Oregon Senate Republicans announce all but one hope to be back in 2017 →

Taylor Anderson writing for The Bulletin:

These Republicans are seeking re-election: Sens. Herman Baertschiger Jr, of Grants Pass; Brian Boquist, of Dallas; Ted Ferrioli, of John Day; Fred Girod, of Stayton; Bill Hansell, of Athena; Tim Knopp, of Bend; and Jeff Kruse, of Roseburg.

Almost every Oregon Senator is running for re-election.

The fate of Sen. Doug Whitsett, R-Klamath Falls,wasn’t immediately clear. His term expires at the end of next year but his name was left off the list of Republican senators seeking re-election.

Whitsett likely didn't want to be pressured by the caucus. I wouldn't be surprised if he announces his re-election himself later this year except on his own schedule.

Climate Change Fuels a Run For Governor →

Dr. Julian Bell is running in the Democrat primary for Governor against Kate Brown. This from Eugene Weekly (note: link is currently broken):

Bell says Brown has had a “bully pulpit” since taking office after former governor John Kitzhaber stepped down, but she hasn’t advanced environmental and climate change issues. Avoiding controversy for a year and half, he says, is not something to be proud of when talking about accomplishments as governor.

I don't understand Bell's argument here. Brown and Legislative Democrats passed a "clean fuels" bill even after they got a lot of pushback and were forced to kill a gas tax hike. Seems to me Brown is doing exactly what Bell says she should be doing.

Rep. Peter Buckley won't run again for House in 2016 →

With Buckley gone, the fight for the position of House Co-Chair of Ways & Means, the powerful budget writing committee, will be ugly. The House Democrats currently on Ways & Means are:

  • Nancy Nathanson
  • David Gomberg
  • Dan Rayfield
  • Betty Komp
  • Tobias Read
  • Jennifer Williamson

Nathanson is the current Democrat Co-Vice Chair and is my best guess on the most likely successor. Gomberg is a potential alternative. Rayfield is very new to Ways & Means. Too new, I think, to take over as Co-Chair. Komp would be my top pick except I've heard rumors she's not running again. If she decides to run again she may become Co-Chair. Read is running for Treasurer so he can't. Willaimson was just elected Majority Leader and is likely to be very busy. Majority Leaders are rarely ever also Co-Chairs of Ways & Means.

Speaker Rosenbaum →

Update: It looks like Rosenbaum did serve as Speaker of the House for 7 days during a transitional period after Jeff Merkley was elected to the U.S. Senate. Thanks to David for tipping me off. I think it's misleading to include her incredibly brief interim Speakership on a list of accomplishments. The general public wouldn't understand the circumstances or the shortness of her service.

Additionally, official state websites and Wikipedia should include her speakership. If someone served as speaker it should at least be noted for historical purposes. It doesn't matter if it's for 30 years or 30 minutes.

Note: I've edited the Wikipedia page to include a footnote noting Rosenbaum was a Speaker for 7 days. I also submitted the information to the Oregon Secretary of State. I am hopeful they will update their list of Oregon Speakers to include a brief footnote as well.

Senator Rosenbaum was elected Senate President Pro Tem last night. There are two very odd items in her statement. First:

Senate Democrats met in Salem this evening for a regularly scheduled caucus meeting.

Notice how it specifies a "regularly scheduled caucus meeting" (the statement goes on to mention the official vote will occur at a "regularly scheduled floor session"). Nothing bad ever happens at regularly scheduled caucus meetings right? In reality she's being demoted.

The second item is even more interesting:

Before being elected to the Senate, she served five terms in the Oregon House of Representatives, where she served as House Speaker, House Speaker Pro Tem, chair of House Rules, and House Whip. The Oregon Senate will vote on her nomination as President Pro Tempore on Tuesday, September 29.

There is no record of Rosenbaum ever serving as the Speaker of the Oregon House.

How David Taylor found his way to the IPO →

David recalled, “(The) Democrats told me my issues were not their issues and instead they were solely focused on keeping Dems in power”. He told them he was interested in running for his House District (30). This presented a problem for the Democratic leaders, since the incumbent Joe Gallegos was a Democrat. However, the word was out that Gallegos may not seek re-election. David thought there was a chance for him to get the party support, or at least their commitment to be neutral if there were a contested primary. He was wrong. “I was told they needed to keep a hispanic in the District 30 seat and I met the other candidate they planned on taking Gallegos seat should he leave office“

This is a testament to the organization of the House Democrats. They protect their chosen candidate in a contested primary. They already had a hand-picked successor if he planned to leave.

“When I met with the republican chair (of Washington County) I was told that my veteran, unemployment and education issues weren’t the republican parties issues and instead Gay Marriage was the only “frontal assault” that they intended to use. I was told that unless I would ‘carry that flag’ I would be asking their party to set aside their beliefs and they wouldn’t.

The Washington County Republican party may want their chosen candidate to run on gay marriage but that's not likely to happen. The latest shows that 32% of Republicans nationwide support gay marriage. In Oregon that number is probably a bit higher.

That means roughly 206,000 of the 643,928 registered Republicans in Oregon oppose gay marriage. Oregon House Republicans and Business lobby will force the Republican nominee in HD 30 to talk about more important issues like jobs and education. If they don't House Republicans and the lobby will find someone else. Either way, don't expect gay marriage to be a big issue in HD 30.

Donald Trump Might Be Saving Our Democracy →

Far from being a threat to democracy or a freak show unworthy of serious coverage, it matters because it’s taking a much-needed wrecking ball to some of what has made our sterile politics and dysfunctional government as bankrupt as Trump’s Atlantic City casinos. If that’s entertainment, so be it. If Hillary Clinton’s campaign or the Republican Party is reduced to rubble along the way, we can live with it. Trump will not make America great again, but there’s at least a chance that the chaos he sows will clear the way for those who can.

New York Magazine has the most thoughtful piece on Donald Trump I've seen. I disagree with their point of view on many things, but they are correct about much.

Let's be clear, I hate Donald Trump. Yet it's possible he may have done the party service by exposing some incredible weaknesses within the GOP.

If Trump eventually succeeds in destroying the Republican Party then conservatism will be forced to evolve. It's not the best case scenario by any means, but it's also not the worst.

If he somehow succeeds in destroying conservatism itself, then things will be much much worse.

HealthCare.gov rife with security flaws, federal audit finds →

It sounds like a gold mine for ID thieves," said Jeremy Gillula, staff technologist for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil liberties group focused on technology. "I'm kind of surprised that this information was never compromised."

The flaws uncovered by auditors included issues of security policy — where mistakes can have bigger consequences — as well as 135 database vulnerabilities, of which nearly two dozen were classified as potentially severe or catastrophic.

Obamacare is very bad. Government IT might just be worse.

The Apple bias is real →

Vlad Savov for The Verge:

Readers are right to claim that the iPhone is treated differently from other smartphones, and reviewers are correct in doing so. Apple makes more in quarterly profit than many of its mobile competitors are worth, and the success and failure of its smartphone plays a large role in shaping the fate of multiple related industries. The iPhone is reviewed like a transcendental entity that's more than just the sum of its metal, plastic, and silicon parts, because that's what it is.