The Oregon Legislature is considering bills to severely restrict the initiative process and make it far more difficult for grass-roots groups. No wonder. The legislators want to increase their own power by reducing the power of the people to legislate on their own.

The testimony of Dan Meek on the first bill to receive a hearing is below. Contact your legislators and oppose this bill.

You can send an email to all members of the Oregon Senate by sending it to orsenate@oreg.net.

You can send an email to all members of the Oregon House of Representatives by sending it to orhouse@oreg.net.

The House Committee on Elections, Rules, and Ethics held hearings. At each hearing, the public was suddenly confronted with a massively amended bill, prepared by the Committee in private. This undermined the public hearing process, because no one could prepare correct testimony.

The Committee voted out an amended bill on April 11, which is available at http://www.leg.state.or.us/07reg/measpdf/hb2000.dir/hb2082.a.pdf. All of the Democrats voted yes. All of the Republicans present voted no. The amended bill would seriously impair the initiative process, for the reasons stated in the joint letter of Crime Victims United and the Coalition for Initiative Rights, also below.

The House scheduled action on this bill for April 18.