Talk:List of Oregon ballot measures

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This is a very incomplete list, of course. I added the ones I found most significant, from 1990 onwards. Maybe I'll go back to some older important ones earlier.

Clipdude 21:12 1 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Please can someone update this page?

There weren't any ballot measures in Oregon in 2005, and there weren't any in the 2006 Primary Election. There will be some in the fall General Election, but the Secretary of State's Office is still verifying the signatures and assigning measure numbers. PDF file from the Oregon SOS Office--Clipdude 07:28, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] structure

It would be nice if there were a strong visual cue for measures that passed vs. failed, and those that amend the constitution vs. those that don't.

Not sure the best way to go about it, but I'll mull it over.

-Pete 20:02, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

I found that the California page does this pretty well. I'm thinking a table would be best, with columns for number, pass/fail, constitutional/statutory, tax-increase(?), and description. -Pete 07:31, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
Also, it would be good to come up with a standard "tense" that doesn't vary according to whether the measure passed or not. Instead of, for example, "would have amended" and "amended," maybe it would be best to just use the word "amend" - ? -Pete 23:32, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] results for 2006

Since the results are in, I'm moving the 2006 issues to the 2000's section, and stating which ones passed and failed. If the results turn out to be different in the morning, please change them. I am Girl 05:51, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ballot Measure 6 (1922)

I believe there's a mistake in the description of Measure 6 (1922). According to the Wikipedia page about the court case involved (linked), the ballot initiative was merely an amendment to an existing statute. It appears to me that the existing statute is the one described here, erroneously.

I know nothing about this except what I've found on Wikipedia, and have no legal experience...I'll modify the content to match my understanding, but hope that better legal minds will come along to review this section!

-Pete 06:58, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Chart

I like the idea of putting every ballot measure in a chart like at the bottom of the page, except we definitely need to go with a new color scheme. I'd say red/green ala sports wins and losses (Like at 2006 Oregon State Beavers football team). I'd also support a "notes" column at the end to mention any particularly notable ballot measures (For instance, we can write "Oregon becomes the first state in the United States to legalize medical marijuana" next to that measure. VegaDark 00:58, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Red and green is an interesting idea, though mapping those to "win" and "lose" is highly POV.
My first impression about the shaded background is mixed: good for on screen viewing, but not obviously helpful for black and white printing. For that reason, the table without the "passed" column (on User:Peteforsyth/measurechart) is probably not a good idea. Also, it's no longer necessarily the case that 50 percent or more "yes" results in passage, at least on tax measures.
List of California ballot propositions 2000-present is minimalistic, simple and to-the-point: probably good enough. Though, for this kind of list, it seems way more useful with all the information in the list: votes counts, percentage, initiative/referendum, later overturned, etc. But only the measure number (plus wikilinkage) and a one sentence summary of the measure is great too. (I like both the vote counts and the percentage: supports different uses, but also the redundancy is a good sanity check.) —EncMstr 01:09, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
Well, I wasn't implying we should say green = win red = loss, that would definitely be POV. I was thinking we could have it as green = passed, red = failed. VegaDark 01:20, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for the quick feedback!! EncMstr, good points re: b/w printing and the double-majority for tax-related measures. Can you guys spell out what you'd like to see from color choice? I don't have a strong opinion, but I'm curious about your thinking. (I suppose leaving failed measures white could leave some ambiguity between "rejected" measures and "editor doesn't know." But I intend to have this list completed in the near future, and "Passed" measures have much more historical significance than "Rejected" ones, so I'm a little ambivalent about coloring the rejects.) Also: putting in ALL the information requested might be a little cumbersome on small monitors: Passed, Percentage, YES votes, NO votes, and a "notes of major significance" column. Doesn't mean I oppose it…but worth considering. -Pete 01:49, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
Undecided if I like it, but this attempts to balance printing concerns with the desire to highlight new laws:
Measure Result Margin Summary
39 pass 67% Restrict the use of Eminent Domain
40 fail 5% Restrict eligibility to the Oregon Supreme Court based on geographic origin
41 fail 19.27% Allow Federal Tax Credit on Oregon Taxes
42 fail 8% Ban credit reports in determining insurance premiums
43 fail 27% Require parental notification for abortions for girls aged 15-17
44 pass 73% Extend discount prescription drug program to all Oregon citizens
45 fail 28% Require term limits for Oregon Legislative Assembly
46 fail 18% Permit laws that limit campaign contributions
47 pass[1] 63% Revise campaign finance laws to limit or prohibit campaign contributions for state and local elections
Those are made up numbers for the percentages. I didn't find a good whole line color: various text was invisible or hard to read. Notice how the footnote next to 47's pass is nearly impossible to see. I fear that alternate stylesheets and skins might interact poorly too. —EncMstr 02:19, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
I like that approach. Footnotes could be put in a different column, and/or we could use a lighter color in the box, so that black text shows up better. For easy reference, here's a chart of HTML/wiki names for colors. -Pete 02:57, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
In the long run, I think there should be a separate "Notable Oregon ballot measures", which would be text-based, without all the charts. In the meantime, a brief introduction before each decade's list could be a good place for extra-notable features. -Pete 03:41, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
@_@<mind boggling at possibilities>If we're going to fancy it up, I prefer the tables over the minimalist approach. In either case I like the idea of red and green, but having read all the above I can see the limitations. EncMstr's approach seems handy and easiest on my eyes (except for that pesky footnote), perhaps adding "(amends constitution)" at the end of the summary where applicable? The above comment by Pete makes sense, my only caveat being how will someone find the "greatest hits" article? Perhaps add it to the newly minted Politics of Oregon article? Katr67 04:56, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks to you all for the feedback. On second thought, I think "Notable Oregon legislation" would be a better complementary article - so it could include other laws like the Bottle Bill. Some day…meanwhile, I'll keep pecking away at this list! -Pete 20:08, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

New column proposed: There should be a column indicating which measures were referred by the Legislature. I'd like to better understand the various ways measures can make it to the ballot though, before making that change. -Pete 19:44, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] reverse order?

I'd like to reverse the order of this page, so more recent measures are listed first, and oldest last. Any objections or concerns? -Pete 03:11, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

It makes a certain amount of sense, though I notice the Washington and California articles are in chronological order. Why do you want to reverse it? —EncMstr 05:25, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
I was thinking that more recent measures would be more frequently of interest. But, it now occurs to me that it will quickly grow to be overly long - I'm currently working on the 1990s, and ultimately want to include all measures. So maybe the better way to go is to split it out, like the California page, by decade.
Another possibility would be to keep this one literally a list (in table format), in whichever order, and put the text-based intros in their own article, by decade.
An advantage of that is that they could all be combined into one massive table, and by sorting, readers could compare vote totals and percentages across decades.
Still sifting all those possibilities out, so I'll hold off on making any changes for now. Any suggestions welcome though!
Finally, I'm thinking it's about time somebody made a template for ballot measures in the US, so it's easy to find similar measures from other states. There's some good info at Direct democracy#Direct democracy in the United States page that could be rolled in.
-Pete 05:44, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Potential reliable sources

Transcript from the NewsHour from 1998: Initiative Overload -Pete 00:46, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] lists of state (ballot measures OR propositions OR referendums OR questions OR initiatives)

Scarcely noticeable in the subsection above, Pete says somebody [should make] a template for ballot measures in the US, so it's easy to find similar measures from other states.

I set out to do this and learned quite a bit in the process:

  • Oregon has—by far—the most prolific, in depth, and well organized election articles. Ours are extremely fact-based in comparison to what is out there.
  • Most election articles for other states are year-specific, and seem to have been written by various politicians' staff.
  • Oregon has unique patterns of thought regarding elections: we generally regard all the items on one election day's ballot as "an election". Evidently people in most states think of each item as a separate "election", so there are multiple elections on a state ballot. This leads to a confusing double-definition/ambiguity of the term in their articles' writing.
  • Pete's suggested Direct democracy article says that ballot measure-like processes are permitted in 18, 21, 24, or 18 states: 18 allow initiative constitutional amendments, 21 allow initiative statute law, 24 allow referendum statute law, and 18 allow recall.
  • Even though nearly half the states have "direct democracy", there are few such measures on the ballots—at least where I could find an article listing them.
  • Several founding fathers opposed such direct democracy: James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Witherspoon are mentioned. They mostly were concerned of political majorities being unjust to minorities.
  • Only a few states have corresponding List of [state] [direct democracy name]. Consider this your navigation box:
  • Virtually all the other states have categories, usually sparsely populated, of
    • category:[state] gubernatorial elections: almost every state
    • category:US Senate elections in [state]: 80–90% of the states
    • category:US House of Representatives elections in [state]: 40–50% of the states
    • category:US presidential election in [state], [year]: about 25%
    • category:<state> elections, [year]: about 25%
  • There were some navbox attempts in a few of the articles. Elections by state had mostly bluelinks, but many others follow a pattern which isn't present in most and are huge collections of redlinks. Another had a peculiar twist and only attempted to list about six states, three of which were redlinked.

I was seriously tempted to clean up some of the worst, create some organizing list articles, suggest on talk pages they get to work, and pepper them with {{fact}} tags. But I think I appreciate home all the more, and that's good enough. —EncMstr 09:43, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, as one (of a number of) editors who've made it a point to beef up this aspect of WP coverage of Oregon, I'm flattered by your analysis. I agree, I think that we've done some good work here in Oregon, but I haven't made a concerted effort to compare it to other states. I'll echo your sentiments: I'm disappointed to hear that most other states are so behind, but proud of the work we've done here.
At any rate, I think it would be good to build a navbox out of the info you've assembled, even if that means a lot of redlinks. Pointing out what info is missing can be helpful in spurring future writing; I'd like to help prod editors in other states to get into this, and offer support if it's needed, and I think creating a navbox would be a good way to get the ball rolling. As far as expanding coverage, I'm much more interested in getting Oregon's coverage right, than in moving my focus to other states. Too much work here still to be done.
A couple of details: California actually has a List of California ballot propositions, a parent-page for each of the decades; I think that would be a good model for us to follow as we expand this article. And the Washington articles seem confusing in two respects: there's no effort to explain the terms "to the people" and "to the legislature," which seem odd; and the claim to comprehensiveness seems suspect, given all the gaps between numbers. (But maybe they make numbers for initiatives that fail to qualify, or something like that.)
Anyway, I will get to work on a navbox, and if I'm motivated enough, maybe I'll even make stubs for each state, in the hopes that somebody expands them. Thanks again for doing and sharing all that research! -Pete (talk) 23:44, 13 December 2007 (UTC)