:24
SPEAKER_01: which is now Measure 119,
34:26
SPEAKER_01: which is cannabis retailers and processors must remain neutral in communications to
34:31
SPEAKER_01: their employees from labor organizations.
34:35
SPEAKER_01: Good old Paul Holvey.
34:39
SPEAKER_01: Isn't that the Salvaggio measure?
34:43
SPEAKER_01: It's the Salvaggio-Paul Holvey grudge match.
34:46
SPEAKER_01: They tried to pass the bill.
34:47
SPEAKER_01: Holvey said it may have some legal problems.
34:50
SPEAKER_01: They're going to roll with that measure, ballot measure anyway.
34:54
SPEAKER_01: These will be fascinating.
34:56
SPEAKER_01: But again, we've got, you know, measures 1, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19.
35:01
SPEAKER_01: And Oregon does not.
35:02
SPEAKER_01: I don't think we have a mechanism to reset the numbers yet.
35:05
SPEAKER_01: So we're just going to keep going on these numbers each year.
35:09
SPEAKER_01: And we have about four or five measures every year.
35:12
SPEAKER_01: And so when I'm old, we'll be in the 200s, basically.
35:17
SPEAKER_02: When you're my age.
35:21
SPEAKER_02: I didn't want to say that.
35:23
SPEAKER_02: The 15 and 16 is pretty easy.
35:25
SPEAKER_02: I think there won't be a lot of opposition or pro on either one of those.
35:29
SPEAKER_02: I think Republicans have been pushing for an impeachment process for a while in the legislature.
35:34
SPEAKER_02: The Democrats capitulated, gave us this pretty simple reason for it to go.
35:40
SPEAKER_02: It just makes sense.
35:41
SPEAKER_02: I thought the only note I'll say on this one is two-thirds.
35:45
SPEAKER_02: I thought they might shoot for a three-quarters, but going for a two-thirds is...
35:50
SPEAKER_02: a pretty lower threshold than you see in some other states.
35:54
SPEAKER_02: So I think that's good for us to have.
35:57
SPEAKER_02: It's just got to have that check and balance.
35:59
SPEAKER_02: And I think as we get closer to balance in the legislature,
36:03
SPEAKER_02: the more that holds accountable to statewide elected officials.
36:07
SPEAKER_02: And I think we got to have that.
36:08
SPEAKER_02: So I'm glad to see that one on there.
36:11
SPEAKER_02: The independent commission is also another way for us to
36:15
SPEAKER_02: punt another commission.
36:17
SPEAKER_02: Reagan and I just got done railing on commissions,
36:19
SPEAKER_02: but this is supposed to be an independent commission that comes up with what you
36:24
SPEAKER_02: pay elected officials,
36:26
SPEAKER_02: and I think that's probably good.
36:28
SPEAKER_01: And the idea,
36:29
SPEAKER_01: Brian,
36:29
SPEAKER_01: on that one is it's not supposed to be,
36:31
SPEAKER_01: you know,
36:32
SPEAKER_01: half Republicans,
36:33
SPEAKER_01: half Democrats,
36:34
SPEAKER_01: not political.
36:34
SPEAKER_01: It's supposed to be people who are HR professionals,
36:38
SPEAKER_01: headhunters,
36:40
SPEAKER_01: you know,
36:40
SPEAKER_01: salary compensation experts,
36:43
SPEAKER_01: people that know what makes sense to pay people for certain jobs.
36:47
SPEAKER_01: It's not supposed to be political.
36:48
SPEAKER_01: It's supposed to take this pay out of the political realm.
36:51
SPEAKER_01: Because what happens is when Democrats are in control and they want to raise their salaries,
36:56
SPEAKER_01: Republicans bludgeon them in the elections for trying to raise their own salaries.
36:59
SPEAKER_01: Jake knows a little bit about that.
37:02
SPEAKER_01: He's done it.
37:03
SPEAKER_01: And and I've done it.
37:06
SPEAKER_01: And and then when Republicans were in control and wanted to raise their salaries,
37:09
SPEAKER_01: minority Democrats were shockingly opposed to it.
37:12
SPEAKER_01: So we know that the salaries need to go up in the legislature.
37:16
SPEAKER_01: They're paying poverty wages.
37:17
SPEAKER_01: We're seeing that the statewide elected official compensation has caused problems,
37:22
SPEAKER_01: not competitive,
37:23
SPEAKER_01: even with just neighboring states,
37:25
SPEAKER_01: red and blue.
37:27
SPEAKER_01: So we're,
37:27
SPEAKER_01: you know,
37:28
SPEAKER_01: hopefully this will be a way that Oregonians feel that and it won't get politicized
37:32
SPEAKER_01: as badly.
37:33
SPEAKER_01: And it'll really just be focused on what should a person in a certain position be making.
37:38
SPEAKER_01: So hopefully that here we go.
37:40
SPEAKER_01: See, that's my problem.
37:41
SPEAKER_01: I wasn't in gallery view.
37:43
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
37:44
SPEAKER_00: Well, I think they want to keep arms distance from this decision.
37:46
SPEAKER_00: They want someone else to say, hey, look, we need to be paid more.
37:50
SPEAKER_00: And we should follow the committee's recommendations here.
37:54
SPEAKER_00: You know, this is a group of people that are giving us recommendations.
37:58
SPEAKER_00: We got to follow them.
38:00
SPEAKER_00: They don't actually want to do the vote.
38:01
SPEAKER_00: But the vote is, you know, it will affect them if they vote on their own pay increase.
38:08
SPEAKER_00: Because they think that these state legislative guys make a ton of money.
38:12
SPEAKER_00: I think that they're the same as most of the public believes.
38:17
SPEAKER_00: They don't know how much they make.
38:19
SPEAKER_00: I agree.
38:22
SPEAKER_02: Jake,
38:22
SPEAKER_02: do you see,
38:23
SPEAKER_02: because you've been in this fight a little bit before,
38:25
SPEAKER_02: but I don't think I've ever seen an independent commission vote to lower any of the
38:33
SPEAKER_02: legislator pays across states.
38:38
SPEAKER_02: I don't foresee that changing either.
38:40
SPEAKER_00: Do you?
38:42
SPEAKER_00: No, I don't think it's going to get lower.
38:44
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
38:45
SPEAKER_00: you could just they're going to look at other states and say,
38:47
SPEAKER_00: hey,
38:48
SPEAKER_00: look at us compared to all these other states.
38:50
SPEAKER_00: And there's going to be some comparisons to California and Washington.
38:57
SPEAKER_00: And then, you know, they might put in something like, you know, here's what here's what Idaho does.
39:03
SPEAKER_00: And they're going to be checking states that are the similar size for sure to see what they do.
39:10
SPEAKER_00: And then they're going to be doing comparisons like, well, they do benefits or they don't have staff.
39:15
SPEAKER_00: I mean, some legislator, some legislative bodies don't actually have partisan staff.
39:23
SPEAKER_02: That's crazy.
39:24
SPEAKER_02: I think they should go look at, I think like Arizona, for instance, I'm just familiar there.
39:29
SPEAKER_02: Like their legislators get paid nothing, but like a per diem when they're in session.
39:33
SPEAKER_02: And then if you don't live in Maricopa County,
39:36
SPEAKER_02: Or if you live in Maricopa County,
39:38
SPEAKER_02: which I think is like 60% of their legislators,
39:41
SPEAKER_02: they get nothing on the per diem.
39:45
SPEAKER_02: So you get more if you live outside of Maricopa County because you've got to travel.
39:49
SPEAKER_02: Hey, look at that.
39:50
SPEAKER_02: If you actually have to travel, your expenses are more.
39:52
SPEAKER_02: Maybe we should look at that.
39:53
SPEAKER_02: Hopefully they'll look at those things, but we'll see.
39:56
SPEAKER_02: It's probably a step in the right direction at the end of the day.
39:58
SPEAKER_02: And
39:59
SPEAKER_02: voters vote for what they perceive to be good government bills.
40:02
SPEAKER_02: And this is going to be in that same perception.
40:04
SPEAKER_02: So I would imagine it passes 62, 64% would be my.
40:09
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think that's a good estimate, Brian.
40:14
SPEAKER_01: ranked voting is rank, uh, as Brian said, or, um, they call it ranked choice voting RCB.
40:20
SPEAKER_01: I call it really confusing, uh, voting.
40:23
SPEAKER_01: I think that voters are not interested in making a lot of changes to our election systems right now.
40:30
SPEAKER_01: And one thing you'll notice,
40:31
SPEAKER_01: Brian,
40:32
SPEAKER_01: I want to point this out for everybody because I don't think it's getting enough attention.
40:36
SPEAKER_01: So Oregon ranked choice voting, Oregon, rcb.org is the pro side.
40:42
SPEAKER_01: Um,
40:42
SPEAKER_01: And they are pushing this.
40:46
SPEAKER_01: My guess is they've got Soros money backing them.
40:49
SPEAKER_01: But if you look at their coalition, it includes a total number of zero legislators listed there.
40:58
SPEAKER_01: And no Congress people either who would be affected by this.
41:02
SPEAKER_01: No statewide elected officials who would be affected by this.
41:06
SPEAKER_01: Here's what I think.
41:06
SPEAKER_01: I think the Democrats are looking at ranked choice voting and they're a little nervous
41:10
SPEAKER_01: because it messes with the system where they currently win.
41:13
SPEAKER_01: Now, I do not believe that means the system is going to be better for Republicans.
41:17
SPEAKER_01: Typically,
41:18
SPEAKER_01: the team with more money that is able to have more manpower to manipulate elections
41:23
SPEAKER_01: will do better under a ranked system.
41:25
SPEAKER_01: That's why I don't really like it.
41:26
SPEAKER_01: That's why I'm working on the campaign
41:28
SPEAKER_01: to oppose it because I think it's bad.
41:31
SPEAKER_01: It's not only bad policy, it doesn't make sense why you would rank candidates.
41:35
SPEAKER_01: It's going to lead to more confusion,
41:37
SPEAKER_01: more ballots that have to be cast out because people weren't able to follow the instructions.
41:42
SPEAKER_01: The NAACP president of New York
41:46
SPEAKER_01: called it racist,
41:49
SPEAKER_01: basically,
41:49
SPEAKER_01: that it was worse for minorities who've spent all this time building Congressional
41:55
SPEAKER_01: Black Caucus,
41:55
SPEAKER_01: Congressional Hispanic Caucus,
41:57
SPEAKER_01: building minority power in elections in these areas,
42:00
SPEAKER_01: and then ranked choice voting wipes them out because now they have to figure out
42:04
SPEAKER_01: where they rank their candidate compared to all the other candidates in the races.
42:08
SPEAKER_01: And so it's kind of fascinating to see that being pushed.
42:10
SPEAKER_01: I think that's why you see the elected officials hesitant to jump on because
42:15
SPEAKER_01: they're worried about how it affects their minority constituencies and their right
42:20
SPEAKER_01: about that.
42:20
SPEAKER_01: So it'll be interesting to see as that campaign develops, but it's bad.
42:24
SPEAKER_02: But they've...
42:25
SPEAKER_02: Reagan, they voted to put it on the ballot.
42:30
SPEAKER_02: Where's Rayfield at?
42:31
SPEAKER_02: I mean, this was his baby from the get-go.
42:34
SPEAKER_02: They voted,
42:35
SPEAKER_02: the Democrats voted,
42:37
SPEAKER_02: party line,
42:38
SPEAKER_02: Jay can probably correct me if I'm wrong,
42:40
SPEAKER_02: but I'm pretty sure it was party line vote to put this thing on the ballot.
42:45
SPEAKER_02: And then now they won't sign onto it because they're probably starting to see
42:49
SPEAKER_02: there's some fallacies in this whole thing.
42:51
SPEAKER_02: The fact that people are even calling it racist,
42:54
SPEAKER_01: Well, and Jake knows this, star voting is actually what we really want, obviously.
43:00
SPEAKER_01: It's a more confusing version of ranked choice voting.
43:04
SPEAKER_01: And star voting is really actually what we've got to get.
43:08
SPEAKER_01: Unfortunately, star voting was voted down recently in Lane County.
43:11
SPEAKER_01: Jake, can you tell me a little bit about what happened there?
43:15
SPEAKER_00: Well, actually, I think it was 2020, the star voting coalition.
43:22
SPEAKER_00: I think it's...
43:24
SPEAKER_00: It started in Lane County.
43:27
SPEAKER_00: They put it on to do countywide star voting and it lost in Lane County by about 10%.
43:36
SPEAKER_00: They tried to get the city council of Eugene to refer it to voters.
43:45
SPEAKER_00: They didn't end up doing it.
43:46
SPEAKER_00: They went out and got collected signatures for this May 2024.
43:53
SPEAKER_00: ballot.
43:54
SPEAKER_00: And I tell you what, there were star voting signs everywhere.
44:01
SPEAKER_00: Yet it got beat pretty significantly at the ballot box.
44:06
SPEAKER_00: I think it was like 20% beat down.
44:09
SPEAKER_00: I thought for sure it was going to pass.
44:11
SPEAKER_00: Looking over the countywide vote in 2020, some parts of Eugene were pretty strong, 60, 70% in support of
44:21
SPEAKER_00: ranked choice voting,
44:22
SPEAKER_00: so I thought it was for sure going to go in,
44:24
SPEAKER_00: yet it went down pretty significantly in May.
44:30
SPEAKER_00: Well,
44:30
SPEAKER_01: and the best part of this,
44:32
SPEAKER_01: the most fascinating part,
44:34
SPEAKER_01: maybe you were about to touch on before I interrupted you.
44:36
SPEAKER_01: The advocates for ranked choice voting ran a very heavy campaign against star voting,
44:45
SPEAKER_01: which was promoted as the upgraded version of ranked choice.
44:48
SPEAKER_01: So these two sets of voting reform folks hate each other.
44:54
SPEAKER_01: They seem to be in a blood feud about this, which I find super interesting.
44:59
SPEAKER_01: Bloods and the Crips.
45:03
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, except for the Bloods and the Crips are more mainstream than these two versions.
45:07
SPEAKER_00: I don't think the public actually cares about this stuff.
45:10
SPEAKER_00: I think it's like two niche groups fighting over how to make voting better when
45:16
SPEAKER_00: people just don't care about voting unless it's a presidential election.
45:21
SPEAKER_00: I think that's part of the problem is why make it more confusing and more to do like
45:30
SPEAKER_00: then just get them a little bit more interested,
45:33
SPEAKER_00: have people care about their government a little bit more rather than make it more,
45:37
SPEAKER_00: you know,
45:39
SPEAKER_00: more steps involved to participate.
45:43
SPEAKER_02: Jake, I think you hit it right on the head.
45:44
SPEAKER_02: I think this is legislators with way too much time and people with way too much time on their hands.
45:52
SPEAKER_02: hey, let's figure out how let's tinker with our voting system to make it more accessible for people.
45:58
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I even think public financing of elections is a better scenario than star rank choice voting.
46:05
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I think that has more...
46:08
SPEAKER_02: you know,
46:08
SPEAKER_02: engagement scenarios to it,
46:10
SPEAKER_02: to getting people voting,
46:11
SPEAKER_02: you know,
46:11
SPEAKER_02: running for local offices and stuff because versus this stuff,
46:15
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
46:15
SPEAKER_02: this rank choice star voting stuff is just silly and it's not going to make people
46:19
SPEAKER_02: vote more.
46:19
SPEAKER_02: It's going to make them more confused.
46:22
SPEAKER_02: And, and I think it's horrible.
46:23
SPEAKER_02: And I think we're going to regret it ever coming.
46:25
SPEAKER_02: So I'm hoping that Reagan and his coalition, his coalition,
46:29
SPEAKER_02: is more successful than their coalition in this effort.
46:33
SPEAKER_02: So we'll be talking a lot about ranked choice voting.
46:35
SPEAKER_02: I think we need to keep pushing against it and just saying there's no,
46:41
SPEAKER_02: and I think you hit the nail on the head there,
46:43
SPEAKER_02: Jake,
46:43
SPEAKER_02: when you said we've got to figure out a way to get people more engaged in just
46:46
SPEAKER_02: freaking voting.
46:49
SPEAKER_02: You know, confusing them with how they vote.
46:52
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.
46:54
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
46:54
SPEAKER_00: I think,
46:55
SPEAKER_00: you know,
46:55
SPEAKER_00: you can,
46:56
SPEAKER_00: there's been a couple,
46:57
SPEAKER_00: you know,
46:57
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to say this a little tongue in cheek,
46:59
SPEAKER_00: but there's been a couple recalls recently and the voter turnout has increased
47:04
SPEAKER_00: during the recalls,
47:05
SPEAKER_00: whether they want to get rid of their politicians or not.
47:08
SPEAKER_00: I think that's a, I think that's a different question than who to vote for.
47:12
SPEAKER_00: You know, like maybe rank choice voting and one of the options is to recall them.
47:18
SPEAKER_00: That'd be nice.
47:24
SPEAKER_02: it's like the third or it's like the fourth candidate on the thing is like or would
47:29
SPEAKER_02: you like to just get rid of them yeah
47:34
SPEAKER_01: Fine.
47:35
SPEAKER_01: We'll support ranked choice voting, but one of the options has to be throw the bums out.
47:38
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
47:40
SPEAKER_01: All right.
47:41
SPEAKER_01: So I want to move on.
47:42
SPEAKER_01: We've invited a spokesperson from the opposition campaign from IP 17 to raise corporate taxes.
47:49
SPEAKER_01: But Governor Tina Kotek, who's opposed the measure, she spoke to Willamette Week.
47:54
SPEAKER_01: She hasn't agreed to come on the program yet.
47:56
SPEAKER_01: We hope she will.
47:57
SPEAKER_01: But she said in Willamette Week recently that this Measure 118,
48:02
SPEAKER_01: raise corporate taxes and then give everybody $750 check,
48:06
SPEAKER_01: will quote.
48:07
SPEAKER_01: Now, here's my favorite thing about this.
48:09
SPEAKER_01: They opposed it.
48:10
SPEAKER_01: A lot of the Democrats, I'm being told, are going to come out and oppose this thing.
48:14
SPEAKER_01: Not because it raises business taxes,
48:16
SPEAKER_01: not because it's a redistribution of wealth scheme that doesn't help anybody.
48:20
SPEAKER_01: No, they oppose it because, quote, it would punch a huge hole in the state budget.
48:25
SPEAKER_01: They're always looking out for number one, their state budget, not taxpayers.
48:29
SPEAKER_01: Sadly, other people are going to have to do that.
48:31
SPEAKER_01: And I think there'll be a very strong and vigorous campaign against it.
48:37
SPEAKER_01: We had the no tax on sales campaign.
48:40
SPEAKER_01: campaign with Measure 97 a few years ago.
48:43
SPEAKER_01: No costly tax on sales is the campaign this year.
48:47
SPEAKER_01: And we're going to work to talk with them and hear more from them.
48:50
SPEAKER_01: But Brian, Tina put the Salem payroll tax in the ground.
48:56
SPEAKER_01: It looks like she's going to put another one in the ground there.
48:59
SPEAKER_01: Two for two here with the governor, one of our best anti-tax advocates.
49:03
SPEAKER_01: I mean, who knew?
49:05
SPEAKER_02: I well, I think it's pretty easy to say because the Democrats are right.
49:09
SPEAKER_02: I mean, it does blow a hole in the budgeting and the whole process.
49:13
SPEAKER_02: And by a nefarious,
49:15
SPEAKER_02: you know,
49:16
SPEAKER_02: California group that's come up to Oregon and say,
49:19
SPEAKER_02: hey,
49:19
SPEAKER_02: we've got this wacky idea.
49:20
SPEAKER_02: Let's go try it in Oregon.
49:22
SPEAKER_02: And we tend to find enough wacky people in Oregon and say, hey, that's great.
49:27
SPEAKER_02: Let's go do it.
49:28
SPEAKER_02: And I think at least some of the.
49:31
SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
49:32
SPEAKER_02: I don't want to say friendly Democrats, but I think wise Democrats are saying, well, wait a minute.
49:38
SPEAKER_02: We can't we can't go down this.
49:40
SPEAKER_02: This this is too crazy even for us.
49:43
SPEAKER_02: And I think that's but,
49:45
SPEAKER_02: you know,
49:45
SPEAKER_02: you got to get it out to the people and let them know,
49:47
SPEAKER_02: because these are one of those things where you dangle a seven hundred fifty dollar
49:51
SPEAKER_02: carrot in front of somebody who doesn't pay attention to anything.
49:55
SPEAKER_02: And they look on the ballot and they're not watching any news.
49:59
SPEAKER_02: They hear nothing.
50:00
SPEAKER_02: They get no mail.
50:02
SPEAKER_02: They come home one night and they see that and they go, shit, yeah, I want 750 bucks.
50:07
SPEAKER_02: Like we have to somehow reach those people because there's going to be a constituency,
50:12
SPEAKER_02: probably 30,
50:12
SPEAKER_02: 35 percent that's probably all in on this.
50:16
SPEAKER_02: You know, the DSA crowd of Portland.
50:18
SPEAKER_02: and and they're so they're all in on giving illegals and then the whole nine yards
50:22
SPEAKER_02: 750 bucks homeless people you name it and then uh so really you're probably looking
50:29
SPEAKER_02: at a margin spending 20 million dollars 10 million dollars i don't know what our
50:33
SPEAKER_02: budget is to defeat it but i mean geez i bet i bet it still only fails 55 45 so
50:40
SPEAKER_02: you're not dealing with a lot of margin there
50:44
SPEAKER_01: I would like to see this one pass in Multnomah only and then be all the rest of the state vote no.
50:49
SPEAKER_01: I think that would be,
50:50
SPEAKER_01: I would love that just to give them,
50:52
SPEAKER_01: just to remind everybody that Portland is weird and wrong and the rest of the state
50:57
SPEAKER_01: understands how to be normal.
51:00
SPEAKER_01: But it'll be interesting.
51:01
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
51:01
SPEAKER_01: I think Measure 97,
51:03
SPEAKER_01: I should have looked this up before,
51:07
SPEAKER_01: but I feel like,
51:08
SPEAKER_01: Jake,
51:08
SPEAKER_01: do you remember what the margin was in the Measure 97 race?
51:16
SPEAKER_00: I think it was close to 20, 20 percent.
51:20
SPEAKER_00: But the only two counties that had approved Measure 97 was Multnomah and Benton County.
51:26
SPEAKER_01: That's right.
51:27
SPEAKER_01: Fifty nine.
51:28
SPEAKER_01: Fifty nine percent of the state voted no.
51:30
SPEAKER_01: Forty percent voted yes.
51:32
SPEAKER_01: And you are correct.
51:33
SPEAKER_01: Those are the two.
51:34
SPEAKER_01: So, yeah, I guess Benton Corvallis really tries hard to be Portland.
51:39
SPEAKER_01: They work at it a lot.
51:41
SPEAKER_01: They passed a end the war in Gaza resolution.
51:47
SPEAKER_01: They're doing a lot of big work there, trying to be a little mini Portland.
51:54
SPEAKER_01: Yes, they're terrible.
51:58
SPEAKER_01: All right.
51:59
SPEAKER_01: And then this last one,
52:01
SPEAKER_01: the cannabis one,
52:03
SPEAKER_01: I frankly don't know how I will vote on this one at this moment.
52:10
SPEAKER_01: Maybe we'll invite on the advocates,
52:12
SPEAKER_01: and then if there's an opposition campaign,
52:14
SPEAKER_01: too,
52:14
SPEAKER_01: we should have that.
52:14
SPEAKER_01: Because this one, I think, is a real discussion where a lot of people go, why is this on my ballot?
52:19
SPEAKER_01: And the answer is revenge, which is the most hilarious explanation.
52:26
SPEAKER_01: And then the other part of it is, they're like, why will this matter a lot?
52:34
SPEAKER_01: And as I said before, I might vote yes to unionize Lamoda so that they go out of business.
52:38
SPEAKER_01: Because the fastest way to put a company out of business is to unionize their workforce.
52:42
SPEAKER_01: You see it with the papers.
52:44
SPEAKER_01: They all unionize because of the cuts.
52:46
SPEAKER_01: And then more cuts followed.
52:48
SPEAKER_01: And all these papers are getting sold and stuff like that.
52:51
SPEAKER_01: So, I mean, that could be interesting.
52:55
SPEAKER_01: But overall, I think just a weird measure to have in Oregon's ballot.
52:59
SPEAKER_01: One of those fun little quirky things.
53:03
SPEAKER_01: I'll let Jake take this one first.
53:06
SPEAKER_00: Well, I just, I find it funny.
53:08
SPEAKER_00: Your reasonings aren't real.
53:10
SPEAKER_00: I mean, they're like, you know, how do I get rid of these businesses the quickest?
53:17
SPEAKER_01: We don't need any more of them.
53:19
SPEAKER_01: There are more.
53:20
SPEAKER_01: It feels like there's more marijuana shops than there is customers.
53:25
SPEAKER_01: Their parking lots are always empty.
53:27
SPEAKER_01: Now, maybe they're going at different times of the day than when I drive by.
53:30
SPEAKER_01: 11 a.m.?
53:30
SPEAKER_01: Right.
53:33
SPEAKER_01: Well, you know, I'm driving by in the morning, the evening, to and from work, all that stuff.
53:38
SPEAKER_01: And they are, you know, they're a different crowd.
53:40
SPEAKER_01: They operate on different hours, 11 p.m., 11 a.m.
53:43
SPEAKER_01: Right.
53:43
SPEAKER_01: All that stuff.
53:44
SPEAKER_01: It could be that.
53:45
SPEAKER_01: But there's too many of them.
53:47
SPEAKER_01: It's generally been detrimental policy for the state.
53:50
SPEAKER_01: It started us down this decriminalization of drugs.
53:54
SPEAKER_01: And ultimately,
53:55
SPEAKER_01: I just don't think even the marijuana Democrats play games with the marijuana tax
53:59
SPEAKER_01: revenue taken away from local governments.
54:01
SPEAKER_01: But there's been so many problems with it.
54:03
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
54:04
SPEAKER_01: Let's unionize their workforce.
54:05
SPEAKER_01: Awesome.
54:06
SPEAKER_01: Let's do it.
54:06
SPEAKER_01: It'll be great.
54:08
SPEAKER_00: I was, I was probably pro more, uh, pro legalization a lot more.
54:13
SPEAKER_00: Um, but now since it's been legalized, um, I am pretty, I'm against it now.
54:19
SPEAKER_01: Um, yeah.
54:20
SPEAKER_01: I mean, ever since you stopped using marijuana, you've been against it.
54:24
SPEAKER_00: Um, that's right.
54:25
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
54:28
SPEAKER_00: Even though, even though I grew up in Lane County, I've never smoked or used marijuana.
54:33
SPEAKER_00: Um, so it's been a shock to everyone that I've ever talked to.
54:37
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
54:37
SPEAKER_00: Um,
54:39
SPEAKER_00: Um, but I think, you know, it'll drive prices up for sure.
54:44
SPEAKER_00: If you start unionizing, um, these things, but that'll probably lead to more black market.
54:51
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
54:51
SPEAKER_00: I know that there's a,
54:52
SPEAKER_00: there was a problem with black market,
54:55
SPEAKER_00: um,
54:57
SPEAKER_00: uh,
54:57
SPEAKER_00: hemp,
54:59
SPEAKER_00: um,
54:59
SPEAKER_00: down in Southern Oregon,
55:00
SPEAKER_00: black market marijuana.
55:02
SPEAKER_00: So I think that there's, uh, definitely another opening for that.
55:06
SPEAKER_00: And that'll just require more law enforcement to,
55:09
SPEAKER_00: to go and enforce that.
55:13
SPEAKER_00: So it'll be interesting.
55:15
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I don't know.
55:18
SPEAKER_02: Is,
55:18
SPEAKER_02: I don't know where,
55:20
SPEAKER_02: you know,
55:21
SPEAKER_02: I guess I was kind of in the,
55:22
SPEAKER_02: I don't care column when it came to legalizing marijuana,
55:24
SPEAKER_02: to be honest with you.
55:25
SPEAKER_02: I think now I just see it as a, you know, a tax revenue opportunity versus the black market side of it.
55:35
SPEAKER_02: in regards to like the local municipalities.
55:37
SPEAKER_02: You know, at Prineville, we don't have any marijuana shops here.
55:41
SPEAKER_02: We outlaw most of the smaller communities or some of them.
55:45
SPEAKER_02: It's kind of interesting when I go on the coast,
55:47
SPEAKER_02: There's, you know, marijuana shops everywhere and there are small rural communities.
55:52
SPEAKER_02: So it is interesting to see where people are at on it.
55:56
SPEAKER_02: I think the unionization,
55:59
SPEAKER_02: this is really just a push by UFCW,
56:03
SPEAKER_02: right,
56:03
SPEAKER_02: that didn't get their way in the legislature to really try to flex their muscle and say,
56:08
SPEAKER_02: we don't give a crap.
56:10
SPEAKER_02: what you guys say, Paul Hovley.
56:14
SPEAKER_02: And if we can't recall you, then we're going to put it on the ballot.
56:17
SPEAKER_02: I think it was really just them not wanting to lose at the end of the day and have
56:23
SPEAKER_02: the egg on their face because that's really what they had after Hovley just
56:27
SPEAKER_02: destroyed them on the recall.
56:29
SPEAKER_02: I mean, destroyed them 90-10.
56:33
SPEAKER_02: And I think that they had to keep pushing forward.
56:36
SPEAKER_02: Otherwise, what do you do?
56:39
SPEAKER_02: If you're the lobbyist for them and you're the group that put all this money in the recall,
56:45
SPEAKER_02: if you don't get a victory here,
56:48
SPEAKER_02: an ultimate victory,
56:50
SPEAKER_02: man,
56:50
SPEAKER_02: the rest of your rank and file is going to be like,
56:52
SPEAKER_02: these guys suck.
56:53
SPEAKER_02: What are they thinking?
56:54
SPEAKER_02: And so it's a dumb ballot measure.
56:57
SPEAKER_02: I hope it fails just by the simple fact of we don't need ballot measures trying to
57:02
SPEAKER_02: unionize every Tom,
57:05
SPEAKER_02: Dick,
57:05
SPEAKER_02: and Harry in any tiny little industry that
57:08
SPEAKER_02: you know, i.e.
57:09
SPEAKER_02: medical interpreters, i.e.
57:11
SPEAKER_02: the other things that we're seeing pushed through the legislature.
57:14
SPEAKER_02: You know, the three of us see that stuff all the time.
57:16
SPEAKER_02: And it's really these smaller unions going after any sort of pocket of employees and unionizing them.
57:23
SPEAKER_02: Pretty soon we're going to see ski lift operators unionized.
57:27
SPEAKER_02: I mean, what's next, right?
57:30
SPEAKER_01: So you do not want to be a co-petitioner on my ballot measure to unionize podcast hosts.
57:35
SPEAKER_01: Is that what I'm hearing, Brian?
57:37
SPEAKER_01: No.
57:39
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
57:39
SPEAKER_01: All right.
57:40
SPEAKER_01: All right.
57:40
SPEAKER_01: All right.
57:41
SPEAKER_01: Kind of funny.
57:41
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
57:41
SPEAKER_01: Well...
57:49
SPEAKER_01: Listen, there's a lot of states that are better than Oregon.
57:53
SPEAKER_01: We know this.
57:54
SPEAKER_01: One state that's not better than Oregon, Washington.
57:57
SPEAKER_01: Washington sucks,
57:58
SPEAKER_01: but we're going to talk about their third district primary because there's a very
58:03
SPEAKER_01: important part of Washington to us,
58:05
SPEAKER_01: Vancouver.
58:06
SPEAKER_01: It is a suburb of Portland, and anytime I say that on the Internet, people go insane.
58:11
SPEAKER_01: They get very mad, but it's true.
58:13
SPEAKER_01: And so Vancouver has a congressional district,
58:17
SPEAKER_01: their third congressional district,
58:19
SPEAKER_01: previously held in 2020 by Jamie Herrera-Butler for about six terms,
58:25
SPEAKER_01: I think.
58:26
SPEAKER_01: And then she was defeated in the primary by more of a MAGA Trump-style Republican, Joe Kent.
58:34
SPEAKER_01: And he ended up losing to Marie Glusenkamp-Perez,
58:40
SPEAKER_01: And she is running for reelection.
58:42
SPEAKER_01: She's trying to win reelection in kind of a swingy district.
58:47
SPEAKER_01: Brian, do you want to kind of, you brought this to us.
58:51
SPEAKER_01: You have maybe some insight into Washington politics that I don't have.
58:56
SPEAKER_01: And while you're doing that, I'm going to look up what the partisan lean of this district is.
59:01
SPEAKER_02: Well, what I like about this one is it's closer.
59:06
SPEAKER_02: I mean, it was closer in vote total last time than even
59:10
SPEAKER_02: Laurie Chavez Dreamer race in CD5 in Oregon.
59:14
SPEAKER_02: So it is a super, super close race.
59:18
SPEAKER_02: I would think between this one and the LCD race,
59:22
SPEAKER_02: from the Democrat side of defending MGP to us defending LCD,
59:27
SPEAKER_02: I love the acronyms for all these ladies now with their three names.
59:31
SPEAKER_02: I think that it's just a really good microcosm of what
59:37
SPEAKER_02: Republicans are trying to do to hold congressional seats.
59:40
SPEAKER_02: If you look at CD5 and how Lori reacts to news and her position on Trump and all of
59:48
SPEAKER_02: the things to what MGP is doing over there in Southwest Washington while she's
59:53
SPEAKER_02: getting attacked.
59:53
SPEAKER_02: So she comes out and does it.
59:55
SPEAKER_02: She's like, well, I'm not ready to endorse Harris yet.
59:58
SPEAKER_02: Like she's holding her powder dry,
1:00:00
SPEAKER_02: like all of the things she's really making herself look like she's a moderate.
1:00:05
SPEAKER_02: All of the things I gotta assume she in in in Washington.
1:00:10
SPEAKER_02: They have ranked choice voting on some weird level,
1:00:14
SPEAKER_02: but it's they have kind of an open primary in the top to move forward.
1:00:17
SPEAKER_02: So, which is different than us where we have closed primaries.
1:00:21
SPEAKER_02: But in the ballot, it says lean Republican, lean Democrat when they do things over there.
1:00:27
SPEAKER_02: So it is kind of interesting looking at the differences of how they do elections.
1:00:31
SPEAKER_02: This is tomorrow.
1:00:32
SPEAKER_02: So we're recording on August 5th.
1:00:34
SPEAKER_02: So we'll have we'll be able to report what's top to move forward.
1:00:37
SPEAKER_02: There's a third Republican running against
1:00:41
SPEAKER_02: Joe Kent,
1:00:42
SPEAKER_02: or a third person,
1:00:43
SPEAKER_02: I would say,
1:00:43
SPEAKER_02: Lisa Llewellyn,
1:00:45
SPEAKER_02: who's a city councilor in Camas,
1:00:47
SPEAKER_02: and she's raised over $800,000.
1:00:49
SPEAKER_02: She's got some dollars in the bank, I think.
1:00:53
SPEAKER_02: I think Kent's been on the, clearly was on the Trump train.
1:00:57
SPEAKER_02: I mean, that's how he got Jamie Herrera-Butler
1:01:00
SPEAKER_02: out of the race finally after winning six times in a row against somebody that
1:01:05
SPEAKER_02: always go up against her in the primary.
1:01:07
SPEAKER_02: So I just think watching this race from how the Democrats defend something and
1:01:12
SPEAKER_02: Republicans attack to how Republicans defend Lori Chavez Dreamer and how the
1:01:17
SPEAKER_02: Democrats attack,
1:01:18
SPEAKER_02: it's just going to be a really good juxtaposition over the course of the next,
1:01:22
SPEAKER_02: you know,
1:01:23
SPEAKER_02: 90 days or so that we have left in this campaign.
1:01:26
SPEAKER_01: I also think, and then I'll let Jake provide new insights.
1:01:30
SPEAKER_01: If you Google Marie Glusenkamp-Perez and Lori Chavez-Dreamer,
1:01:34
SPEAKER_01: they've introduced bipartisan forest legislation.
1:01:37
SPEAKER_01: They've introduced secure the border legislation together.
1:01:42
SPEAKER_01: uh,
1:01:43
SPEAKER_01: they are,
1:01:44
SPEAKER_01: they're basically,
1:01:45
SPEAKER_01: they decided I got to DC and they're like,
1:01:47
SPEAKER_01: Hey,
1:01:47
SPEAKER_01: we both have hard districts.
1:01:50
SPEAKER_01: Uh,
1:01:50
SPEAKER_01: loosen camp presence district,
1:01:51
SPEAKER_01: by the way,
1:01:52
SPEAKER_01: partisan voting index are plus five voted for Trump by three points.
1:01:56
SPEAKER_01: So it's one of a handful of,
1:01:58
SPEAKER_01: Trump districts that Democrats hold and Chavez dreamers in a Biden district,
1:02:03
SPEAKER_01: they both were just like,
1:02:04
SPEAKER_01: Hey,
1:02:05
SPEAKER_01: let's have each other's backs.
1:02:07
SPEAKER_01: Let's work on the stuff that's going to be, you know, politically beneficial to us.
1:02:10
SPEAKER_01: And I'm interested to see if that strategy works or awkwardly,
1:02:14
SPEAKER_01: if it only works for one of them,
1:02:16
SPEAKER_01: one of them survives and one of them doesn't.
1:02:18
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it'll really be interesting to see like how that works out.
1:02:22
SPEAKER_01: I think also the,
1:02:25
SPEAKER_01: The benefit,
1:02:25
SPEAKER_01: depending on how the primary works out,
1:02:28
SPEAKER_01: if Joe Kent gets through,
1:02:30
SPEAKER_01: he's seen a little bit more as like the extreme Republican,
1:02:33
SPEAKER_01: but he also has more name ID,
1:02:34
SPEAKER_01: more money.
1:02:35
SPEAKER_01: Whereas, you know, Biden was not viewed as the more extreme Democrat opponent.
1:02:40
SPEAKER_01: That was Jamie McLeod Skinner for Lori Chavez Dreamer.
1:02:42
SPEAKER_01: So Chavez Dreamer might have a stronger opponent than MGP.
1:02:48
SPEAKER_01: depending on how things work out.
1:02:50
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I don't know.
1:02:51
SPEAKER_01: Kent seemed like not as strong to me,
1:02:53
SPEAKER_01: but I didn't realize he was only like 3,000 votes last time,
1:02:57
SPEAKER_01: despite not having the world's best fundraising and stuff like that.
1:03:00
SPEAKER_01: So if he's corrected those issues with this campaign, he may win this time.
1:03:03
SPEAKER_01: Who knows?
1:03:08
SPEAKER_01: Anything to add, Jake?
1:03:10
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'd like him just to like focus on his military experience.
1:03:14
SPEAKER_00: I mean, the guy is...
1:03:15
SPEAKER_00: The guy has a story with his wife being killed in action.
1:03:21
SPEAKER_00: He has his own military career.
1:03:26
SPEAKER_00: If you talk about those kinds of stuff, you should win that district.
1:03:30
SPEAKER_00: It's kind of when you bring in other noise, then you play right into the incumbent's hand there.
1:03:40
SPEAKER_00: with her doing a lot of bipartisan work.
1:03:43
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
1:03:43
SPEAKER_00: there's a handful of districts,
1:03:46
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
1:03:47
SPEAKER_00: relative congressional districts throughout the country that are actually swing
1:03:55
SPEAKER_00: districts because of the types of redistricting that has gone on over the last
1:04:03
SPEAKER_00: redistricting where it's been really hard
1:04:07
SPEAKER_00: Districts hard to the right and hard to the left.
1:04:10
SPEAKER_00: There's a couple of districts out there that are really that close in our neck of
1:04:16
SPEAKER_00: the woods where this is definitely one of them and it could go either way.
1:04:21
SPEAKER_00: You would think that this year, you would think that Trump would get more.
1:04:28
SPEAKER_00: I guess maybe this presidential election changes all the time,
1:04:32
SPEAKER_00: but I would think that he would get more than he did in 2020.
1:04:37
SPEAKER_00: So it'd be even more that she would have to overcome.
1:04:42
SPEAKER_00: But, you know, things change all the time.
1:04:46
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think you're right.
1:04:47
SPEAKER_02: I think that the MGP winning in 2022 turned out to not be a Republican year, right?
1:04:54
SPEAKER_02: So it slid to the left a little bit more.
1:04:57
SPEAKER_02: And I think that
1:04:59
SPEAKER_02: With the presidential election, what will really matter up there probably is turnout.
1:05:03
SPEAKER_02: I mean, that should probably, you know, are the Democrats enthusiastically turning out for Harris?
1:05:07
SPEAKER_02: And we know that Republicans are there for Trump with the enthusiasm hasn't waned at all on Trump.
1:05:13
SPEAKER_02: So we just got to maintain that that enthusiasm gap there.
1:05:18
SPEAKER_02: I do.
1:05:19
SPEAKER_02: Rematches tend to always favor Trump.
1:05:22
SPEAKER_02: you know, the winner.
1:05:23
SPEAKER_02: So I would give the edge to MGP.
1:05:26
SPEAKER_02: Plus she'll have all the money she probably needs to defend her position.
1:05:31
SPEAKER_02: And I think you're right with Kent.
1:05:33
SPEAKER_02: I think he got a little too much into the weeds with all of the social constructs
1:05:38
SPEAKER_02: of things versus focusing on who he is.
1:05:41
SPEAKER_02: And MGP's campaign was very focused on who she was,
1:05:45
SPEAKER_02: how she was raised,
1:05:46
SPEAKER_02: her story,
1:05:47
SPEAKER_02: all the things that make her a likable candidate.
1:05:51
SPEAKER_02: And she looks great.
1:05:52
SPEAKER_02: I mean, her TV ads are really great.
1:05:54
SPEAKER_02: I mean, she's very, she pops off the screen really well.
1:05:58
SPEAKER_02: She does really, she does a really good job on TV and it seems natural to her.
1:06:03
SPEAKER_02: Whereas I think he doesn't.
1:06:05
SPEAKER_02: So I,
1:06:07
SPEAKER_02: if I was consulting on that race,
1:06:09
SPEAKER_02: Jake,
1:06:09
SPEAKER_02: probably the same,
1:06:10
SPEAKER_02: we'd be doing lots of takes on TV to get the,
1:06:13
SPEAKER_02: to get that right natural kind of,
1:06:16
SPEAKER_02: you know,
1:06:16
SPEAKER_02: you want that guy that's a combat veteran,
1:06:18
SPEAKER_02: but I also want them to be approachable.
1:06:21
SPEAKER_02: I need him to be likable.
1:06:22
SPEAKER_02: I need him to sound like he belongs there,
1:06:25
SPEAKER_02: you know,
1:06:26
SPEAKER_02: and that I can trust him and that he's the guy next door.
1:06:29
SPEAKER_02: And he's got a bunch of tattoos on his arms and stuff.
1:06:32
SPEAKER_02: And he kind of shows them.
1:06:33
SPEAKER_02: I probably cover some of those up.
1:06:35
SPEAKER_02: I mean, it looks a little too rough for me from the stuff that I've seen him do.
1:06:40
SPEAKER_02: I just think he's still too rough around the edges.
1:06:43
SPEAKER_02: And my prediction now is, you know, now the vote we're to take now, I think MGP will be
1:06:49
SPEAKER_02: ahead but the the tail is this primary because in Washington it's primaries over
1:06:55
SPEAKER_02: and it's a sprint to the finish and that's always been well for Jamie Herrera
1:06:59
SPEAKER_02: Butler in years past because she's always had like a primary opponent so she spends
1:07:04
SPEAKER_02: a bunch of money in the primary and then her name id goes through the roof because
1:07:08
SPEAKER_02: she's spending a bunch of money in August and then there's in the Democrats aren't
1:07:12
SPEAKER_02: really doing anything and then she you don't have enough time to catch her
1:07:17
SPEAKER_02: So I don't know if that's going to work in the favor here or not, but it should be interesting.
1:07:25
SPEAKER_01: All right.
1:07:26
SPEAKER_01: What else?
1:07:28
SPEAKER_01: We're starting to get a little long, Brian.
1:07:29
SPEAKER_01: What do you want to do to close this out?
1:07:31
SPEAKER_02: Why don't you just transition us to let's just talk.
1:07:33
SPEAKER_02: I want to talk real quick just about Cyrus Javity's new opponent.
1:07:39
SPEAKER_02: Let's just bring him in.
1:07:41
SPEAKER_02: And then Jake, we just want to ask you about what's happening in Lane County.
1:07:44
SPEAKER_02: So we'll talk about Cyrus's a little bit.
1:07:46
SPEAKER_02: And then maybe you just give us an idea of what's happening kind of in your neck of
1:07:49
SPEAKER_02: the woods and in some of those races that you're familiar with.
1:07:54
SPEAKER_02: If that is that what you're willing to do.
1:07:57
SPEAKER_01: Sure, yeah.
1:07:58
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
1:07:59
SPEAKER_01: House District 32, Logan Lady, as we noted, dropped out of the race.
1:08:06
SPEAKER_01: Democrats needed to pick a new candidate.
1:08:10
SPEAKER_01: All sorts of names were tossed out there, and Democrats settled on Andy Davis.
1:08:15
SPEAKER_01: He's the city councilor from the city of Astoria.
1:08:19
SPEAKER_01: He was born, according to his bio, Bloomington, Indiana, and moved to Oregon in 2015, it looks like.
1:08:27
SPEAKER_01: He works as a research analyst for the Oregon Health Authority.
1:08:32
SPEAKER_01: Hopefully, he didn't help craft the...
1:08:35
SPEAKER_01: The report on alcohol that has been super controversial.
1:08:39
SPEAKER_01: That would be a bummer for him if he had worked on that.
1:08:41
SPEAKER_01: That probably drag his campaign a little bit.
1:08:43
SPEAKER_01: So hopefully not.
1:08:45
SPEAKER_01: But sort of an interesting pick.
1:08:47
SPEAKER_01: Not necessarily who I would have thought they would have picked.
1:08:50
SPEAKER_01: I thought,
1:08:51
SPEAKER_01: Brian,
1:08:51
SPEAKER_01: honestly,
1:08:52
SPEAKER_01: when you've got a Republican man,
1:08:53
SPEAKER_01: you really do want to pick a Democratic woman.
1:08:56
SPEAKER_01: That usually gives you a little extra advantage on the gender gap.
1:09:00
SPEAKER_01: typically, um, and someone who can really attack a little bit more credibly on women's health issues.
1:09:06
SPEAKER_01: So I'm a little surprised to see them go, um, with a man.
1:09:11
SPEAKER_02: I, yes.
1:09:12
SPEAKER_02: Well, this might've been from the reports I was reading.
1:09:15
SPEAKER_02: This might've been the lack of, uh,
1:09:17
SPEAKER_02: choices.
1:09:19
SPEAKER_02: So sometimes when you're faced with nobody, you've got to choose somebody.
1:09:24
SPEAKER_02: So I would imagine this is probably where,
1:09:27
SPEAKER_02: and this guy looks like a good Democrat soldier,
1:09:30
SPEAKER_02: obviously working for the Democrat agency known as OHA.
1:09:35
SPEAKER_02: Hopefully he did work on the research reports.
1:09:37
SPEAKER_02: Oh, sorry.
1:09:39
SPEAKER_01: That's right.
1:09:39
SPEAKER_01: I'm sorry.
1:09:40
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
1:09:41
SPEAKER_01: I forgot my Republican campaign hat.
1:09:44
SPEAKER_01: Hold on.
1:09:44
SPEAKER_01: I'm putting it back on.
1:09:45
SPEAKER_02: Maybe he did the research report on allowing making sure that illegals.
1:09:51
SPEAKER_02: get the right to register to vote, you know, with OHA as they're getting their free health care.
1:09:56
SPEAKER_02: So hopefully he's worked on that.
1:09:58
SPEAKER_02: Hopefully there's some things that we can exploit with him.
1:10:01
SPEAKER_02: He does come from the tough side of the district for the rapid gravity, which is up in Astoria.
1:10:07
SPEAKER_02: I think that's an area that
1:10:09
SPEAKER_02: has been historically blue for this portion of the district.
1:10:13
SPEAKER_02: So he'll probably have a strong base up there,
1:10:16
SPEAKER_02: but I think Javity's done a pretty good job of working the district.
1:10:21
SPEAKER_02: It's a tough district to work just because it's got,
1:10:25
SPEAKER_02: from Tillamook up to Astoria,
1:10:26
SPEAKER_02: it's just got a bunch of little communities
1:10:28
SPEAKER_02: HAB-Jacques Juilland, All throughout the district.
1:10:29
SPEAKER_02: So in each of those communities are very distinct and have their own little issues.
1:10:35
SPEAKER_02: HAB-Jacques Juilland, Local issues, but they're all they're all very distinct in nature.
1:10:38
SPEAKER_02: So you have to do a lot of town halls and do a lot of a lot of groundwork in these
1:10:42
SPEAKER_02: these sort of districts,
1:10:43
SPEAKER_02: but I think we're up Japanese done a pretty good job of
1:10:47
SPEAKER_02: being moderating where he needs to moderate and being conservative where he needs to be conservative.
1:10:51
SPEAKER_02: So I think he's done a pretty good job of walking that line,
1:10:55
SPEAKER_02: which is tough to do in the Northwest coastal areas up there because it was a solid,
1:11:01
SPEAKER_02: solid blue area that has really kind of moved to the right because of social issues.
1:11:07
SPEAKER_02: And I think that the blue collar workers up there that have become,
1:11:10
SPEAKER_02: you know,
1:11:11
SPEAKER_02: our strong conservative base should hopefully pull them over.
1:11:18
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:11:19
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:11:19
SPEAKER_00: Good points, Brian.
1:11:20
SPEAKER_00: I think also there's an environmental wing of the Democratic Party that has moved
1:11:28
SPEAKER_00: those coastal districts more in the Republican camp.
1:11:33
SPEAKER_00: But, you know, I know you know how hard recruiting is.
1:11:37
SPEAKER_00: You can look up and down the coast and they've
1:11:42
SPEAKER_00: both sides have had problems recruiting candidates for some of the House districts along the coast.
1:11:51
SPEAKER_00: House District 9, the Democrat pulled out in the previous year.
1:11:59
SPEAKER_00: There was no one filed, so they had to run as a write-in.
1:12:02
SPEAKER_00: And then House District 10 this year with Gomberg, he doesn't have a Republican opponent.
1:12:09
SPEAKER_00: Then you go up to
1:12:11
SPEAKER_00: that Northern seat and you had,
1:12:13
SPEAKER_00: you had a Democrat and then they pulled out and then they got a new,
1:12:16
SPEAKER_00: they got a new person.
1:12:17
SPEAKER_00: And it's, it's tough.
1:12:18
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I think chances are with Javadi.
1:12:23
SPEAKER_00: And then if you win, you don't make a ton of money and you have to drive to Salem all the time.
1:12:29
SPEAKER_00: So I think all those factor into who they got.
1:12:38
SPEAKER_02: That's a good point,
1:12:39
SPEAKER_02: because you're right,
1:12:40
SPEAKER_02: because even the Democrats,
1:12:41
SPEAKER_02: I heard they ended up fielding a candidate against Senator Anderson on the coach as well.
1:12:46
SPEAKER_02: But she was the last second, last day file for them.
1:12:50
SPEAKER_02: So there's probably something the Democrats probably have a hard time.
1:12:54
SPEAKER_02: recruiting in these swingier districts that are further away because the travel
1:12:59
SPEAKER_02: time maybe us republicans are just used to traveling long distances so it doesn't
1:13:04
SPEAKER_02: seem like a big deal for us to hop in our rv and go camp in salem for six months
1:13:10
SPEAKER_00: that that's true and you got to look at the bench too from um in these rural areas
1:13:18
SPEAKER_00: the county commissioners have all moved um more conservative so
1:13:24
SPEAKER_00: along the coast.
1:13:25
SPEAKER_00: So you've got less of a bench to pull from of people that are obvious for these legislative seats.
1:13:36
SPEAKER_01: Very true, Jake.
1:13:38
SPEAKER_01: Well,
1:13:38
SPEAKER_01: um,
1:13:38
SPEAKER_01: to,
1:13:39
SPEAKER_01: to wrap it up,
1:13:39
SPEAKER_01: as Brian mentioned,
1:13:41
SPEAKER_01: we want to know what's going on in Lane County down there.
1:13:44
SPEAKER_01: I'm sorry, Lane, Lane County.
1:13:46
SPEAKER_01: Uh, it's an N I think.
1:13:47
SPEAKER_01: Uh,
1:13:48
SPEAKER_01: so,
1:13:49
SPEAKER_01: uh,
1:13:49
SPEAKER_01: if you could walk us through sort of,
1:13:51
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:13:51
SPEAKER_01: what you see as kind of like the key,
1:13:53
SPEAKER_01: uh,
1:13:53
SPEAKER_01: maybe one or one or two key races or political issues that are really,
1:13:59
SPEAKER_01: um,
1:13:59
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:14:00
SPEAKER_01: lighting butters hairs on fire,
1:14:01
SPEAKER_01: uh,
1:14:02
SPEAKER_01: this fall.
1:14:04
SPEAKER_00: Well, um,
1:14:05
SPEAKER_00: There was a pretty big thing that happened last Tuesday.
1:14:09
SPEAKER_00: Three city councilors from Cottage Grove got recalled.
1:14:14
SPEAKER_00: There was a lot of residents that were upset about the homeless issue in Cottage Grove.
1:14:23
SPEAKER_00: And it all kind of came back to House Bill 3115, where cities needed to come up with a policy
1:14:35
SPEAKER_00: around a public camping or create a location for a public managed camp and the city
1:14:47
SPEAKER_00: council went with a managed camp and a lot of the residents didn't like the outcome
1:14:54
SPEAKER_00: of that it was set up right next to the post office and and
1:14:59
SPEAKER_00: the homeless population had grown significantly and the city council seemed to not care about it.
1:15:04
SPEAKER_00: And so they recalled three of their counselors and,
1:15:09
SPEAKER_00: and another chunk of them are up for election here and in November.
1:15:13
SPEAKER_00: So we'll see how that turns out.
1:15:17
SPEAKER_00: I think there's a lot of angst around the homeless issue and just the,
1:15:23
SPEAKER_00: It's a lack of order that comes from it.
1:15:27
SPEAKER_00: People sleeping in random places and drugs and random occurrences that are on the streets.
1:15:34
SPEAKER_00: You can tell in our cities up and down the I-5 corridor that there's definitely a
1:15:41
SPEAKER_00: lot of angst about that,
1:15:43
SPEAKER_00: even in Portland.
1:15:47
SPEAKER_00: But as far as any of the...
1:15:52
SPEAKER_00: uh legislate there's some there's probably one legislative race um that's only in
1:16:00
SPEAKER_00: lane county that's of interest it would be that um hd uh seven uh in springfield um
1:16:08
SPEAKER_00: you have uh john lively who's uh been in the springfield district for uh he was
1:16:15
SPEAKER_00: elected first in 2012 um
1:16:19
SPEAKER_00: And it was a hotly contested race in 2012.
1:16:24
SPEAKER_00: And that district has moved more to the right over the course of 12 years.
1:16:38
SPEAKER_00: Springfield is a working class community.
1:16:40
SPEAKER_00: And as the Democratic Party has moved further to the left, there's definitely been a shift
1:16:48
SPEAKER_00: They're in the Republican candidate.
1:16:50
SPEAKER_00: His name's Corey Burkett.
1:16:53
SPEAKER_00: It seemed to be gaining some traction in Springfield.
1:16:58
SPEAKER_00: The 2022 race between Lively and his Republican opponent,
1:17:03
SPEAKER_00: Alan Stout,
1:17:05
SPEAKER_00: was only about 1,200 votes separating them.
1:17:10
SPEAKER_00: And now Alan Stout's going to be on the city council in Springfield.
1:17:17
SPEAKER_00: So that's definitely one to look at.
1:17:20
SPEAKER_00: I don't know of any ballot measures.
1:17:25
SPEAKER_00: There was people collecting.
1:17:27
SPEAKER_00: This was an interesting one that I saw in downtown Eugene.
1:17:33
SPEAKER_00: They were collecting signatures whether to allow people the option to do a smart
1:17:37
SPEAKER_00: meter or not because the local utility
1:17:44
SPEAKER_00: was forcing smart meters on people and saying we were going to cut off your power
1:17:49
SPEAKER_00: if you don't allow us to install this smart meter and um i actually saw one of my
1:17:57
SPEAKER_00: neighbors got his uh electricity cut off uh for a period of time and uh he always
1:18:04
SPEAKER_00: had um very left-wing signs out as front front yard which
1:18:09
SPEAKER_00: I thought was rather interesting.
1:18:12
SPEAKER_00: So that might be an interesting ballot measure should it ever come up.
1:18:18
SPEAKER_00: I think there's a lot of angst on both sides as far as with the smart meters.
1:18:24
SPEAKER_00: Fascinating.
1:18:25
SPEAKER_01: And is control of your county commission down there in Lane County up in this cycle?
1:18:32
SPEAKER_01: I know it's sort of,
1:18:33
SPEAKER_01: you've got kind of a lean Republican commission because even though Eugene dominates,
1:18:37
SPEAKER_01: Lane County is actually divided into districts.
1:18:40
SPEAKER_01: So you guys run your commissioners on districts.
1:18:41
SPEAKER_01: So it's actually very, typically very competitive.
1:18:46
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so for the county commission, they're done.
1:18:50
SPEAKER_00: Both Pat Farr, who's the North Eugene County Commission,
1:18:54
SPEAKER_00: Commissioner and Lori Trigger,
1:18:56
SPEAKER_00: who's the South Eugene County Commissioner,
1:18:58
SPEAKER_00: they both won in the primary election.
1:19:02
SPEAKER_00: So if either candidate gets more than 50% of the vote,
1:19:06
SPEAKER_00: then they're the only name on the ballot in November.
1:19:10
SPEAKER_00: So most of our elections for county commissioners are in May,
1:19:15
SPEAKER_00: unless there's multiple people that have filed.
1:19:20
SPEAKER_00: That's usually the occurrence.
1:19:24
SPEAKER_00: We do have a couple of charter amendments that will be on the ballot.
1:19:34
SPEAKER_00: Lane County is one of, I believe it's eight home rule county, and they have a home rule charter.
1:19:42
SPEAKER_00: So that means that
1:19:44
SPEAKER_00: anything the charter is like a founding document for the county it's the people's
1:19:49
SPEAKER_00: documents like their constitution it tells it says like you know what how many
1:19:53
SPEAKER_00: commissioners there are uh and how they're structured um and everything with the
1:20:01
SPEAKER_00: charter needs to have a public vote and uh the charter review committee uh was set
1:20:08
SPEAKER_00: up um
1:20:11
SPEAKER_00: uh,
1:20:11
SPEAKER_00: last year and they went over the charter and they determined that there was,
1:20:15
SPEAKER_00: um,
1:20:17
SPEAKER_00: they recommended to the board of commissioners,
1:20:19
SPEAKER_00: six changes to the,
1:20:21
SPEAKER_00: to the charter.
1:20:22
SPEAKER_00: Uh, the board of commissioners only approved three of those changes.
1:20:25
SPEAKER_00: Um, and, uh, the, all three of the, the changes are pretty non-controversial stuff.
1:20:34
SPEAKER_00: It's, it's stuff that has been
1:20:36
SPEAKER_00: in the charter that doesn't necessarily apply anymore because it never applied or
1:20:46
SPEAKER_00: state law now governs what it spoke to.
1:20:51
SPEAKER_00: I think there's still some time for the county commissioners to put on more charter amendments,
1:20:58
SPEAKER_00: but again,
1:21:00
SPEAKER_00: everything that's in the charter needs to go to a vote of the public.
1:21:07
SPEAKER_00: there might be some more that'll go on for the November election.
1:21:11
SPEAKER_00: And then if the voters approve it, then it becomes a part of the charter.
1:21:15
SPEAKER_01: Sort of like when we amend the Oregon Constitution,
1:21:18
SPEAKER_01: you can refer that out from the legislature,
1:21:20
SPEAKER_01: you can collect signatures,
1:21:21
SPEAKER_01: but it has to be a vote of the people.
1:21:24
SPEAKER_01: That's correct.
1:21:26
SPEAKER_01: Well, Jake, we appreciate you hopping on.
1:21:29
SPEAKER_01: Maybe we'll make this a semi-regular segment.
1:21:32
SPEAKER_01: We'll do ride-alongs with Jake Pellroy and find out what's going on.
1:21:37
SPEAKER_01: We appreciate you coming in.
1:21:39
SPEAKER_01: You ended up pinch-hitting for another guest, and we'll hope to have back.
1:21:46
SPEAKER_01: But
1:21:47
SPEAKER_01: You know,
1:21:48
SPEAKER_01: we talked about and Brian,
1:21:49
SPEAKER_01: I'm just going to say this in the podcast so I can put it in the title.
1:21:52
SPEAKER_01: One of the things, Jake, that you missed when we started earlier, we talked a lot about the trans agenda.
1:21:57
SPEAKER_01: And I know,
1:21:57
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:21:58
SPEAKER_01: a lot about the trans agenda,
1:22:01
SPEAKER_01: specifically transportation is what we talked about there.
1:22:05
SPEAKER_01: If there's another trans agenda, I'm not sure what that's about.
1:22:08
SPEAKER_01: The confusion there is understandable, I'm sure.
1:22:11
SPEAKER_01: But yeah, there is confusion.
1:22:12
SPEAKER_01: That's right, Brian.
1:22:18
SPEAKER_01: All right, well, thanks for listening, everybody, for Crosstabs.
1:22:23
SPEAKER_01: You can visit us on your favorite podcast platform.
1:22:26
SPEAKER_01: Make sure to subscribe and then rate and or review us, especially on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
1:22:33
SPEAKER_01: And Jake, what do they do for the Google phones?
1:22:37
SPEAKER_01: I don't even know where you get podcasts.
1:22:41
SPEAKER_00: Spotify, I think YouTube, YouTube Music has podcasts as well.
1:22:48
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that makes total sense.
1:22:52
SPEAKER_01: And you can also follow Brian Iverson.
1:22:55
SPEAKER_01: He's at Brian G. Iverson.
1:22:58
SPEAKER_01: I'm at Reagan Canope.
1:22:59
SPEAKER_01: Jake, you're not on Twitter very much.
1:23:00
SPEAKER_01: I think your account is locked, so you're not very fun to follow.
1:23:04
SPEAKER_01: But that's OK.
1:23:06
SPEAKER_01: People can send you smoke signals.
1:23:10
SPEAKER_01: They can they can try to figure out which house is yours driving around Lane County.
1:23:15
SPEAKER_01: Maybe.
1:23:16
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
1:23:17
SPEAKER_01: The carrier pigeons find me.
1:23:19
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
1:23:20
SPEAKER_01: Carrier pigeons.
1:23:20
SPEAKER_01: I love it.
1:23:21
SPEAKER_01: And you can also follow at crosstabs.fm.
1:23:24
SPEAKER_01: Visit crosstabs.studio to subscribe for email updates on the podcast.
1:23:31
SPEAKER_02: Any last words?
1:23:31
SPEAKER_02: Close us out, Brian.
1:23:34
SPEAKER_02: No, no.
1:23:34
SPEAKER_02: I think you've done plenty to close us out, Reagan.
1:23:37
SPEAKER_02: I'll just thank Jake for coming on board, talking about Lane County.
1:23:41
SPEAKER_02: We might need to send them up to Brownsville to go fix that solution up there in
1:23:45
SPEAKER_02: Linn County with their recall effort or whatever they're going to end up with in
1:23:49
SPEAKER_02: that city council.
1:23:50
SPEAKER_02: What a mess these city councils are.
1:23:53
SPEAKER_01: Jake shows up to chew bubblegum and take names, and he is all out of bubblegum, everybody.
1:24:02
SPEAKER_01: Funny.