Talk:Oregon State Senate

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

You have new messages (last change).
This article is part of WikiProject Oregon, a comprehensive WikiProject dedicated to articles about topics related to the U.S. state of Oregon. If you would like to participate, you can edit this article, or join by visiting the project page, or contribute to the project discussion.
This article is supported by the Oregon Government & Politics Workgroup.


This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Oregon State Senate article.
This is not a forum for general discussion about the article's subject.
Article policies

[edit] Use of term "cabinet" problematic

I don't think the use of the term cabinet is accurate in the context of the list of gubernatorial appointees in which it was included in this article. The issue of whether or not a cabinet even exists in Oregon is one which is debated by political scientists. The term "state cabinet" as it was used here was linked to the article Cabinet, which describes a cohesive group of senior advisors, usually of the chief executive's choosing. Since the Oregon State Treasurer and Secretary of State are chosen by state-wide election, and often oppose the policies of the Governor, it is rather a different situation than exists at the federal level. Many department and other agency heads which could be described as "cabinet level" are appointed by the legislature rather than the Governor.

It is true that the high level state office holders and bureaucrats in the present Kulongoski administration show more cohesiveness and cooperation than in the past, but not so much that the State Treasurer wanted to even be seen being sworn in with the rest of the bunch, and the situation could change within just a few election cycles.

I did some Google searching and could find almost no credible references to an Oregon cabinet except this article. The phrase is seldom used in the press, and when it is, it is inconsistent, sometimes referring only to the Governor, SOS & Treasurer, other times including the other statewide officers, and yet others including senior department heads.

Since the Kulongoski administration has pretty well succeeded in its efforts to rename state agencies according to a consistent scheme, where "cabinet level" offices head Departments, which are further subdivided into Divisions and Sections, each being distinguishable from advisory and governing Boards and Commissions (a few stray Bureaus) still remaining, I thought that changing the list to show Departments first, followed by other appointments made sense.

Hope that sufficiently explains my decision to change two words. Sheesh. -- "J-M" Jgilhousen 00:08, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Term Limits in Oregon

Citing the Oregonian's front page story, I rewrote the bit on Oregon senatorial term limits, which was a bit misleading as it appeared. The previous version seemed to imply that the Oregon Supreme Court had ruled term limits themselves unconstitutional, rather than the procedure by which they had been enacted. I was tempted to go into greater depth, but decided that further discussion on the subject was out of place in an article on the Senate, and belongs instead in either a separate article on "Term limits in Oregon" or on the 1992 ballot measure. -- "J-M" (Jgilhousen) 19:52, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] update with 2007 session info

This page needs to be updated. It's a pretty easy project - just replace Frank Shields with Rod Monroe, and Charlie Ringo with Brad Avakian (all Democrats.) Also replace Republican Charles Starr with R Larry George. Also, Ben Westlund was "R" till 2/14/06, "independent" for '06 special session on 4/20/06, and "D" after about 11/15/07. Avel Gordly announced her switch to Independent in July '06.[1]-Pete 09:01, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../o/r/e/Talk%7EOregon_State_Senate_20a0.html"