Posted on 10/25/2006 3:25:43 PM PDT by lward99
Cute New Animation - Made my day!
http://www.oregontermlimits.org/
Whatever happened to term limits for Oregon legislators? We had a GREAT term limits law: 3 terms in the House, 2 terms in the Senate. Many people think we still have term limits. But we don't.
Four years ago, responding to a lawsuit dreamed up by legislators themselves, the courts struck down the most popular initiative amendment in state history. In 1992, term limits had earned 70% approval and 1,005,706 YES votes, but the politicians didn't care about that.
Ganging up against term limits. The plot to overturn term limits was hatched by the insiders in '01, requiring the Legislature, the Governor, and the Courts all to conspire. They did. Ultimately, term limits were struck down on a post-facto constitutional provision - created by state courts six years after the election - applied retroactively. Singling out voter-approved term limits our courts have refused to apply this unfair "after-the-fact precedent" logic anywhere else.
The law had included a "voters' instruction":
"If any part of this Act is held to be invalid, it is the expressed intent of the people of Oregon that their elected officials should respect the limits within this Act."
And guess what? Career politicians cannot be trusted with unlimited power! Once allowed to continue to hold office, most of them did, in violation of the will of the People. By now, 1/3 of our state lawmakers are malingerers who rely on a legal technicality to serve beyond the limits set by 1 million Oregonian voters.
It took 400,000 Oregonians' signatures to allow voters to choose term limits - again. Measure 45 complies with the Court ruling. If enacted into law, Oregonians will deter these term-limits violators and begin to revive a citizen-legislature in Salem. Predictably, legislative leaders - whose desire for power knows no limits - have recruited lobbyists to "front" a $$ multi-million campaign to oppose to Measure 45.
Funny
cute. Hence my tagline.
Great tag
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