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Kotek has faced pressure to appoint a "caretaker" secretary to replace Shemia Fagan. Some Democratic allies oppose that idea.

My enduring image of Shemia Fagan is as state senator, with her fist held high, signaling her alignment with progressives holding a rally on the Oregon Capitol steps.

Oregon lawmakers are mulling whether to boost pay for statewide officeholders and pass ethics reforms following the resignation of former Secretary of State Shemia Fagan, who stepped down after news that she had taken a $10,000 a month side job with a troubled cannabis company.

Shemia Fagan leaves office Monday, six days after she announced her resignation following news of a side job with a troubled cannabis dispensary.

“I have been inactive for the past two years but need to become active again,” Fagan wrote from her personal email address on Friday, Feb. 3, at 2:31 p.m.

Supporters of an initiative to create nonpartisan open primaries and establish ranked-choice voting announced Monday they intend to sue Attorney General Raúl Labrador over his ballot titles for the initiative.

Political parties and open primaries are the electoral equivalent of oil and water.

After serving three terms as a Republican, former state Rep. Jim Thompson says he is looking at running for his old House seat as an Independent.

With potentially hundreds of thousands of California voters under the mistaken belief that they are registered as independent from partisan affiliation, newly drafted state legislation could end the confusion by forcing one minor political party to change its name.

Non-affiliated Oregon voters requested 97 percent fewer ballots for the Independent Party of Oregon's primary election this year compared with 2016. Source: Far fewer non-affiliated Oregon voters participating in Independent primary

In one key way, Oregon lags other states in making voting easy. Its closed primary system locks out hundreds of thousands of non-affiliated voters who now make up one-third of Oregon's registrants. Oregonians should keep up the pressure on the parties to open their primaries and on the secretary of state candidates to also make this a central part of their platform.

Oregon led the pack for a time in terms of innovations to help people participate in elections, write David Ellis and Jeremy Gruber. its refusal to open the Democratic and Republican primaries to non-affiliated voters, however, lags far behind other states that have embraced open primaries.

An unusually large number of voters have disavowed their Republican party identities over the past 2 months, particularly in Washington County, where the number of Republicans fell by nearly 1,900, or 2.3%

Heard is one of three current or former Republican state senators who swept into party leadership after a vote Saturday.

Nancy Jacobson, No Labels CEO, has an L.A. Times opinion piece attacking two-party “duopoly” and defending its plans for a potential third-party presidential bid. One bit of news in the column: it goes further than Ben Chavis said yesterday in … Continue reading No Labels defends its plans →

Jonathan Chait in the Intelligencer, discussing the twin threats to Biden from Cornel West and No Labels. Interesting comparison at the end of the piece to Truman in 1948, who also faced splintering from two different sides: Strom Thurmond as … Continue reading “Joe Biden May Face Two Spoiler Candidates in 2024” →

POLITICO: “The centrist group consists of a constellation of entities, some of which disclose donor names. But the main one is a nonprofit which, unlike political parties, does not have to reveal the names of its funders. And in an … Continue reading “No Labels declines to reveal just who is funding its third party bid” →

Julie Bykowicz for WSJ: The 13-year-old nonprofit group, which has a $70 million budget, has qualified for the ballot in Arizona, Alaska, Colorado, Oregon and Utah and is pursuing access elsewhere. Arizona Democrats are suing to kick No Labels off the … Continue reading “A Mysteriously Financed Group That Could Upend a Biden-Trump Rematch” →

McMinnville child welfare worker claims that Senate absences and fundraising activities are unlawful — and she wants the state to investigate.

Despite widespread support among voters—and a Democratic supermajority in the capitol—opponents of the state’s cap-and-trade legislation opted for anarchy instead.

The Oregon Republican senators who've walked out on #HB2020 and a cap-and-trade vote say they're representing their constituents. Taken together, their campaigns have been funded by one primary constituent: Corporate America. pic.twitter.com/i29Ul714bB— Rob Davis (@robwdavis) June 24, 2019

Here's what you need to know as lawmakers prepare to wrap things up in Salem

Oregon's high-spending session, which ended Saturday evening, was made possible by an unexpectedly robust rebound in Oregon’s economy and an infusion of billions of dollars in federal recovery funds. Sweeping police accountability reforms passed thanks to lawmakers’ heightened awareness of racial inequities and desire to address them, but leaders from communities of color cited several major proposals legislators failed to pass.

This year the legislative session needed to adapt to the coronavirus pandemic, which meant closing the Capitol to the public.