Isaac Laquedem

Measure 35: a surprise victory in store?

I had believed that Measure 35 (the $500,000 limit on non-economic damages for medical malpractice) would fail, until a mole in the pro-35 campaign told me today that Democratic voters are favoring the measure by a modest margin. Given that Republican voters will favor the measure by a wider margin than Democrats (something on which Mr. Mole and I agree), that suggest that the measure will pass. He didn't tell me about the inside poll results until I had placed a small wager on the outcome; if he's right, I will be bringing him a small token Wednesday.

Our Man in Japan asks a small favor

Though the Japanese government thinks of Our Man in Japan as Japanese (as he does himself), through a quirk of birth he enjoys dual citizenship and could lawfully run for President, a fact that gives him to laugh uproariously sometimes. He writes to ask a small favor. In his words:

I was wondering if you can help me exercise my right to vote as an American citizen at this last minute call.....although it may seem a bit disadvantageous now for Senator Kerry yet I would like to cast my vote for him to see a change in the world.

As we are so uninterested in the governments of other countries we are not aware of how attentively the citizens of other lands watch our elections, even to the point of wanting to vote in them.

A final comment on Measure 31

More than a century ago Martin Dooley, the Chicago bar owner who was the inspired creation of Finley Peter Dunne, offered the counter-argument to Measure 31, which would require the state to postpone an election if a major party candidate died. Here is an extract from "Mr. Dooley on Reform."
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"That frind iv ye'ers, Dugan, is an intilligent man," said Mr. Dooley. "All he needs is an index an' a few illusthrations to make him a bicyclopedja iv useless information."

"Well," said Mr. Hennessey, judiciously, "he ain't no Socrates an' he ain't no answers-to-questions colum; but he's a good man that goes to his jooty, an' as handy with a pick as some people are with a cocktail spoon. What's he been doin' again ye?"

"Nawthin," said Mr. Dooley, "but he was in here Choosday. 'Did ye vote?' says I. 'I did,' says he. 'Which wan iv th' distinguished bunko steerers got ye'er invalu'ble suffrage?' says I. 'I didn't have none with me,' says he, 'but I voted f'r Charter Haitch,' says he. 'I've been with him in six ilictions,' says he, 'an' he's a good man,' he says. 'D'ye think ye're votin' f'r th' best?' says I. 'Why, man alive,' I says, 'Charter Haitch was assassinated three years ago,' I says. 'Was he?' says Dugan. 'Ah well, he's lived that down be this time. He was a good man,' he says.

Endorsements, concluded: those last few stragglers

Multnomah County Measure 26-64: Our kids don't need to read so good or rite or count neither

Yes, the county income tax was poorly designed. Yes, the county government has zero credibility on finances. Yes, the state ought to be funding schools (soon to be called "skools") adequately. These are all reasons to repeal this tax and replace it with something else.

But the sponsors, who cheerfully explain why this tax should be repealed, offered nothing to replace it with. Seventy percent of the money raised goes to the eight public school districts in Multnomah County (here's a breakdown). The tax provides about twelve percent of the funds for these school districts (here's a current analysis from the oversight group). The analysis shows how many teachers, or how many weeks of school, the income tax supports. The unhappy fact is that this awkward tax supports a necessary part of the schools.

Education is more important than we old codgers think. Vote "no" on 26-64.

Metro Council 6: Give me Liberty or give me Rod

Rod Monroe, the incumbent councilor from District 6, is a nice guy and a conscientious public servant. He's being challenged by Robert Liberty, who made a name as the head of 1000 Friends of Oregon. Mr. Monroe is modestly in favor of development; Mr. Liberty wants to set limits on growth. Mr. Liberty would be an asset to a council that also included, as it once did, prominent developer Don Morissette; the two would be ideal counterpoints between which the rest of the council could sort themselves out. The council doesn't include anyone to be the counterpoint to Mr. Liberty, and for that reason I recommend re-electing Mr. Monroe.

Clackamas County Measure 3-137: The mosquito's bite is worse than the government's

This measure if adopted will quintuple the money that Clackamas County spends to fight mosquitos. Right now, the county spends about $150,000 per year; the measure will make about $750,000 per year available for the cause. The tax on a house assessed at $300,000 will be less than $10 per year.

I would pay $10/year to prevent a few of my mosquito bites. Vote yes on Measure 3-137.

A little more on John Tyler

John Tyler also had more children than any other Vice President -- fifteen of them altogether, with two wives -- though he didn't bring up their personal lives in the campaign. It is said that when he came to Connecticut to give a speech, a group of schoolgirls lined up at the train station to receive him, and one presented him with a bouquet of Connecticut flowers, saying that they were the finest the state had to offer. President Tyler gallantly replied, "My dear, you are the finest flowers the state has to offer," and kissed each of them in turn. He did, however, have the sense to stop there, unlike some later occupants of his office.

The Vice President that dare not speak his name?

Seeing the license plate "Tyler 2" recently brought to mind the campaign of 1840 and the slogan of the winning ticket, "Tippecanoe and Tyler Too." Although William Henry Harrison was the hero of the Battle of Tippecanoe (or at least portrayed that way by his spin doctors), the vice presidential candidate was thought important enough to mention. As it turned out, the American public got not just "Tyler Too" but almost entirely Tyler; Harrison died after 30 days in office and Tyler served the rest of his term.

It amused me to compare that historic tidbit to how the Democrats and Republicans are handling the question of the vice presidency today. I don't get the sense that the Democrats are campaigning for Senator Edwards, but they are campaigning strongly against Vice President Cheney. And, as the article I link to below notes, the Republicans are soft-pedaling Mr. Cheney in their advertisements. The article includes this interesting poll result (in the August 31, 2004 USA Today): Republicans like Mr. Cheney by an 8-to-1 margin; Democrats dislike him by the same margin.

Here's another interesting extract from that article (which, again, is now two months old):

When Bush chose Cheney as his running mate four years ago, Americans liked the pick. Cheney's standing in a USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll in July 2000 was a glowing 51% favorable, 14% unfavorable. Midway through the term, in January 2003, it was a healthy 61%-28%, positive by better than 2-to-1.

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In a new USA TODAY survey, Cheney for the first time has a net negative rating: 45% unfavorable, 44% favorable.

In contrast, Edwards' rating is now 52% favorable, 28% unfavorable. If they could vote separately for vice president, Americans by 52% to 42% say they would chose Edwards. While Edwards appears in some of Kerry's TV ads, Cheney is missing from Bush's.

The vice presidential nominee is seldom expected to do more than to help the ticket in the nominee's home state, which in Mr. Cheney's case is Wyoming and solidly Republican.

Endorsements VII: The Portland City Council

I stand by my May opinion and recommend voting in pairs: either for Jim Francesconi for Mayor and Nick Fish for the council seat, or Tom Potter for Mayor and Sam Adams for the council seat. I don't recommend voting for Messrs. Francesconi and Adams together because they are both City Hall insiders, and the city could use some fresh blood. Conversely, I don't recommend voting for Messrs. Potter and Fish together because two new outsiders at the same time is one too many. My own preference is for Messrs. (does anyone beside me use "Messrs." any more?) Francesconi and Fish. I know and like Mr. Fish, who has the brains and energy to shake things up a bit, and for purely selfish reasons I would rather see Mr. Francesconi as Mayor, instead of Mr. Potter. In my day job it's helpful to have access to members of the government, not because I can control their actions (which I can't), but because I can at least assure that they understand my concerns. If they vote against my interests, they will at least do so intelligently and understanding the facts, and not because of ignorance. A candidate who won't take more than $100 from anyone can't be counted on to listen; though Mr. Potter's limit on contributions is good for the city in the abstract, it's not so good for the Mausoleum Club and me.

If Mr. Peroutka can do it, you can too

Although I still think that Secretary of State Bill Bradbury let his personal political preferences influence his decisions on the Ralph Nader petitions, I noticed that my Presidential ballot includes David Cobb and Patricia La Marche of the Pacific Green Party, Michael Anthony Peroutka and Chuck Baldwin of the Constitution Party, and Michael Badnarik and Richard V. Campagna of the Libertarian Party, all of whom must have submitted petitions or otherwise qualified for the ballot in ways that survived Mr. Bradbury's scrutiny.

Without, I hope, offending Messrs. Cobb, Peroutka, Baldwin, Badnarik, and Campagna, and Ms. La Marche, they are not household names at the level of Mr. Nader, and if they could figure out how to qualify for the Oregon ballot then Mr. Nader's supporters should have been able to qualify their man also.

Endorsements VI: Measure 38

Ballot Measure 38: If you're SAIF, you're out!

Call me old-fashioned, but I like a spot of good honest chicanery. Not to my taste are the complicated accounting scandals that brought down Enron and WorldCom, nor the subtle anti-competitive tactics that cause the government to hale the occasional malefactor of great wealth into court on antitrust charges.

Got a competitor that undercuts your prices? Don't conspire against it. Don't spread rumors about it. Don't pay off its agents to steer business your way. Don't sue it.

Vote it out of existence! Ask the voters to wave their collective magic wand, call out "Hey presto!", and away it goes!

"Huh?" you ask. "You can't vote the competition out of business." Yes, you can, if you're Liberty Northwest and your competition is the State Accident Insurance Fund, a quasi-public corporation commonly called SAIF, that writes workers' compensation insurance in Oregon. That's what Measure 38 is about: one insurer wanting to erase its biggest competitor from the marketplace. This measure gets by far the easiest "NO" on Isaac's ballot.

Hint to Liberty Northwest: if you want to get rid of SAIF, charge less.

Endorsements V: Ballot Measure 37

Ballot Measure 37: You can't subdivide Sauvie Island, but I can!

Measure 37 is based on an appealing premise: if the guvmint regulates your land and makes it lose value, the guvmint should pay you for your loss. It’s inspired by a few horror stories of government over-regulation, the most prominent of which is the saga of the plumbing store and the bike path. You’ll find a short version of the story on page 105 of the statewide measures Voter’s Pamphlet, in the second argument in favor of Measure 37, by Dan Dolan. Mr. Dolan’s family owns the A-Boy plumbing store in Tigard, known by every land use lawyer across America.

In 1987, the Dolans wanted to expand their store. The City of Tigard said that they had to dedicate (give) part of their property to the City to be a public bike path, apparently on the theory that more people would bicycle to a larger A-Boy store. The Dolans were willing to sell the strip to the City for $14,000, but refused to give the easement, and sued the City. The United States Supreme Court sided with the Dolans, and ordered the City to pay the Dolans’ attorney’s fees. Altogether the City paid about $1.5 million in attorney fees, and also had to pay for the easement.

The other arguments in favor are persuasive support for the concept.

But – but – and (in the words of Ian Fleming) again, but – it’s hard to turn that glorious concept into effective legislation. The drafters of Measure 37 botched it, and that's why I'm voting against it. (Continue below to read why.)