Oregon politics and government we specifically chose part of that progressive conservative populace after we discussed it kind of what the state was like and actually its an edited volume and there are actually 14 different scholars involved and participating, considerate considerable discussion. We could have called it liberal versus conservative, but we felt that would not capture the character of what oregon is about. Oregon has long been known to be a progressive state and doing new things and going somewhere and that its using education in the best practices to try to develop policies that work well, so thats why we chose progressive rather than calling it liberal. We could call the rural parts of the state conservative. What we really want to emphasizes that during about a 22 met thirtyyear period a lot of the rhetoric from the conservative side of the state state was a populist rhetoric and to be honest oregon has had a lot of populism within the conservative side and liberal side dating back even 100 years longer we have a very big populist streak. And everyone should have a say and participate and have an open political system, so wed chose those particular terms because we thought it was about to capture the conservativism we see here as well as the liberalism we see here as well. Like many parts of the country in the late 1800s there was a lot of Party Machines in the states. The state was dominated first by a Democratic Party machine based out of salem called the salem click and then in the latter part of the 19th century it was a more republican machine and they all tied into the railroad, Transportation Industry and a very corrupt party organization. One of the things we are known for his we had a progressive revolt in the state. Initially in the post civil war period many farmers began to feel the machines or mistreating them, the government wasnt thinking about them and so there was revolt among farmers, the populist and other groups besides farmers are joined in, laborers, workers, middle class who thought the government was to corrupt. Portland, oregon, was part of the progressive movement. We had progressive reformers who came along and introduced a variety of different type of political reforms that really changed the character of oregon and change the character of the nation as well. Of the most important political figure the state was william who was the father of democracy in the state. He was the one who pushed for us to have initiative and referendum. Its hard not to talk about the early history of oregon and the Important Role he had to play. The Initiative Process is a process in which private citizens can gather signatures and if they get enough signatures they can put it proposed while on the ballot for people to vote on and during the early part of the 19th century 20th century we use the initiative quite a lot to change the direction of the state. There was a bit of a slowdown in that im a but then beginning in the 1980s until about 10 years ago that initiative was used a lot and in a sense it was considered progressive reform and change the government work. The populist reform the notion was we would make sure its not an elite, but that the people of a way to put laws on the ballot 10 vote on them directly. That is one of the reforms. Direct primary elections, of course, many states introduce primary elections, but oregon was one of the earliest. Oregon likes to talk about that it was the first state that try to make sure us senators reflected not just by the state legislators, but reflected above the preferences of the public, so after that initiative was enacted we had an initiative to introduce a rule requiring the legislature to appoint someone to be a us senator who received the popular vote of the people in the state, so those are some important ones. Organs have a lot of very colorful politicians or at least they did oregon had a lot of important politicians from the 1940s until about the 1980s, some that were different from the rest of the state i mean different from the rest of the nation. They were mavericks in the state was perceived as having maverick politicians including wayne morris who was called the tiger of the u. S. Senate. He started out as a republican, became an independent and then a democrat in the 1950s. He was one of the two people in the senate who opposed the vietnam war. We talk about mark hatfield, part of the Hatfield School government. Hatfield was governor and then a us senator and he was a republican, but very liberal. Bob packwood was a liberal republican us senator. Of the most important politician in the state, the one that everyone talks about in the newspaper and the newspapers and others say why arent politics like they used it to be in the 70s, was tom mccall. , call was the governor of the state in the 1970s and probably my called the golden era of portland, oregon politics when some of the most important progressive reforms were taking place in mccall was at the forefront of that reform and so routinely when people talk about oregon and oregonians talk about our political history they talk about tom mccall. One of the interesting things about, call us while he was governor he was republican, very moderate republican. The treasurer was a fellow by the name of bob staab, a democrat. He was the leading democrat in the state for many years. He ran for governor four times and was elected once. When he was treasurer, he would often make a suggestion on something the state ought to do and then mccall would say thats a good idea, we ought to do that you could just imagine the world today in which a democrat said when we do that and it republican turned around and said yes, thats a good idea, lets do that. You know, unimaginable today. Buck, thats what it was like in the 1970s and 80s. Of the most important conservative populace in the state during the 1990s, he was the one who used the Initiative Process better, more effectively than anyone else. Throughout the 1990s the legislature and stay continuously had to respond to what Bill Sizemore was proposing. Sizemore became very effective because he turned that Initiative Process into a business, so than that way in essence he could make money while putting initiatives on the ballot and so when you get to the 1990s and the first part of this millennium, you see one initiative after the other on the ballot that Bill Sizemore was able to get onto the ballot, so he was the most important sort of player and initiative in politics and sort of the most important populace because even though he wasnt elected governor and did not serve in the legislature the fact he was able to put initiatives on the ballots meant his opinion and ideas had to be listened to. Sometimes actually, when we wrote this book at one point we discussed having instead of the theme being the progressive versus conservative populace we actually thought that they might be that Initiative Process. Four, 15 to 20 years with such a big deal and part of the state and politically what going on affecting our single chapter we talked about in their. When we talked about the governor, we had sizemore ran for governor one year and he was defeated. The newly elected governor had all these things on his agenda he was going to do, but sizemore said you need to think about these things or else i will run an initiative in the next campaign if you dont, so even though we had a brandnew governor elected and had these things he wanted to do, almost the whole discussion turned around and focused on what bills met Bill Sizemore said they need to do within the legislature, so very effective resource for shaping the direction of the state politics. One of the most interesting things right now and oregon politics is the position of women within the state of oregon. We have a woman who governor, kate brown. A woman who is speaker of the house. We have a woman, majority leader in the senate, majority leader in the house. In the house we have the Democratic Caucus is a majority of women. Thats one of the most interesting phenomenons right now going on in oregon is the Important Role women are shaping the direction of the state. What i want people to recognize is that there are still two organs. Baeza progressive side. In some cases its almost pretrade [inaudible] we have things we known for, physicianassisted suicide, legalization of marijuana, a variety 15dollar minimum wage, things like that and that exists and we have a very liberal important and also a very conservative start side of the state. Small pounds where they believe in sort of traditional values and oregon is not just the progressive state in which you may see on television, but actually two different states. You are watching the tv, television for serious readers. You can watch any program you see here online at boot book twiki. Org
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