While I won't likely support Greg MacPherson for any higher office, I must admit that he's one of nicest guys I have ever met.

Too bad I don't agree with him on policy issues, or he'd have my vote.

This endorsement doesn't surprise me either, since the OLCV took a pretty solid stance in favor of M49 this last cycle, and Greg was one of the spokespeople for that campaign.

Mac's fingerprints were all over the engineered ballot title for M49. The enviros know that they couldn't have rolled back M37 without cheating and Mac carried their water.

I don't care how "nice a guy" he is, I'll always judge him by his actions. He's highly partisan and we need fewer people like him serving in statewide office.

And Kroger is not highly partisan? So Mannix it is then ...great. Who wants a prison in their backyard?

I don't have any reason (yet) to believe that Kroger is highly partisan. I'm not reading too much into his campaign alliance with Novick (probably just a marriage of convenience), but he could prove me wrong.

As for Mannix and a "prison in my backyard", I think you misunderstand the role of the AG. Deciding whether or not to build new prisons is a legislative function.

I think Pancho missed Ben's point. The reason that Oregon must build ever increasing supplies of prison space is that voters have approved Mannix's initiatives that put more people in prison for longer periods of time. Oregon has been required to build more prisons because of the Mannix initiatives -- and of course his initiatives never say where the funding for those prisons should come from. And he has submitted enough signature to put another such measure on the ballot this fall.

Anyone aware that McPherson also voted against the Bill denying Oregon Driver's Licenses to illegals?

Charlie you missed the point.

Mannix's initiatives are a legislative function.

The AG is an executive/administrative office.

Ben's post conflated those functions.

I'm no apologist for Mannix (he might well be as partisan as Mac).

I'll admit that I'd prefer a republican partisan over a democrat partisan for AG, but I'd rather have someone who would investigate and enforce the law impartially.

My only point is that Mac has already proven to me that his MO is "the ends justify the means".

"Cheating" sounds like sour grapes from someone who got beat. All the lawsuits against Measure 49 were thrown out as being without basis.

Measure 49 passed fair and square. Voters didn't like how far Measure 37 went, and they scaled it back. Deal with it.

I can call it cheating all I want.

When the Republican Leg tried to gin up loaded ballot titles without judicial review in the 90's, Gov. Kitzhaber rightly opposed them on grounds that it undermined the integrity of elections:

"It is never appropriate to avoid the appeals procedure in an effort to thwart court scrutiny and bypass citizens who may have an alternate point of view on the objectivity of the proposed ballot title."

Just because a court upheld the legislature's authority to draft biased ballot titles doesn't mean that it wasn't cheating.

Drafting biased ballot titles isn't cheating (in a legal sense) in much the same way that waterboarding isn't torture.

Biased ballot titles? Really?

Ever try to fairly summarize a complicated measure in 15 words without being biased? Why do you think Measure 37 passed in the first place, when two-thirds of Oregonians said our land use laws were good or should be stronger?

"Ever try to fairly summarize a complicated measure in 15 words without being biased?"

I'm pretty sure that the AG does this all the time without using private polling results.

Stop playing dumb Evan.

You know what happened.

The AG had already drafted a ballot title on an initiative that was a precursor to M49. It polled about 20 points lower than the loaded M49 title.

Does anyone remember that the first three words of the Measure 37 ballot title were "Government Must Pay..."? If that's not misleading, I don't know what is.