We asked members of the Independent Party to share their views on several bills in the Oregon legislature that appear to have some life. The results below are for 9 bills that at least 60% of responding members either support or oppose. Bills supported by IPO members are in green; bills opposed are in red.

IPO member support for campaign disclosure and the national popular vote plan intensified since last year. Members continued to show strong support for consumer protection legislation.

Here are the Results of the IPO End-of-Session Membership Survey. A summary is below.

SB 270A: Limits Fines for Failure to Report Political Contributions to $5,000 Per Month: OPPOSED 73%

HB 2259: Increases Delay for Reporting Most Contributions Near Elections from 7 Days to 14 Days: OPPOSED 87%

HB 2894-3 Requires Disclosure of Major Funders in Campaign Ads about Candidates: SUPPORTED 95%

HB 3446: Requires that Members of the Legislature to Compete When Seeking Other Jobs in Oregon Government: SUPPORTED 96%

HJR 7A: Granting New Powers to Governor and Legislature, Upon Governor's Declaration of a "Catastrophic Disaster": OPPOSED 82%

HB 2492: Removing Uncontested Democratic Party and Republican Party "Precinct Committeeperson" Races from the Ballot: SUPPORTED 78%

HB 3517: Joins Oregon to the National Popular Vote Plan for Electing the President of the United States: SUPPORTED 80%

SB 40: Removes State Income Tax Deduction for Contributions to Charities that Spend Less than 30% of their Budgets on Actual Charitable Services: SUPPORTED 90%

SB 695A: Banning Baby Bottles and Drinking Cups for Children Containing Chemical Linked to Cancer, Diabetes, Autism, and Other Problems: SUPPORTED 80%

The War of Independents

House Bill 2442, which would have forced the IPO to drop the word "independent" from its name, somehow made its way onto the agenda of the House Rules Committee without benefit of a sponsor or even one person willing to stand up publicly and support it. That's just as well since the bill was, even by Salem standards, a rare trifecta: dumb, partisan and unconstitutional.

Former Secretaries of State Slam Attempt to Kill Independent Party

The heavy-handed attempt to side-swipe the IPO met with some equally weighty criticism today, particularly in the joint written testimony submitted by former Secretaries of State Norma Paulus (a Republican, who served from 1977 to 1985) and Phil Keisling (a Democrat, who served from 1991 to 1999).    Read more ...

Distinguished chairs, honorable members of the committee;

My name is Sal Peralta. I am here today to testify in opposition to House Bill 2442 on behalf of the Independent Party of Oregon.

This bill is so clearly unconstitutional that I wasn’t sure how seriously to take it. One of our members actually thought it was a prank. I like the tact that the Albany Democrat-Herald took in today’s editorial opposing this bill, that:

The sponsors of this little bit of nonsense seem to have gone to the “Alice in Wonderland Institute of Politics,” where they teach you to change reality by changing what things are called.

Or perhaps they learned how to neutralize their opponents at the Joe Stalin Graduate School of Political Maneuvering. Don’t like what the party does? Just ban its name.

But when a legislator or a group of legislators holds a proverbial gun to your head and tells you to do something, I think the best approach is to take it seriously. So here goes…

We have received written testimony in opposition to this bill from former Secretaries of State Norma Paulus and Phil Keisling. I quote in part from their testimony:

We are aware of no legal precedent in any jurisdiction in the United States that would allow a legislature to ban the use of a word in the name of a political party, and are highly skeptical that the Oregon Constitution, with its broad protections for free speech, would permit such an intrusion on the association and speech rights of a duly constituted political party. Pass this bill -- or even treat it semi-seriously -- and what's next? Bills to ban the word "republican" or "democratic" from other parties because one party in power feels threatened?
…
This bill is cynical, political mischief of the worst, most juvenile kind -- worthy of being thrown on the legislative scrap heap, so this body can get down to the important business at hand.

The Independent Party of Oregon has released the results of the second of a two-part survey of its members that the party will use to shape its 2010 campaign and its 2011 legislative agenda.

CLICK HERE TO VIEW RESULTS

The 490 members who participated were asked to select from a list of choices on issues, including balancing the state budget, strengthening the economy, good government issues, and other reforms identified by members during a survey conducted in Spring 2010.