Posted: Friday, September 5, 2008 12:00 am
Bill Lunch will speak at coming Corvallis City Club meeting
By THERESA HOGUE
Gazette-Times reporter
Professor Bill Lunch, chair of Oregon State University's department of political science, will speak at the Corvallis City Club's second-season kickoff Monday during lunch at the First Presbyterian Church.
Lunch, a political analyst for Oregon Public Broadcasting, will speak on the current political landscape, focusing on Oregon races and primaries. He'll touch briefly on the presidential race, but said there's already an overwhelming amount of information on the candidates available to voters, so he'll focus on the issues before Oregon voters in November.
"I'll be giving an overview of the choices we have upcoming in the election," Lunch said.
The U.S. Senate race between incumbent Republican Gordon Smith and Democrat Jeff Merkley has national significance, Lunch said, and the 5th Congressional District race to fill Rep. Darlene Hooley's position also will be drawing attention.
Lunch said he suspects Oregon's races will reflect a national trend.
"Overall the cast of the electorate is heavily in favor of the Democrats, nationally, not just here," he said. The Democratic caucus in Oregon is hoping to increase its majority this fall, especially in the House, where it needs five additional seats in order to overcome a supermajority vote, required on some issues.
For example, Lunch said, in 2007 the Democrats proposed maintaining a 10-cents-per-pack surcharge on cigarettes, which was about to expire, but the Republicans voted against keeping the surcharge, calling it a "new tax."
The Democrats, while still up 31 to 29, needed a supermajority, or 36 votes to 23, to keep the surcharge, and the issue failed. Lunch doubts they'll be able to get the extra six Democratic seats they want to overcome the supermajority, despite the trend toward voting in Democrats in the current climate.
"That's probably a stretch for them," he said. "Maybe they'll get 35."
Lunch doesn't plan on covering all of the myriad ballot measures before voters.
"Some are really routine," he said. But he'll highlight some. Ballot measures 57 and 61 both deal with property crime issues, so he'll touch on those briefly, and Measure 59 has the greatest potential financial impact on the state. It would make federal income taxes fully deductible on Oregon returns, and if passed, would cause the state to lose approximately $2.5 billion in revenue per biennium, Lunch said.
"It's been on the ballot before," Lunch said. "I suspect it will fail again."
Measure 65 is a "top two" initiative which would revamp the election system to hold open primaries, and the top two candidates, regardless of political parties, would then advance to the general election. Lunch argues that this would drastically alter the structure of elections, making it likely that only Republicans would be considered by voters in rural Oregon, and only Democrats would end up on ballots in urban centers.
"If it passes it will not make the system less polarized, but more so," he said. He said he'll spend more time explaining Measure 65 than any of the other measures.
"This is a measure that has the potential for all kinds of unintended consequences," he said.
The Corvallis City Club meeting will be from 11:45 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Monday at the First Presbyterian Church, 114 S.W. Eighth St. Admission is free for members, $5 for nonmembers, and free for first-time attendees. A buffet lunch is available for $10. Registration for the lunch is required by Sept. 6. Registration can be done at www.cbchambercoalition. com.
For more information, call 757-1505, ext. 6.