As citizens have increasingly employed their powers to make or change law, state officials have used a variety of tactics to make doing so more difficult.

A fight over a controversial police funding measure could be headed to the court after the initiative fell 6,000 signatures short of making it onto the ballo...

The Portland City Elections office announced Tuesday that backers of the Enhanced Community Safety initiative did not submit enough valid signatures.

A ballot initiative that sought to direct 25 percent of Portland’s Clean Energy Fund toward hiring additional police officers failed to gather enough valid signatures to qualify for the November ballot. The Portland City Auditor’s Office, which houses Portland’s Elections Division, confirmed Tuesday afternoon that after sampling and verification, the number of qualified signatures for […]

Nearly 100 Portlanders file complaints of being misled or lied to over a ballot measure that would divert Portland’s climate funds toward hiring more police officers.

The proposed ballot measure will not go in front of city voters in November.

The initiative seeking to reroute 25% of Portland Clean Energy Fund tax revenues to hiring some 400 police officers has failed to qualify for the November ballot. The initiative previously failed to qualify in its first sample. It has now failed the second and final sample.

The complaint alleges that canvassers repeatedly failed to carry a copy of the ballot initiative’s complete text and falsely stated that the measure would hire mental health responders and 911 dispatchers.

Only one citizen petition is on track for the November ballot, a drop from previous election cycles.

It’s time to establish equal voting rights for nonaffiliated voters, write leaders of an initiative petition who will now seek legislative help opening primaries.

House Bill 16, which would reimpose limits on donations to candidates, may pre-empt a measure already scheduled for an August vote.

Just how deep the antipathy — in Oregon at least — toward both major political parties actually is, may be tested seriously in this year’s elections. The test may not involve outright wins and losses, but the percentages will be worth watching. What’s new is the changed electoral strategy of the Independent Party of Oregon, […]

Gov. Tina Kotek signed a bill that makes changes to campaign finance, angering advocacy groups who say they will put their own plan to voters in 2028.

Using philanthropy for campaign donations is illegal. But an exception for some nonprofits has allowed Democratic billionaires like Bill Gates and Michael Bloomberg to remain anonymous when they want to play politics.

Oregon private equity executive John von Schlegell recently filed a barrage of ballot measures designed to imprint his pro-sprawl, anti-tax agenda permanently into the Oregon const

Mailboxes and airwaves are alive with ads pushing for and against specific candidates.But even though transparency in campaigns is supposed to be a core tenet, you only get to know who is financing the efforts on some of them.That’s because nonprofit organizations run by shadowy people and funded in darkness are running many of the ads. That’s different than if a candidate’s committee or political action committee does the same thing. Funders of the latter are public and open to examination.

Letters to the Editor can be submitted to [email protected] with full name and place of residence.

Letters to the Editor can be submitted to [email protected] with full name and place of residence.

The contribution is by far the largest to any candidate for governor this year.

“This is a very painful choice to make," one Democratic lawmaker said ahead of a key vote Tuesday.

Lawmakers have promised to further refine the law next year, after key provisions go into effect.

State leaders have warned Oregon is at risk botching its new campaign finance law. Some lawmakers acknowledge the bill they passed to fix it still needs work.

Legislators should reject HB 4018 both for the bad process that created the bill and for the betrayal of campaign finance reform objectives that it is, the editorial board writes. They should show their independence of the system that Big Money built by voting no.

Despite strong objections from state and national good government groups, legislators passed a bill that creates huge loopholes in campaign finance reforms passed just two years ago, the editorial board writes. If voters want to get rid of big money in Oregon politics, it appears they will have to do it themselves via a ballot measure.

The League of Women Voters of Deschutes County hosted a discussion in Bend about whether Oregon should open its primary elections to all voters.

Good governance groups that two years ago negotiated a historic campaign finance law with the Oregon Legislature now say lawmakers have betrayed them by backing a “technical fix” bill to that law that instead creates “huge loopholes” to political spending limits. Leaders at advocacy groups Honest Elections, League of Women Voters, Common Cause of Oregon, […]

BEND, Ore. (KTVZ) — The League of Women Voters will host a public presentation in Bend on Thursday focused on the implementation of open primaries in Oregon. Speakers Andrew Kaza and former Rep. Cheri Helt will discuss the potential for allowing all voters to participate in all elections regardless of party affiliation. The event, titled

Earlier this month, Patrick Gruhn cut a $20,000 check to Tony DeBone’s reelection campaign for Deschutes County Commissioner. Gruhn, a tech tycoon and lawyer currently operating an international cryptocurrency trading […]

Oregon voters could soon be asked to approve a sweeping change to the way the state runs primary elections.

The biggest flaw, they say, is that the draft explanations completely omit the proposed measures' biggest impact: 1.1 million more Oregonians would be able to take part in government funded primary elections for the most important offices.