The OregonLive site is pretty slow. For City of Portland, Multnomah County, and legislative races in Multnomah County, use Multnomah County's site

• Wes

Jeff:

"They're not showing Paul Van Orden's total."

Write-in candidates are not listed by name in the results unless the total number of write-in votes exceed the votes received by at least one of the named candidates.

In other words, you will not see Paul Van Orden's write-in total listed by his name at all. You can only assume he got the most of the unnamed 3,487 write-in votes cast so far.

• Wes

4 WHITE GUYS! 4 WHITE GUYS! 4 WHITE GUYS!

4 MORE YEARS! 4 MORE YEARS! 4 MORE YEARS!

Jeff (and others):

I am using Multnomah County's election site (link above in earlier post).

The media are likely getting their results from this official site, so why bother getting the data second-hand?

• Wes

I don't think that they tally ballots by precinct anymore now that we have vote by mail. Once the ballots are verified, they are all tallied together. You want to see what percent of total ballots have been counted, not which precincts have been counted. At least that is my understanding.

Multnomah means "wait in line or no tabulation for you" in the eponymous language.

Lister at 14% keeping Sten from an outright victory. But the night is young and half the precincts haven't reported.

..

from KGW.COM: Wheeler beats out incumbant Linn

10:27 PM PDT on Tuesday, May 16, 2006

The revolution will not be refresed automatically. Please push the yin/yang button and quit complaining.

If the New York Times published it the day before yesterday, it'll be in tomorrow's Oregonian.

It's bad enough that the general electorate doesn't know much, if anything, about Metro, but I've been scrolling up and down the OregonLive page and can't find any mention of the westside Metro seat being sought by Tom Cox. You'd think the O would carry some news of this race.

The biggest nailbiter of the night is Suns-Clippers.
Suns have a one-point lead in 2nd OT. After that one is over, I'm going to bed.

The night's biggest underachiever (* other than Diane Linn's pitiful 22% performance)?

Gary Hansen who finished 3rd behind Saltzman protoge Jeff Cogen and Lew Frederick, who finishes 2nd with a surprisingly strong showing for MultCo Commish 2.

With Cogen's big money and Saltzman support, Frederick won't catch up by November.

• Wes

The Real Good News: Diane Linn had her political head handed to her by Multnomah County voters last night, a clear repudiation of her inept performance in general and her underhanded, backroom dealings in issuing marriage certificates to gays in particular.

Hopefully this will send a clear signal to other politicians that around here we like competent public servants and voter input on important political matters.

The Good News: Erik Sten was forced into a runoff against Ginny Burdick. Now maybe Erik will be forced to articulate why exactly it is voters should return him to office considering his disappointing tenure on the city council.

Ellie Booth is now drunkenly telling reporters that Sten shouldn't take the .52% of votes that have put him over 50%.

Am I the only one to see the irony in Sten being the first VOE candidate to win an election?

Given that he is the founding author/chief proponent of Voter Owned Elections, the appearance of self-dealing is hard to ignore.

Amanda Fritz was a great candidate who worked tirelessly and ran a very effective campaign. Nevertheless, she only received 24.5% of the votes. Is that because Erik Sten has done such a fine job for Portland? Or the power of incumbency?

Somebody said something about "spending parity" being a death trap for anybody that wants to challenge an incumbent. They were right.

Buckman Res-

Wake up man! Smell the coffee! Stop putting vodka in it!

Hint: the Internet works for reading too.

Resistance is Futile

There is no stopping the Sten-Blackmer Virus.

Whoomp! There it is!

yeah, there is an irony in that as an incumbent Sten could have easily raised a lot of money from special interests, but in playing within the voter owned election rules he was massively outspent by those interests and almost lost.

My apologies to everyone for straying a bit from topic here, but I cannot let this comment slip by without response:

The Real Good News: Diane Linn had her political head handed to her by Multnomah County voters last night, a clear repudiation of ... her underhanded, backroom dealings in issuing marriage certificates to gays in particular.

My humanity - my right to exist in this society as an equal human being with the same rights you take for granted - has been put to a public vote over a dozen times in this State, in local and statewide ballot measures, most notoriously with a public "50 percent plus one" vote on whether I should be permanently labelled "abnormal, unnatural, and perverse" within our State Constitution, and most recently denying public legitimacy and legal equality to my eight year relationship, within in that same document (no matter that my partner and I have been together longer than the median heterosexual marriage).

In your victory dance over Diane Linn, do you have any sympathy whatsoever for how degrading it feels to have ones humanity subjected to a public vote? Do you have any understanding of how inspiring it feels to have an elected leader move beyond mumblings of "equality", and take an actual public stand respecting me as a equal human being under the law, as Diane Linn did?

Rosa Parks did not symbolically launch the African American civil rights movement by doing what she was supposed to do. Neither did the drag queens and bull dykes at the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village, New York, on June 27th, 1969. And, regardless, anyone who has researched the standard operating procedure of the Multnomah County Commission knows that the approach taken by Commissioners Linn, Cruz, Naito, and Rojo De Steffey in reaching their decision to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples was not unusual, had been used before, and has been used since. To single out this one use of a standard procedure as "underhanded, backroom dealing" is raw hypocrisy. These four women took a stand for what is just and right, and have been catching hell for it ever since, most recently last night.

Diane Linn is a woman with guts. No hindsight armchair quarter-backing can change this fact. Perhaps more Multnomah County voters would respect and appreciate this quality of leadership, if they had anything serious at stake in their lives, being subjected to public whim. Women, are you listening?

Thank you Leo. I feel better now that you have taken the time to say much of what I believe.

In the win/lose arena of electoral poliics we are invited to understand candidates as qualified or not. This really leaves out much consideration of candidates as real people, with all their strengths and all their weaknesses. I know Diane as a generally unqualified executive; I used to work for her until she fired me. Still, I saw times when she rose to the occasion and did the right thing, and then took the hits for it.

Her willingness to validate your humanity, and mine, using standard operating procedure, described by some as "backroom dealings," exhibits either the ignorance of those who say it, or their mean spiritedness. I'm not sure which is worse.

Anyway, I was so relieved to read your comment. My day will be easier for it. Thanks again.

Jamie - "Her willingness to validate your humanity, and mine, using standard operating procedure, described by some as "backroom dealings," exhibits either the ignorance of those who say it, or their mean spiritedness."

Wrong, Jamie. Same sex marriage is a fairly new concept here in the States. And a major one, with far-reaching implications. So it deserves public input and process. Regardless of one's stand on it, how you can not understand how someone would describe it as "backroom dealings" is beyond me. Diane Linn purposely met with no more than one other commissioner at a time in order to avoid the public meetings law. She purposely left out another commissioner whom she knew wouldn't see it her way. If that's not "backroom dealings", then what is??

And it's amazing to me to listen to folks like you say that if citizens are unhappy with the way that she handled this, that we're either ignorant or mean-spirited. That's sure gonna help your cause.

Has anyone else noticed that Erik is over 50%? My count is 49,813 for Erik vs. 48,852 non-Erik. That includes the handful of votes in Washington and Clackamas counties. Am I wrong?

Leo, you might think it is a hassle living in a democracy where people get to vote on the general rules for society but I'm pretty sure you wouldn't want to try the alternative. Unless of course you landed in a gay dictorship, that might be a sweet deal. Speaking of that, isn't SF a gay dictorship?

So according to the Mercury post, Washington County has not finished counting all their ballots. Does that mean Bohan still has a chance against Read?

How glad am I that Tom Cox did not beat Kathryn Harrington in the race for Metro Council District 4?

Metro Councilor District 4 Vote For 1 Tom Cox . . . . . . . . . . . 4,154 24.08 Kathy Christy . . . . . . . . . 3,521 20.41 Al Young. . . . . . . . . . . 2,818 16.33 Kathryn Harrington . . . . . . . 6,688 38.76 WRITE-IN. . . . . . . . . . . 73 .42

(source: http://www.co.washington.or.us/deptmts/at/election/results/may06.htm)

...especially after those yellow bastards at WW endorsed him. Did they fail to smoke their daily dosage that day or what?

I don't think that Metro is doing a bad job at what they do, so I never did believe that there was a reason to go conservative in this district.

Furthermore, WW shut off comments on their website as soon as they realized that most people were calling them on their BS endorsements, not cheering them on... wusses!

A few lessons from yesterday's results: (1) The old aphorism about all publicity being good publicity certainly seems to have held true in Boyles case. (2) Incumbency is still mightier than VOE, especially when the incumbent uses VOE after acquiring the wrath of his former biggest campaign contributor (Bob Pamplin, Jr) and would have difficulty competing otherwise (though I confess, I voted for Sten, as Burdick showed no consistency other than to be a puppet, follow the money and "obey her master!"). (3) Portland isn't going to support anybody who smacks of elitism. This city is as much a liberal utopia as there is in the USA these days, with people literally moving here to escape the "Red States." God bless Portland.

Damn, The Oregonian is full of idiots. Can't even spell Erik's name. http://www.oregonlive.com

The editorial board must be so crushed. Jerks.

I still believe in STENPIRE!

Today: safe seat on the City Council.

Tomorrow: MAYOR FOREVER!

Pat - "First, I want to say "in your face" to all those critics of Portland's first in the nation publicly financed system."

Can I ask for some clarification on your statement? Are you saying that the election results show the public's acceptance of VOE? If so, how do you make that connection? And if you're that confident, then a vote on the issue should be slamdunk. Also, how exactly is Portland's VOE first in the nation?

Please disregard this note if I've misinterpreted your comment...

All I can say is that Bojack sucks ass. With his election picks, and with his blog. He must now know that only 25% of Portland agrees with him...and thus, he is irrelevant. Now and forever.

Larry - "Same sex marriage is a fairly new concept here in the States. And a major one, with far-reaching implications. So it deserves public input and process."

Wrong, Larry. In 1776, Jefferson's phrase "all men are created equal" set the cornerstone of American jurisprudence. In 1954, the phrase "separate is inherently unequal" joined it.

All of us are equal in this nation. And, if the "Q" in "equal" is hard to understand, why is that, and whose responsibility is it to figure it out?

My equality - my humanity - is not subject to anyone's approval. Political efforts to assert otherwise violate the cornerstone of American law: all of us are equal. The only appropriate "public input and process" is to bring the law in line with Constitutional princple, with all deliberate speed.

AndyF - "you might think it is a hassle living in a democracy where people get to vote on the general rules for society but I'm pretty sure you wouldn't want to try the alternative ... Speaking of that, isn't SF a gay dict[at]orship?"

Is Atlanta a Black "dictatorship"? Is New York a Jewish "dictatorship"? Is LA now a Latino "dictatorship"? We're all humans with microscopically diverse DNA, living in an ever more homogenous culture, and under the exact same Constitution. That's the truth of it, and our laws must catch up with it.

Voting "on the general rules for society" has nothing to do with this. The Constitution doesn't give society the privilege of voting to provide special rights only for heterosexual couples, or whites, or men. If it did, well over half the folks reading this wouldn't have the right to vote at all. And if it takes a gutsy County Commissioner to interpret our laws as being already in line with our principles, well thank God someone in office has the guts to stand up for principle.

GLBT equality isn't a question to be answered. We are already equal, as American citizens, under the United States Constitution. State and Federal laws must conform to this fundamental truth.

In the interest of topicality, I will drop this now and make no further responses in this thread. Thanks for anyone's understanding of my relevance here, and the need to respond to Larry and Andy's assertions.

Leo, Yes, I know Diane and her cohorts artfully skirted the open meetings law requirements in order to issue marriage certs to gays, but be honest, in doing so they violated the spirit of the law and managed to alienate untold numbers of voters they might otherwise have brought on board. Something as fundamental as redefining marriage deserves an exhaustive societal discussion.

You should also remember that Diane’s support of gay marriage was prompted by a lawsuit threat from Basic Rights Oregon, not from some strong moral conviction she felt about the issue. So please, spare us the Rosa Parks comparisons. All Diane’s “leadership” did was setback the gay marriage movement by years.

Re: Sten: Looks like I will have to start loving him like the rest of you and stop believing what I read in the O. Pass the vodka.

Diane Linn purposely met with no more than one other commissioner at a time in order to avoid the public meetings law.

I think it is important to realize that this goes on constantly with elected leaders in every public body. If a majority get in a room, it is a public meeting. If following the law is purposeful, then Diane is guilty.

I wonder if people really are of the opinion that the County Chair should consult with every commissioner before making a decision. Because that is the standard being set with complaints about not talking to Lonnie.

I think its clear the County Commission is disfunctional and would never be functional with Diane as chair. But I think there is some purposefulness to that as well. Maybe with Diane and Serena gone the rest of them will be able to work together. I hope Ted spends the next six months building citizen support for his own agenda and doesn't immediately get caught up in the Commission's politics.

Leo, you can claim what ever rights you want to read into the Constitution but before you can enforce those rights you'll need to get a majority of the Supreme Court to agree with you. So far they haven't and they don't appear to in any hurry to do so. Maybe your rights should be granted and maybe not. The point in this thread is that it is a democractic process and votes count and you don't have the votes at the moment.

Linn just got her butt handed to her on a platter. Maybe one issue was the gay marriage end run that she tried to pull off. I'm sure that wasn't the only item as she appeared to blunder from one gaffe to the next. Last article I read said that the commissioners weren't even talking to each other anymore and that communication was handled by staff members passing information back and forth. If that is true then she deserved to be canned.

Jenni....your marriage would have been illegal in Oregon as recently as 1955, which is when the interracial marriage ban was repealed.

My marriage would have been legal, but highly frowned upon, since my wife is Jewish.

I don't think the repudiation of Diane Linn has anything to do with queer rights. There were plenty of gaffes that Linn committed and plenty of people she alienated, whether it was union leaders (AFSCME Local 88 endorsed Wheeler), the "Mean Girls", or staffers.I doubt that the legalization of same-sex marriage will significantly affect Rojo de Steffey or Lisa Naito's re-election campaigns.

Aaron V - "I don't think the repudiation of Diane Linn has anything to do with queer rights."

Solely as a point of information (I know, I said I'd shut up), I marched with Diane Linn in the Saint Johns parade, carrying the BRO banner, as I'm a gay man, and an activist Democrat, who lives there. The snarls and snide comments I received from some parade-watchers - only some, but definitely some - tells me all I personally need to know about the role homophobia played in this election.

We all tend to see what we want to see, and are often profoundly blind to the circumstances of others.

I can't resist.............

(Munchkin 1) We thank you very sweetly for doing it so neatly

(Munchkin 2) You've killed her so completely That we thank you very sweetly

(Glinda) Let the joyous news be spread The wicked, old witch at last is dead

(Munchkins) Ding-dong the witch is dead Which old witch? The wicked witch Ding-dong the wicked witch is dead Wake up you sleepyhead Rub your eyes, get out of bed Wake up the wicked witch is dead She's gone where the goblins go Below - below - below Yo-ho, let's open up and sing and ring the bells out Ding Dong' the merry-oh, sing it high, sing it low Let them know the Wicked Witch is dead

(Mayor) As mayor of the Munchkin City In the county of the land of Oz I welcome you most regally

(Judge) But we've got to verify it legally To see...

(Mayor) To see...

(Judge) If she...

(Mayor) If she...

(Judge) Is morally, ethically

(Munchkin 1) Spiritually, physically

(Munchkin 2) Positively, absolutely

(Munchkin Men) Undeniably and reliably dead

(Coroner) As Coroner , I thoroughly examined her And she's not only merely dead She's really most sincerely dead

(Mayor) Then this is a day of independence for all the munchkins And their descendants Yes, let the joyous news be spread The wicked old witch at last is dead

(Munchkins) Ding-dong the witch is dead Which old witch? The wicked witch Ding-dong the wicked witch is dead Wake up you sleepyhead Rub your eyes, get out of bed Wake up the wicked witch is dead She's gone where the goblins go Below - below - below Yo-ho, let's open up and sing and ring the bells out Ding Dong' the merry-oh, sing it high, sing it low Let them know the Wicked Witch is dead

She would need twice the organizational and three times the communication skills to achieve wickedness. She should aspire to mediocrity. Maybe the Log Cabin Republicans are hiring?

Seems like I heard about a job that recently opened up at the DNC. There is an unspoke requirement that the applicants spouse should avoid saying/writing any criticism of Howard Dean though.

Posted in wrong thread earlier . . .

Wow . . . how bad did Diane Linn lose?

The incumbent MultCo Chair received fewer votes (27,145) than did Don DuPay, the hemp-huffing ex-cop who ran for county sheriff (29,601).

What should she do with seven months left in her term? She should resign.

A little known feature of Multnomah County government is that every elected official is supposed to name someone to take their place on an interim basis in case the elected official vacates the office due to death, incapacity, resignation, etc. That interim official serves temporarily until a replacement can be named by the Board. In this case, the obvious replacement would be Ted Wheeler.

According to the county clerk, Diane Linn's named replacement who would serve as acting chair until Wheeler takes office is . . .

. . . Former Governor Barbara Roberts

• Wes

"cc" wrote that, "there is an irony in that as an incumbent Sten could have easily raised a lot of money from special interests". Sure, it's not that he couldn't get that money again. Sten is a big supporter of New Urbanism (mistakenly called "Smart" Growth) and New Urbanism is all about corporate welfare and subsidies. Sten has voted many times to give your money to millionaire developers. They (and others who benefit from the subsidized projects, such as engineering firms) have given Sten money not because he does what they want him to do, but because they benefit from the way he votes and thus want him in there.

Why Sten has a reputation as someone who does not get such money is one of the biggest myths in Portland politics.

Bob Tiernan

Pat Mobley says that in Sten, Portlanders have, "a true progressive voice on City Council" and that he has "substance".

Here's some of his substance in the form of Fat Cat contributions from his 2002 campaign:

GSL Properties------------------------------------$3,000.00 Kenneth Novack (Schnitzer Investments)------------$5,000.00 Tom Walsh (Walsh & Assoc)-------------------------$2,500.00 Bob Walsh (Walsh Construction) ------------------ $7,500.00 Don Morrisette Homes, Inc.------------------------$1,000.00 Bob Gerding (Real estate)-------------------------$2,500.00 Conwest Resources, Inc.---------------------------$5,000.00 H. Naito Corporation------------------------------$1,000.00 Imsport, Inc.-------------------------------------$1,000.00 R. B. Pamplin Corporation-------------------------$2,500.00 HDR Engineering, Inc.-----------------------------$2,500.00 Rose Quarter--------------------------------------$1,000.00 John Russell (Office bldg owner)------------------$1,000.00 Joseph Weston (Real estate developer)-------------$1,000.00 James Winkler (Real estate developer)-------------$2,500.00 Ramis Crew Corrigan & Bachrach LLC----------------$1,000.00 Bay City LLC--------------------------------------$2,500.00 BPM Associates, LLC-------------------------------$2,000.00 D Park Corporation--------------------------------$2,000.00 MWS Holdings (Tempe, Ariz.)-----------------------$1,000.00 MWH Global (wastewater; UK/Pasadena based)--------$2,500.00 Frank A Bitar & Assoc (property mngm't)-----------$1,000.00 Philip Smith (Finance manager) -------------------$2,500.00 Heritage Investment Corp.-------------------------$1,000.00 Pat Pendergast (Real estate developer)------------$ 950.00

(Source: C&E Report, 2002)

Someone is very happy "that Tom Cox did not beat Kathryn Harrington in the race for Metro Council District 4".

What's wrong with someone with Cox's views being on the Metro Council? Is that a council for only one type of opinion? We would have been better off had Cox been there the past few terms. Was that McCaig's old seat? Remember McCaig? While on the Metro Council she voted for projects that benefitted Walsh Construction (she was then longtime live-in with Tom Walsh himself, who also soon after became the dad-in-law of progressive darling Serena Cruz who also supported New Urbanism that enriched people like the Walshes, but then, progressives are notoriously blind to that sort of sleaze -- like when Bechtel worked out a sweetheart deal to build Airport MAX with your money and the alleged Bechtel haters were silent while the only ones making a stink were those who were routinely trashed by the Progs).

Bob Tiernan

Jenni- rights are created by majority votes. There really is no other way which is why elections are important. I suppose you can argue that rights come from God but good luck with that line of thinking. Actually the old saying that "rights come out of a barrel of a gun" is probably more accurate than saying they are created by majority votes. In any case, your notation that rights aren't subject to votes is sweet but silly. There isn't a single right in the Constitution that can't be taken away by a majority vote.

Well, AndyF, at one level you have a case: We have a Constitution, and the rights established therein, because at some point the majority of some self-defined powerful group voted for it.

However, many of our functional rights, as opposed to our theoretical rights, exist through other means. Jenni's marriage, and my parents', may have been rights granted through the U.S. Constitution in 1787, but they weren't useful as rights to human beings until the Supreme Court recognized those rights, two score years ago, in Loving v. Virginia.

Similarly, my rights to my marriage may have been granted by majority vote in 1787, but the IRS and SSA will continue to deny my responsibilities to my wife until some bold leaders force them to face that fact.