Mrs Dibbly & I will probably change our registrations from unaffiliated to D just to help any primary opponents. I encourage anyone else in the same situation to do the same. I *really* wish I was in Tina Koteck's district. You can be sure that my friends in her district will hear about this.

What are the chances that the CRC will suck resources out of TriMet in future years? Honestly, I'm not familiar with all of the pots of money to be able to track all of this. I haven't noticed anyone making arguments about it being bad for transit, but i suspect that there will be an adverse impact, somehow. That might be a good point to make to the average Portland voter, particularly in light of the latest doom & gloom forecasts coming out of TriMet.

Democrats could have chosen someone else to be House Speaker. Don't you think there is a method to their madness?

I live in Vancouver and strongly hope it fails, either in Oregon or Washington. Not because I hate "loot rail" -- I rode it regularly once the Yellow Line made it to Delta Park and then the Blue Line to West Beaverton from the C-Tran Expresses once I started working at Nike three and a half years ago -- but because my self-important (and self-ish) fellow "countians" do and I'd just plain love to see them spend the rest of their lives stuck in the afternoon jam ups on I-5.

If Dante were alive today, the Seventh Circle would be a stau (Deutsch for "autobahn traffic jam").

Don't political parties have a shelf life? A "use-by-this-date" label? There's trouble ahead, and trouble behind.

Ron: look up "Duverger's Law" in Wikipedia. Transitions to new parties are really hard in a system subject to Duverger's Law.

To avoid Duverger's Law and allow for natural changes in the political landscape, you need what's known as "party-proportional representation". Approval voting would also help.

One interesting thing pointed out to me by a friend who is active in state Democratic politics (and a CRC opponent): HB 2690, the legislation in question, is presently designated as "emergency" legislation; meaning it takes effect upon passage, rather than 90 days after being signed by the governor.

This could be because a) some USDOT deadline is appproaching, and the CRC might miss a funding window otherwise, *or* b) supporters are anticipating an initiative petition to overturn the project, and wish to frustrate that.

And yes, there are parallels with the latter scenario, and how the prior Clackamas County board of commissioners did their darnedest to further MLR (including payment of the monies due TriMet, arguably ahead of schedule, and by taking out a bank loan rather than engaging in the usual bonding authority) before being swept out of office by Tootie and company.

And yes, there are parallels with the latter scenario, and how the prior Clackamas County board of commissioners did their darnedest to further MLR (including payment of the monies due TriMet, arguably ahead of schedule, and by taking out a bank loan rather than engaging in the usual bonding authority) before being swept out of office by Tootie and company.

~~~>Anything that involves big money which ends up in the pockets of Oregon's power players will get through whatever legislators it is in front of.
Crony capitalism is alive and well not only here but around the entire country.
They will rape the citizens for everything they can.

This could be because a) some USDOT deadline is appproaching, and the CRC might miss a funding window otherwise, *or* b) supporters are anticipating an initiative petition to overturn the project, and wish to frustrate that.

I expect it's the latter. The last thing supporters want is for the people to be able to vote on this. If referral is out of the question, the alternative is a repeal petition -- that would take a lot more signatures to get on the ballot (87,213 for an initiative vs. 58,142 for a referendum), and might be moot if construction contracts get signed in the interim.

Still, an initiative petition might be a viable blocking strategy if there are enough opponents with enough organization: the day the Governor signs the bill, file a repeal petition and then go immediately to court to seek an injunction against any contracts being signed or money disbursed until the repeal measure comes to a vote.