Portland AfD gears up for IRV campaign, shares past events online

AfD-Portland is actively re-engaging in the effort to bringing Instant Runoff Voting to Oregon cities and counties.

The newly elected mayor of Portland, Sam Adams, is a firm supporter of IRV and will support in the Oregon legislature a bill giving Oregon cities and counties the local option of using IRV in their election. Additional support is already present on the Multnomah County Council and the Metro Council board.

Legislation for the local option has been introduced in past legislative sessions but in large part due to the opposition by the Oregon Secretary of State's office, it has not gone beyond the hearing stage. However, with the election of a new Secretary of State, we expect that such legislation can be passed during the next session. Kate Brown, the Democratic party nominee for SOS is expected to win this election and has voiced support for local option IRV.

Portland Alliance for Democracy is organizing a campaign of outreach to all candidates running on the November ballot asking for their support for local option legislation. Outreach will not only be to candidates running for the state House and Senate but also to candidates running for city and county position. We will ask them to write the legislature expressing their support for IRV when the legislation comes for legislative hearings.

If you can help with this outreach, please contact David Delk at davidafd@msn.com or at 503-232-5495.

And two recent Portland events are available at the chapter website: a forum for candidates running for Secretary of State and a talk by Canadian author and activist Maude Barlow.

In early May, three of the state’s Democratic candidates for Secretary of State spoke on election integrity, campaign finance reform, instant runoff voting, fusion voting, corporate control of vote counting machines, the initiative process and more. You can see video of part of that forum by clicking on the video link href="http://www.oregonvrc.org/2008/05/oregon_vrc_news_walker_has_integrity">here. For copies of the information presented at
the forum, visit www.afd-pdx.org/SOS.html.

The chapter also hosted Maude Barlow, author of Blue Covenant, the Global Water Crisis and the Coming Battle for the Right to Water. Listen to her remarks online at the Portland Chapter website. (you can also hear Maude's good words for AfD’s Defending Water for Life’s Campaign!)