Of course the position should not be non-partisan. Any current "non-partisan" position is a charade, and people vote on partisan clues and hints. That's stupid.

This is worthwhile discussion. Impartiality from the person who oversees the electoral process is vital. It's an easy leap to conclude that the office should be nonpartisan, but there are important considerations to the contrary. As noted by others in the past few days, Oregon's secretaries of state often run for higher office, most often governor. These higher office are partisan, as are the legislative positions most secretaries hold before running for statewide office. This makes nonpartisanship more a matter of appearance than reality. Appearances do count in politics, but they can also be misleading. As Kate Brown mentions, party affiliation does give voters, many of whom spend little time or effort studying candidates, useful information about candidates philosophical underpinnings.

There has been little apparent abuse of the secretary of state's office in Oregon. The last two (Democratic) secretaries have been harder on candidates of their own party, if there has been any bias. Of course this is not universally true. Brown mentions Ms. Harris of Florida, who was clearly favorable to Republican candidates and to electoral policy that disadvantaged Democratic voters. The situation was as bad or worse in Ohio in 2004 under Republican Kenneth Blackwell. See Was the 2004 Election Stolen? Both these secretaries of state later ran for higher office with significant support from the Republican Party. It is doubtful that serving as a non-partisan would have improved their behavior.

I agree with Kate Brown and Vicki Walker on this. Making the office nonpartisan would offer little real advantage, not enough to outweigh the negative factors.

The Secretary of State does not "run" elections in Oregon. Each of the 36 county clerk or election administrators has charge of running the elections in 36 separate locations. These positions are now all Non-partisan.

In the Secretary of States office it is the head of the Eections Division that ought to be and is "non-partisan".

If there is ever a need for an Elections Division Director to resist an effort by a Secretary of State to improperly attempt to influence an election they need to be able to report such without fear of being fired. This kind of protection should be provided in the states whistleblower protection statutes.

Likewise if an Election Division Director ever acts in a way that shows political favoritism he or she should be fired. This is just what happened a number of years ago. An elections director improperly accepted a Senator's Voter Pamphlet page after the deadline for filing had passed and he was fired for doing so.

I have a few ideas of my own about it over at my place and the Oregonian as well. I'll not waste BO's space re-hashing.

I'm assuming from Kate's post that she's had time to "reveiw the PCOL report more thoroughly before landing on a firm position." In other words, Kate stuck her finger in the air to see which way the wind was blowing. Kate was given the PCOL report the same time as the rest of us in the legislature...before the session began. She was chair of the Rules Committee and was not friendly to many of the proposals of the Commission. Of 11 PCOL bills filed in the Senate, only 4 received public hearings, and only one passed...SCR 1 that set up the supplemental session in February. It's disappointing that Sen. Brown places such a low value on citizen participation.

Thank you Vicki for giving a scorecard on the PCOL bills.

Umm... not many surprises here. Everyone came down just like the vote on Senate Bill 161 from 2005.

I don't see why this story merits such a headline. Maybe the headline should read: Brown, Metsger, and Walker Maintain 2-Year-Old Positions on Key Issue!

(I'm certainly not making my decision on this issue, but I'm glad to see that Walker and Metsger seemed to readily remember how they voted.)

Vicki,

"Stuck her finger in the air to see which way the wind was blowing"? "Low value on citizen participation"? I'm disappointed that you're already going negative in this primary. I'd much rather see Democratic candidates talk about their own strengths than tear down their colleagues.

itb

Good call JHL,

I too couldn't help but wonder why this was news worthy. The headline should read "Candidate X takes position on issue that no one is proposing and that they have already have a position on"

Here is the summary line and measure history of SB 161 in 2005, taken from the legislature's website, www.leg.state.or.us

Senate Bill 161

Designates offices of Governor, Secretary of State, State Treasurer, Attorney General, state Senator and state Representative as nonpartisan.

SB 161 -- Relating to elections. 5-20 Third reading. Carried by Ringo. Passed. Ayes, 20; Nays, 10--Beyer, Brown, Carter, George, Kruse, Nelson, Starr, B., Starr, C., Walker, President Courtney.

I have to admit I am a little disappointed at this elementary school level of discussion on this issue. I feel that most of the people posting here have missed the idea entirely. Of course we want the Secretary of State to perform their duties and responsibilities in an unbiased way and of course we want voters to make well informed decisions.

But can we not aspire to have an election process that is better than the one we have today? It has been said many times that most people make their decision based solely on party affiliation.

The real question is: Is making a decision based solely on party affiliation the most well informed way to make a decision? Is that as good as our electoral process ought to be?

I can’t even count how many times I have seen someone driving down the street in a very old beat up car, with a Bush/Cheney sticker on the bumper. And I think to myself- How on earth can this person not see that Bush does not represent their interests? Somehow this person has missed the fact that Bush’s stance on the issues is against this person; he cuts healthcare to this person, pollutes the air that this person breathes, skews the tax burden off of the wealthy and onto this person, etc etc etc.

I know people who have been long time Democratic activists and that are progressive to the core of their being who have to change their party affiliation in order to win a seat in a strongly republican district. It is not because they have changed their beliefs; it is because the people of that district have it in their mind that they only accept people that are part of their club.

In absence of the party label, voters are forced to look deeper into who these candidates really are and what stance they take on issues that affect their everyday lives. That would be a good thing. This is an idea that should be embraced by Democrats, because our ideas and values are the most populist and benefit the lives of a greater number of people. We have the best ideas, and we would win more seats if people from rural and eastern Oregon would listen to our ideas, rather that reject us on our face because we are not a part of their club (ie. republicans).

David Buchanan is going down the right line. Changing the SOS office shouldn't be the focus.

I'd like to see an independent electoral commission, either appointed or mixed elected and appointed, with appointment nominations to come from a committee with equal representation of two major parties & non-affiliated voters, & non-partisanship an explicit criterion of appointment.

Bill Bradbury pretty clearly has manipulated the signature counting process in respect both to candidate ballot access (Nader) and initiatives (anti-gay measures). In both cases the negative result was favorable to the candidate or position I favored. But it was bad for democracy & contributes to the corruption of the rule of law coming down from the White House. I'll never vote for Bradley again if I can help it.

Whether or not Nader was a screw-up who could have been on the ballot if he'd done something else more effectively is immaterial to what Bradley did; in the case of the signature process, if I'm right, he did do it effectively enough.

In the case of LGBT human rights, the whole situation is immensely depressing. There was no good outcome possible. Denying people's human rights doesn't really belong on the ballot.

Does Oregon have any process by which someone who receives an unfavorable outcome in a signature estimation can pay to have all signatures counted? If not, maybe we should.

I wonder if Kate Brown's statement about the importance of counting all ballots extends to signatures?

Staffer wrote:

"In absence of the party label, voters are forced to look deeper into who these candidates really are and what stance they take on issues that affect their everyday lives."

That is an elementary school level understanding of election dynamics, Staffer. Why do you think huge campaign expenditures go for vacuous, content empty advertising? Because that is what works in our political environment. We better work on leveling the playing field for candidates before we remove easy to perceive signals of political orientation.

Pat-

The current guidepost that voters use is party affiliation. I am asking the question, do you think a better (as in more well informed) guidepost should be issues, rather then what color of shirt you choose to wear or what umbrella you decide to stand under.

Tom-

You are simply changing the subject to campaign finance reform, which I agree needs to happen as well. That is not what I was talking about at all or what this post is about, and don't think I ever said this one step would be a silver bullet to fix every problem we have in our current election system. I am not as naive as to say that any good idea will fix everything and my response was certainly more thoughtful than dittoing a previous comment. Let me think...who did that?

I am pretty sure I simply made the case that it would be a step in the right direction. The direction of having a more well informed electorate.

You can go on thinking that creating a system that directs people to focus on issues is bad and that is fine, it is just wrong.

Sal-

You bring up a good point. I don't like that non-partisan offices are determined in the primary. They should be determined in the general like every other race.

Again, there is no one solution to fix every problem, but rather many problems that require many reforms.

Staffer,

I reference campaign funding because that, along with corporate control of news media, is the most powerful determiner of our political climate. It overwhelms such a subtle change as you suggest in the way a rising ocean tide overwhelms the flow of a small coastal creek. In such an environment, a simple and clear indicator like party affiliation is more worthwhile than an opportunity to look more closely at the issues. Political changes can never be effectively considered in isolation from the overall political environment.

Your opinion is welcome, but labeling the input of several experienced political activists who have commented here as "elementary school level" is way off target.

Cura te ipsum

I second Kari's call.

So, Oregon is like NY and in districts where it is sometimes tough to find one candidate from each party (mostly rural districts ignored by one or both caucuses) there would be multiple candidates or multiple parties?

More importantly, check out http://www.leg.state.or.us/pcol/

If memory serves, the PCOL proposal was not to make the entire Sec. of State office nonpartisan, it was to create a State Controller position to take over the election duties of Sec. of State, while all the other duties listed on http://www.sos.state.or.us/ would remain in the Sec. of State office and Sec. of State would still be a partisan office.

Is there a written proposal to keep Sec. of State office as it is but make it as nonpartisan as Supt. of Public Instruction?

I agree with Jamais Vu

"Are we supposed to believe that someone who becomes well-established in politics by getting elected to partisan positions will suddenly shelve their political views by running for a non-partisan office?"

Bradley has proven by his actions as SoS that he is unfit for any other office. It is time to remove anything to do with elections from the office of SoS.

I second Kari's call for fusion if we can't have Instant Runoff Voting.

Making the SoS a nonpartisan position is completely sensible, but one that requires you to put aside the "way things have always been" and embrace positive change. Two main functions of the SoS are elections and audits. I'm having a hard time understanding why anyone would want this position to be partisan -- unless you're just assuming Dems will always control it. I can't even imagine the outrage here if a Republican SoS were making decisions that went against progressive interests or was rigorously auditing Kulongoski's agencies just for fun. What is it that the SoS does that should in any way be influenced by party affiliation?

In response to some of the concerns raised so far:

1. A nonpartisan race does not mean that the candidate is unaffiliated, simply that they don't run with a party label. Most news articles will note that "Mary Smith, running for SoS, is a registered Democrat (or a NAV, or a Republican)." So voters who want to identify party label will certainly be able to do so.

2. As for succession to Governor, are some of you suggesting that people vote for SoS based on that, yet those same people won't spend 10 minutes looking beyond party affiliation if we take away the party label? That's a contradiction. The reality is that probably only 20% of voters could even tell you that the SoS is next in line.

3. Making the SoS nonpartisan WILL change the behavior of those in that office because it will change the nature of the people who run -- or at the very least, they will approach it differently when they decide to seek the office. The fact that the SoS is a stepping stone to the Governor's office is exactly the problem -- it shouldn't be that way, and making it nonpartisan will likely dissuade those who see it as a way to pad their resumes, yet encourage those who view it as a significant, important job unto itself.

Everyone seems to agree that the most important thing is that the individual act in an ethical, nonpartisan manner. I agree. But appearance and trust are also important, and taking away the party label takes away the appearance of impropriety -- as well as the pressure from "your" party to engage in some actual impropriety.

I view this as one more reason to vote against Walker and Brown, and for Metsger.

"I second Kari's call for fusion if we can't have Instant Runoff Voting."

Is either of those going to happen unless a Sec. of State candidate or other candidate campaigns on it, talks about it in town hall meetings, etc.?

Kari, Tom, LT, and anyone else who is saying fusion voting is better than non-partisan elections-

Is that what Kate is saying in her press release? Or is she simply saying she likes the system the way it is, proposing zero reforms?

Staffer, to set the record straight, I do not support either fusion voting or IRV. I support a nonpartisan legislature and a debate over the PCOL proposal which seems to me to say the Sec. of State remains partisan but the election duties go to a State Controller.

TJ,

It would be news if I could prove it. As it is, it is like any number of things that are or have been pretty clear to me, according to my best judgment of the evidence that is available to me. As distinct from "might or might not be" or "very clear." It was very clear to me that Bush intended to make war on Iraq from sometime in mid-2002. It was pretty clear to me that Hussein most like didn't have Ws of MD, given what the people who would know best were saying, and given that Bush was so keen to prevent them from doing their work.

I don't have details clear in my head and don't have time to dig them up now, but my sense memory of the struggles over Nader's ballot access is that there were some bad-smelling choices along the way, not illegal but not necessary or ethical, to getting to the number of petitions from which Bradbury did his estimates. And his overall attitude was extremely partisan, and there were people who were saying things to the effect of "Well, I'm not saying it's true, but what if it were? What do expect? Do we really want Nader on the ballot? This is just playing hardball."

Since then there have been several initiatives that have gone down on signature count estimates falling short by tiny margins. I just don't think lightning strikes that closely that much.

So its just an opinion, based on inference rather than clear evidence, but I don't think I ever said it was more than that. But it still seems pretty clear to me ... maybe I should have phrased it that way.

I have no idea what Kate Brown thinks about fusion voting.

For the record, I prefer instant runoff voting which gives more choice to the voter than does fusion.

FYI, Kate Brown was chair of the Senate Rules Committee in 2005. After fusion voting (HB 3021) passed out of the House 49-2, it died in the Senate Rules Committee without a vote scheduled.

Is this the bill you mean?

HB 3021 By Representative KROPF; Representative BOQUIST (at the request of Libertarian Party of Oregon) -- Relating to elections.

<h2>Yup. There's only one HB 3021 from 2005.</h2>