POLITICAL PARTY PROTECTION ACT

February 27, 2006

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“Bradbury’s broken pledge of neutrality”

So says the headline in the Bend Bulletin. The revelation of Bradbury’s behind the scenes maneuvering should suprise no one. But apparently the folks at the Bend Bulletin are shocked by his moves during the legislative session to protect his democratic party. What they don’t know apparently is that Bradbury is the most partisan secretary of state in recent Oregon history and the MOST partisan in the United States.*

As we explained to you on the show (Victoria Taft Show 6-9 pm AM 860 KPAM 6-9pm, stream at KPAM.COM) Friday, because of a new law sponsored by Republican Derrick Kitts and Democrat Mary Nolan with the full blessing (and probably at the behest of) the Secretary of State, ol’ fly in the ointment candidate Ben Westlund will have trouble getting some of the signatures he’ll need to make the Oregon’s ballot for the November governor’s election in which he wishes to run as an Independent.


Here’s the problem:

Now if a voter takes part in a partisan primary and signs a petition for an independent candidate, the signature doesn’t count.

This bill, which by the way Westlund voted against, was created so that the republicans who tried to help Ralph Nader get on the ballot as an Independent to siphon votes from the democrats, couldn’t do it again. Bills similar to this have been upheld before the US Supreme Court (SCOTUS). (Citations etc later when I get to KPAM).The secretary of state’s (SOS) office worked overtime to disqualify as many signatures as possible on the Nader nominating petitions making up rules as they went along. It was outrageous. So outrageous in fact that the Nader people (Greg Kafoury, Dan Meek et al) took their case to the US Supreme Court where they lost. SCOTUS said the SOS could make up rules and didn’t have to write them down (?!) The SOS of course has made it his mission to make it onerous for anyone to put an initiative petition (or nominating petition) on the ballot preferring to have the legislature do his bidding (much more easy to control). So onerous in fact, that if you look at the situation you’ll see that the SOS actually vets initiative petitions and their signatures more painstakingly than our ballots. As you’ve learned on the show the SOS’s office doesn’t check details of voters–most outrageously whether or not they’re citizens. They separate the ballot from the signature envelope a week in advance of the election and many counties (four were queried before the rest destroyed their voting information by law) count the votes of the people who never provided proper identification. There were more than 20,000 votes unchecked in the last election. I’m sure there were more but then as noted above the evidence was destroyed because that’s what the rules say.
*John Fund Wall Street Journal on the Victoria Taft Show am 860 KPAM 6-9pm Stream at kpam.com

Tell ’em where you saw it. Http://www.victoriataft.com