Stacking the Deck

MAY 4, 2006
BY RUSSELL SADLER

The deck is deliberately stacked against independent candidates for governor. Republicans and Democrats do not want to see competition in November from candidates that were not sanctioned in their party primaries.

Independent-minded voters are simply stuck voting for whichever Republican and Democrat is chosen by voters in their respective primaries. This “choice of evils” is increasingly regarded as no choice at all. It is a major cause of voter discontent and frustration.

Occasionally, however, the established parties overstep the boundaries of public tolerance and trigger a successful independent candidacy for governor. That last happened in Oregon in 1930 when Juluis L. Meier won the office in a three-way race.

Meier, son of one of the founders of the Meier & Frank department stores, practiced law with George W. Joseph before heading the family business. In 1930, Oregon Republicans nominated Joseph, a progressive Republican who favored public, rather than private, development of the Columbia River’s hydroelectric power resources.
Democrats nominated Edward F. Bailey, who, reflecting a political division among Democrats, vacillated on public power.

Joseph died suddenly before the November election. The Republican State Central Committee appointed Phil Metschan, an opponent of public power, to replace Joseph.
Supporters of public power promptly recruited the well-known Meier to run as an independent candidate. It was no contest. Meier and his public power platform won 54.5 percent of the vote with Bailey and Metschan coming in a distant second and third.

In the early 20th century, public power was an idea that cut across party lines and won the support of a majority the public. Deeply entrenched interests in both parties deliberately frustrated this popular demand any way they could.

They successfully kept the cap on the bottle until the Republican State Central Committee overplayed its hand by appointing an opponent of public power to replace a popular supporter of public power. This miscalculation led to a successful independent governor. Meier did not run for reelection. He was in poor health and died of a heart attack in 1937. But his insurgent candidacy created a model.

Today as then, there is growing frustration with the leadership in both the Republican and Democratic parties. Republican nominees have been so extreme, the party has not won the governor’s office since 1986. But despite declining membership, Oregon Republicans are not inclined to nominate anyone more moderate.

The Democrats complain their governor “isn’t doing enough” to lead the state.

The cause of this frustration is the conservative Republican House leadership which refuses to adequately finance education or much of anything else at the same time it passes out tax breaks to its campaign contributors and maxes out the state’s credit by borrowing to pay ordinary operating bills.

The disenchantment has grown to the point where Ben Westlund, a Republican from Bend, left the party and announced he will run for governor as an independent.

But Westlund is running against the stacked deck. He must collect 18,365 signatures on his nominating petitions by the end of August. No Republican or Democrat needs to go to this effort because of their easy statutory access to the ballot. More seriously, Westlund’s signatures are not just registered voters, as with an initiative petition.

Last session, the Republicans and Democrats conspired to pass a sneaky little law prohibiting anyone who voted in the Republican or Democratic primaries from signing an independent’s nominating petition.

I suspect Westlund’s difficulty in collecting signatures -- he only has about 5 percent of the signatures he needs -- is part of a wait-and-see-who-is-nominated-in-the-primaries attitude. If Oregon Republicans nominate Kevin Mannix, I suspect a large number of moderate Republicans will want to take a serious look at Westlund’s independent candidacy.

I also suspect a number of Democrats will be interested in a new “problem solver” no matter who is nominated from their party.

Of course, none of this matters unless the present Oregon House “leadership” is removed. The present Republican House leaders will frustrate a Ron Saxton just as thoroughly as they will frustrate a Ted Kulongoski or Ben Westlund.

If voter frustration continues to boil after the nominees are chosen and disaffected Republicans and Democrats find they cannot sign Westlund’s petition because they voted for their choice in the primary, their anger could generate a wave of energy, emotion and money to find 18,365 voters who didn’t vote in the primaries and win Westlund a place on the ballot.

The question is whether the Legislature’s deliberate effort to disenfranchise Oregon voters is a sufficient slap in the face to motivate an independent candidacy, just as deliberately replacing a popular public power candidate with an opponent of public power motivated Juluis Meier’s independent candidacy in 1930.