Governor and State Legislature

A much-predicted “blue wave” swept Oregon and the nation in Tuesday’s election, returning Democratic Gov. Ted Kulongoski for a second term, swinging the Oregon House of Representatives to Democratic control, and also turning the U.S. House and Senate over to the Democrats.

In other key results in Oregon, the tax and spending measures 41 and 48 (which AeA opposed) went down to a crushing defeat as voters rejected campaigns financed by out of state supporters. Voters also rejected measures to re-instate term limits and require parental notice for abortions for teenage girls.

Democratic Gov. Ted Kulongoski was re-elected by a margin that was greater than some would have thought a month ago. In a record-setting campaign that saw more money spent than ever for the Governor’s seat, Kulongoski captured 51% of the vote to 43% for Republican Ron Saxton with the remainder split by three minor party candidates. Kulongoski’s margin of victory was slightly higher than the 49-46 margin over Kevin Mannix four years ago.

In the State Legislature, the Senate stayed where it’s been, with 17 Democrats, 11 Republicans, and two independents. Democrat Vicki Walker barely held on to her seat in Eugene in the year’s closest Senate race by defeating former mayor Jim Torrey.

In the night’s most stunning development, Democrats took control of the Oregon House of Representatives for the first time since 1990 by picking up seats in Eugene (Chris Edwards), Newport (Jean Cowan), Salem (Brian Clem), and Hillsboro (David Edwards).

Current Republican Speaker of the House Karen Minnis barely held onto her seat in east county.

Rep. Jeff Merkley of Portland, who led the successful Democratic House efforts, will become the new speaker when the Legislature convenes in January. Sen. Peter Courtney of Salem will remain Senate President.

State ballot measures

A broad coalition of labor unions, seniors, advocates for social services, and the business community joined forces to defeat Measures 41 (which cut income taxes) and 48 (which would have imposed a new state spending limit). Margins of victory were huge in both races. AeA took a public position opposing both measures.

Only three of the 10 proposed ballot measures passed. Measure 39 will disallow government condemnation of private property if the property were to be used by another private party. Measure 44 will expand an existing program to provide discount drugs to Oregonians. And voters said yes to Measure 47 that proposes limits on campaign finance. But voters rejected the constitutional amendment Measure 46 that would allow such limits. So the outcome of Measure 47 is uncertain and will be worked out in the courts.

Voters said no to measures that would have: required judges to be elected by districts (40), prohibited insurance companies from using credit scores in calculating rates (42), required parental notice before young women ages 15-17 could have an abortion (43), and enacted term limits for legislators (45).

Congressional races

All five Oregon members of Congress were reelected with Darlene Hooley, Earl Blumenauer, Peter DeFazio, Greg Walden, and David Wu returning to Washington. (There was no U.S. Senate race this year in Oregon).

Other races and measures

Virginia Linder, who currently serves on the Oregon Court of Appeals, appears to have defeated Jack Roberts, former state labor commissioner and Republican candidate for Governor in the 2002 primary, in a bid for an open seat on the Oregon Supreme Court.

Jeff Cogan defeated Lew Frederick for a seat on the Multnomah County Commission, and Kathy Harrington won out over Tom Cox in the race for the Metro District 4 seat.

Voters also waded through a host of money measures for local schools and government. Portland voters passed a local-option school funding measure by a wide margin. Beaverton voters said yes to a $195 million school construction bond. And a Hillsboro schools $169 million construction bond passed narrowly.

Metro area voters also approved a measure to purchase additional open spaces across the region.

What does it all mean?

It will take time to chart the long-term impacts of the election results. Clear winners Tuesday in Oregon were labor unions, environmentalists, and trial lawyers – the traditional deep pockets for Democratic candidates. But it’s not certain that business interests will be rolled over in the new Democratic legislature. One key to the Democrats’ takeover of the House was that they recruited a number of new candidates with business backgrounds – candidates like Dave Edwards in Hillsboro, Brian Clem in Salem, Chris Edwards in Eugene, and Tobias Read in Beaverton. And many business interests supported the Governor’s re-election.

One outcome is that Oregon has a chance to go into the next budget period with sufficient resources to address some key issues (K-12 education, higher education, and health care) without a huge debate over new taxes. Clearly Gov. Kulongoski has the solid support of the voters to pursue initiatives in these areas.

Will we see a return to civility and bipartisanship in the Legislature? Hard to say. The nastiness of the long campaign makes it hard for lawmakers to forget all of those campaign hit pieces and work together. Democrats clearly have the ball in their court. And they will need to deliver results to prove that the voter mandate was deserved.