ROTFLMAO

The pay and all allowed reimbursements should be withheld accordingly. In fact, why not CHARGE HIM FOR SERVICES WITHHELD? This applies for all other politician shirking the clear and obvious duties of their public-sector jobs, elected or appointed.

I've about had it with Oregon politicos pretending to be democratic-Americans while acting as utterly worthless Corporate-Selfservians.

And the worst aspect is that I WANT to be able to respect John K.

I've never understood what's the big deal that someone didn't vote in an election. Some of these elections have just community college school boards and soil and water conservation districts. Yawn!

The right to vote is not an obligation to vote. I follow the philosophy of Rush: "If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice."

I still cant believe that Kitz is actually running again, and that people are taking him seriously. I clearly remember his governorship, and the guy basically did nothing after the first year. His nickname was "The governor who wasnt there".

I've long thought that voting records ought to be private period -- for Dudley and Kitz and me alike. Whether I've voted or not is simply nobody's business but mine.

Until we have some form of compulsory ballot return law like Australia (where you have to return a ballot -- but you don't actually have to vote), my decision about whether to bother is between me and the state. Or should be.

The compulsory return law would be especially good for Oregon though -- we should have universal registration and a compulsory ballot return so that the mailing lists can be maintained. Hell, we just found out that the state spends millions on voter registration. Why not simply register all eligibles and send them all a ballot with every election and require them to return it (voted or not) to maintain the system. At least then the money would be going towards participation.

I don't know if we should applaud or bemoan Jeff Mapes for first writing an article on Dudley's voting record several weeks back without also examining the records of other candidates at that time. The first article caused a stink and got a lot of media coverage. Will this belated followup get equal media coverage?
Is there bias?

Dudley voted almost 40% of the time in the period covered in Mapes article. In the 7 elections that Dudley didn't vote in, 6 of those were while he wasn't living full time in Oregon, but traveling for his career. Kitz voted 53% while living continuously in Oregon. Not much difference between most of the candidates.

Now I know why Kitz and other candidates didn't make an issue out of voting records except for the former Secretary of State, which is his job to try to get us all to vote, and to show a good example by his own voting.

I do think this is relevant. These aren't just normal joes. They're running to be the Governor. They should care more about what's happening in government than to miss 40% of elections.

Of course, anything is relevant if it's relevant to you as a voter, but is it really the case that you think that you judge the amount of concern about what goes on in government of a former Gov and Senate President by whether he votes often enough in off-year elections? What if he said "You know what, I was spending so much time pushing health care reform that I really stopped paying attention to most local stuff, so I didn't vote in those elections where I didn't feel like I was an informed voter." Does that make a difference?

While I don't think any candidate should have to defend their voting record (which should not be a public record in the first place) I do understand why people might look at Dudley differently on this one - this is a guy who wants to start his political career in the Governor's chair, without having even been elected dog catcher or precinct committee person before. Voting is just about the sum total of his participation in government, as far as can be determined.