For most of Wednesday, it seemed as though conservative initiative sponsor Bill Sizemore’s 2008 batting average might look better than some observers had predicted.
While four of his five statewide ballot measures failed decisively in Tuesday’s election, one — Measure 64, which limits payroll deduction procedures for government employees — held a sizeable lead through much of Wednesday, although final unofficial results will not likely be known until today at the earliest. As of late evening, it was winning 50.49 percent to 49.51 percent, although thousands of votes from Multnomah and Lane counties, where opposition to the measure was running high, had yet to be counted.
The measure, similar to three others Sizemore has unsuccessfully proffered since 1998, would prohibit money that government employees have deducted from their paychecks via the government paycheck system, from being used for political purposes. So, under the measure, if government employees have money deducted from their paychecks and channeled to labor unions or non-profit advocacy groups, those organizations can’t use the money for most political purposes.
The wording of the ballot measure was more legalistic and technical than that: “Penalizes person, entity for using funds collected with ‘public resource’ ... for ‘political purpose.’ ”
That phrasing, according to Bill Lunch, chairman of the political science department at Oregon State University, made all the difference. “It’s the ballot title,” he said. “We know that a third of the voters very typically, probably more than third, go to the polls and they know essentially nothing about any of the ballot measures.”
That makes the negotiated language of the ballot measure crucial. In the case of Measure 64, Lunch said, voters might well read it and think, “Sounds good to me, if that’s all I know. It sounds very plausible, sounds logical. As it turns out, the real purpose is very different from that, but that’s not on the ballot.”
Sizemore offered a more positive spin on the relative success of Measure 64, which, if implemented as he envisions, would dramatically hamper unions’ ability to raise the kind of money — more than $12 million — that they spent to defeat his and other statewide measures this election season.
“This measure has always been hard to beat, because the principle that’s embodied in this measure is so American,” Sizemore said Wednesday. “The measure is based on the principle of government remaining neutral in elections, and not using your tax dollars to help one side or the other.” Sizemore argues that allowing government employees to use the government’s payroll system to send money to unions or other political-oriented groups amounts to government abdicating its neutrality.
Critics argued the measure would restrict the individual rights of thousands of Oregon public employees, denying them the ability to make their own decisions about payroll deductions. They also worried it would have unintended and harmful consequences for charitable groups that currently get funded through workplace deductions — a concern Sizemore called “totally groundless,” as the measure doesn’t apply to lobbying efforts.
Sizemore said the unions’ media blitz against his measures made for a tough fight.
“This election made it really obvious that the playing field is very tilted in their favor,” he said. “They’re buying the airwaves and saying this measure will silence their voice.”
Scott Moore, a spokesman for Defend Oregon, a mostly union-backed committee fighting Sizemore’s and other ballot measures, said opponents were cautiously optimistic Measure 64 would fail, once all the votes are tallied. Should it pass, he said, they’d have to consider whether to fight it in court or seek a legislative fix.
“Laws that have been similar in other states have been overturned in federal appeals courts,” Moore said, mentioning Idaho and Utah. Measure 64, he said, is “much broader and much more extreme” than those. “We’ll see what happens.”
Sizemore’s other four measures would have restricted the time English language learners can be taught in their native tongue; made federal taxes fully deductible on state returns, required teacher pay raises be based on classroom performance and loosened building permit requirements.
Lunch said one of the biggest factors working against all five measures was Sizemore himself — something Defend Oregon capitalized on in ads.
“He’s got such a negative public image that just about anything associated with him is likely to fail — though there are limits to that,” he said. “Among the measures, (64) looks as if it’s the most popular. Or to put it the other way around, the least unpopular.”