Attorney General

 

 

The Attorney General and the Secretary of State have responsibility for managing citizen initiatives and referenda.  OFIR and other citizen groups have had problems in mounting initiatives and referenda because of apparent resistance from the Attorney General’s office and the Secretary of State. The Attorney General is empowered to write the ballot titles for initiatives and can slant the title to favor one side or the other.  The Secretary of State administers the process of filing the citizen measures, reviewing petition signatures, etc., and can use delays and other tactics to impede the process.  See separate report on candidates for Secretary of State. 

 

Several issue-oriented groups have recently experienced difficulties as a result of unsatisfactory and slanted ballot titles.  If a group challenges the language of the title, this delays the process and reduces the time available for collecting signatures, which are due well before the election date as they must be verified by the Secretary of State’s office before the measure is officially approved to go on the ballot. Then time is needed to include the measure in voter pamphlets, on ballots, etc.  If activists accept the skewed ballot title, they face severe problems of public misunderstanding and failure of the measure.   Thus incumbent Secretaries of State and Attorneys General can and do cripple the efforts of citizen activists with whom they disagree. 

 

There are only 2 candidates for Attorney General, one Democrat and one Republican.

 

1. The Republican Party candidate is Daniel Zene Crowe, of Mount Angel.  He is an attorney and veterans’ advocate with a background as U.S. Army Judge Advocate (1998-2011), Combat Arms Officer, Ranger, and Paratrooper (1991-1995), farm worker growing up through high school in Oregon.  He is a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and the University of Washington Law School.  After his military service, he has served on the Mount Angel School Board.

 

His campaign website is at:  www.crowelawfirm.us.  The homepage lists several plans he would pursue if elected.  One of them is: “Returning honesty to Oregon elections by impartially labeling ballot titles and initiatives to put Oregonians back in charge of Oregon government.”

 

 

2. The Democratic Party candidate is incumbent Ellen Rosenblum, also nominated by the Independent and Working Families parties.  She was first elected in November 2012 as Oregon's 17th Attorney General. She is a graduate of the University of Oregon and the University of Oregon School of Law.  Rosenblum, an appellate judge and federal prosecutor before running for office, was appointed to her job before she was officially elected.  Gov. Kitzhaber appointed her Attorney General shortly after then-incumbent John Kroger resigned on June 29, 2012 to become President of Reed College.  He had announced, in April 2012, his intention to resign.

 

The difficulties described above, that citizens have with initiatives, have occurred during Rosenbaum’s term as Attorney General.  

 

Her campaign website is at: http://www.ellenrosenblum.com/.  No references relevant to immigration policy were found there.  The site contains mostly claims of her accomplishments in the office.