Nice maps, I wonder what they would look like as cartograms adjusted for population.

Wonder how those like Ted Ferrioli (who didn't appear to realize how Farm Bureau support for 49 told a story fairly early) are reacting to the numbers. Maybe they don't know public opinion among actual citizens (not just lobbyists, contributors, etc.) as well as they thought!

As I recall, sending this out to voters was straight party line. If so, everyone who supported 49 needs to remind their legislators that the election result wasn't a partisan vote--esp. the counties painted blue and lavender.

"The Yes on 50 campaign clearly failed to win over the people who traditionally vote for progressive measures, nevermind everyone else."

I have a couple exceptions to take with that particular statement.

What is progressive about taxing the very income group you presumably want to help?

What is progressive about ignoring the biggest economic product related cost to Oregon - alcohol - and increasing a tax on a product that is already 80% tax in its price?

What is progressive about instituting a program with a funding policy dedicated to eradicating it's funding? And then funding it how?

What is progressive about making an unrelated segment of the population responsible for funding and entire state's responsibility?

smoke and mirrors and one of the most cynical political games I've seen in some time.

Note: Not one word regarding our Constitution.

The goal is worthwhile, the means reek. Not progressive, worthy of the people who brought us HR2, same game.

My letter to the Oregonian this evening in response to their article claiming that M49 won in urban counties and lost in rural ones:

Sir,

I have difficulty understanding how you can say that M49 passed in the "urban" counties, whereas it was defeated in the "rural" ones. I understand that the media may find it useful, even lucrative, to stoke the flames of an "us vs. them, rural vs. urban" divide in Oregon (I'm sure it sells more papers than suggesting that we all have common values), but the results of the election simply do not support this simplistic meme.

For example, by no stretch of the imagination do Umatilla and Union qualify as urban counties, although they both passed M49. And Polk and Lincoln, Jefferson and Linn (I could go on) do not fit the bill either. You would do well to look at a map before reporting geographicallly inaccurate statements that discredit your professionalism (see here: http://www.blueoregon.com/2007/11/elections-resul.html).

Chuck, you see the tax as punishment for smokers, but the proponents see it as discouragement from smoking -- it creates a barrier to starting and a prompt to quit. Behavior modification is a very common goal of taxation, of course, and there are very solid economic reasons to tax tobacco and discourage its use. The price of tobacco does not pay all of tobacco's costs. Externalities like the cost to society of health care are not included, which is a market failure.

I started on a population-adjusted cartogram, but I'm stuck on how to display counties with nearly 1/500th the population of MultCo. Either MultCo is larger than the page and Wheeler is tiny, or MultCo is reasonably sized and Wheeler is an indiscernable speck.

I'm leaning toward making Wheeler, Sherman, Gilliam, et al. near-invisible. Does that make me an urban-centric snob?

JX, while I admit "there are very solid economic reasons to tax tobacco and discourage its use" I cannot believe that you seriously propose that was the intent of M32H! There is no way to justify putting the burden of financing the public healthcare system on the backs of smokers. I think we both know that the intent was to shift healthcare costs which the broad electorate was unwilling to assume onto an unsympathetic minority. I am not surprised Oregon refused to approve such an unfair tax scheme.

It's not as though M50 was the sole source of funding for OHP. But I'd welcome your support for my campaign, Ed.

The healthcare industry should be part of the "commons" that all citizens pay into to share the cost. It would be a different debate to apportion healthcare costs on the basis of adjudged propriety of the healthcare one exercises for himself, and one that M32H gave only a very weak consideration.

Sorry JX, I am just not cynical enough to even suggest that the R's should be in charge of tax policy! (again)

Ed, I'll bite. What's M32H?

Also: my proposal is to call the Republicans' bluff. They don't want people to quit their donor-lobbyists' products, and they don't want to fund health care. But they claim they do. So let's have them put up or shut up.

now that measure 50 has gone in flames, like it should have, perhaps it is time to really work on the problem ... we need a national health care plan that covers everyone. with a national health care plan in effect; we wouldnt need an unfair and limited plan like measure 50. i voted against 50 for the simple reason its passage might have allowed politicans and others to follow up on doing what is desperately needed.

oops it is too damn early...

insert "not" before to follow up in the last sentence.

Sorry JX, I ran out of brain power due to the late hour... I pledged in another election-night thread here not to use the two numbers which had been pounded into my consciousness by the non-stop measure ads, hence the conversion to hexadecimal: M32H = Measure (3 X 16) + 2 in base-16 notation.

Yeah, I know... high geek-factor.

The message from Measure 50 was that corporate overlords could get people to vote themselves mandatory wedgies if they decided to spend enough money on the effort. Wide margins of popular support for Measure 50 in August; Reynolds spends a godzillion bucks, they all dutifully line up to vote no.

Of course, we learned that message earlier when Monsanto got people to vote not to know whether their food was genetically modified. Maybe next time, we can just vote to have sick children taken to Mount Hood and exposed so they won't be a drain on society. Give 'em some cigarettes, it'll dull their hunger pangs while they wait to die of exposure.

As Karl Rove is rumored to have said, "Hit a man over the head with a fish, and he'll have a headache for a day. Teach him to hit himself over the head with a fish, and he'll have headaches for the rest of his life."

One note about Eastern Oregon: If it says "tax" on it, they will vote NO on it no matter who is sponsoring it or who is putting money into it. To those in Eastern Oregon - it's a behavioral response. Tax = NO.

The goal is worthwhile, the means reek. Not progressive, worthy of the people who brought us HR2, same game.

Thus demonstrating, once again, the value of focus groups combined with enough money to define the debate.

David Banis in the Portland State University Geography Department can make the cartograms so that each county's area is proportional to the population (or number of votes, or whatever). I'm pretty sure he modified a program created by a current graduate student.

I'm so pleased Measure 49 passed. Measure 37 was, how ironic, a welfare program for Republicans. We live in Deschutes Co., and I agree with Eric Parker that in Eastern Oregon it is difficult to pass anything with a tax built into it, but this area is changing demographically which the response to 49 indicates.

i'm not at all surprised that M50 went down. it was a problematic measure, and that combined with the gobzillion dollars spent by the tobacco lobby was a bad combination.

disclaimer: i voted for it, so please no accusing me of being a shill for big tobacco. just realistic, that's all.

My hope is that since the people have spoken and have voted NO on M50, we don't see anything like it again for a few years. If we do see it (or any other tax like it) in the next election, it only shows how we tend to abuse the referendum/initiative system. When we say NO, we mean it.

We have said NO on M50. We should not have to vote on anything like it again. Please listen to the people for once and give us something else to consider.

The Yes on 49 campaign successfully picked up support among populations that don't traditionally vote for progressive or environmental measures.

I think it is extremely odd to call Measure 49 "progressive or environmental".

From my rural perspective, it was a typical house keeping measure. It fixed a voter measure that turned out to have some major problems. Rural people were at the table while the discussions went on about the fix, were there when the plan to fix the problem(s) was selected, and thereby through inclusion in the issue from start to finish voted in favor of this measure that afterall has more to due with rural people than urban people.

There is nothing therefore particularly progressive or conservative in this measure. While impacts upon limited water resources was a sub-set issue, again that is neither progressive or conservative - but science regarding how much water exists. Somehow urban people have convinced themselves that rural people in Oregon are anti-environment. This is total nonsense. One of the primary reasons people choose to live in rural areas is that they don't want the noise and pollution of urban life. Everyday when I go outside I am grateful for the crisp and clean air here, and my neighbors frequently make similar statements.

Measure 49 was not "progressive and environmental", it was common sense.

And if that lesson is learned, more measures that make sense for all of Oregon can pass in the future.

Very informative maps. The one regarding M50 particularly shows how out of step Mult. Co. is with the rest of the state regarding tax measures and the depth of the urban-rural divide.

”...does anyone actually believe M50 lost based on the issues? it lost because of how many millions of dollars..”

I know it’s hard to lose an election you believe passionately in but your statement sounds like pure sour grapes. Voters weighed the facts and voted with their heads.

Give them credit. Try presenting a better measure next time if you want a different result.

Eric Parker wrote, "One note about Eastern Oregon: If it says "tax" on it, they will vote NO on it no matter who is sponsoring it or who is putting money into it. To those in Eastern Oregon - it's a behavioral response. Tax = NO."

Untrue.

Did you know that since 1990, 96 libraries have either been built (new structures) or expanded (new wings) in Oregon? And most of these are in "rural" Oregon. Did you know that many school districts in rural Oregon pass bonds for new buildings? Here in Crook County, we passed a $20 million bond for a new High School and a $1.7 million bond for a new library - since we voted against Measure 5 (property tax limitation). Please remember that Measure 5 that started the anti-tax campaign off in Oregon did not pass in rural Oregon with the exceptions of Wasco and Jackson Counties. It passed with a large enough margin in Multnomah, Clackamas, and Washington Counties to push it over the top Statewide. If you want to point and anti-tax finger in any direction, start with "urban" Oregon.

The business that rural Oregon is anti-tax, and no "tax" measure will pass here is ignorance speaking to banality.

The key, just like I noted in my post on Measure 49, is that rural people need to see things from a practical standpoint, and they are conservative regarding principles. The main unanswered point of the anti-Measure 50 campaign was the business about amending the Constitution. Another unanswered point was that we already have a health plan. The TV ads we got here raised questions that were not answered by the pro-Measure 50 groups. -- I'd like to think that voters were "informed" when they voted, but the information they got was extremely one-sided.

In my County, about 20% voted for Measure 50. Yet, we have one of the State's highest rates of uninsured children. You can bet on the interest in solving that problem, but the solution was not seen as matching the problem.

Measure 50 was fatally flawed. You can't blame that on rural conservatism.

The only thing good about the M50 campaign is that we succeeded in wasting several million from the tobacco companies.

Incidentally, it was upsetting to see the super-majority-needed-for-tax-increases passing in Washington!

100,000 kids still need to be insured. Now it's in the legislature's hands again, and I hope the mandate to handle it themselves is clear.

I agree, Jeff, but Merkley was quoted last night as saying that he thought the interim session was "too soon" after the vote to address the issue. I don't think those kids without health care would argue that it's "too soon", however. So if you want to get this done, we first need to bring our own leaders in line. And as I argued in the M50 thread, Merkley and Kate Brown and other Dem leaders need to acknowledge their own mistakes here -- that the gamble they took by trying to fund kids health with a narrow, constitutional tax failed. It was the wrong way to get those kids insured.

I also argued in that thread that Gov K has the administrative authority (some might say "obligation") to enroll at least 50,000 of those kids RIGHT NOW. He doesn't need a new law or a new tax to do it -- although he will need to either cut a lower priority government program or use the excess revenue that is expected in 2008 to pay for it. But if funding kids health care is that important -- and I think it absolutely is -- then the Governor can make that happen.

This is a way too harsh statement: The Yes on 50 campaign clearly failed to win over the people who traditionally vote for progressive measures, nevermind everyone else.

Could they have done things differently - Yes

Could they have overcome the $11 million - Probably not

Should the blame fall on the shoulders of a Democratic Majority led Legislature - I think so.

I'm sorry, but the only finger I'm pointing at today is the Leadership and then big tobacco. The Measure 50 folks had an uphill battle the whole way.

*Note to Jeff Merkley, have fun running against Gordo with this under your belt.

we Oregonians love to tout how progressive, involved, informed, etc we are. but all anyone need do is spend enough money, and the ignorant monkeys grab the right banana attached to the right string.

T.A., this is really insulting to those who voted against M50 on principled reasons, and the disrespect it shows for your fellow Oregonians is not going to help move the debate forward. Besides, you can't make the argument above without also arguing that all those who voted for M49 were duped by the legislature's politicized ballot title and the "dishonest" ad campaign in favor. Do you believe that?

I tend to take voters' intentions at face value. They liked M49, so they voted for it. They didn't like M50, so they voted against it. We should spend more time coming up with progressive policies that voters will support instead of blaming our failures on others.

I'm glad to see Steve Bucknum call out Eric Parker for his slam on Eastern Oregonians. People in small town Oregon frequently have a much better idea of their best interest than Portlanders think they do.

M50 was a turd of an idea and it deserved to go down in flames. I would've voted no on it without the tobacco companies spending a dime to convince. All I had to do was read the measure and I knew it was getting a no vote from me. I'm glad it failed, now lets see if the folks in Salem who created that turkey learned anything.

Remarkable how folks can find a justification for providing protection to the corporate drug traffickers who wreak disease, disability, and destruction to the human race. Tobacco companies should be on the same par as the meth producer and seller. As for the victim addicts, if they can be motivated to quit by pricing them out of their addiction, so much the better. Big tobacco presently costs all of us in spades for their drug trafficking in higher medical bills for all those insured or uninsured who are slowly or more quickly dying from their addiction. Check out the nursing homes and hospitals. Those who are there for vascular disease, strokes, lung cancer, kidney disease, and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease are there, courtesy of tobacco pushers. And we are paying for it, in Medicaid, in higher insurance premiums and all the other costs associated with disease, disability, and death. So give yourself a big pat on the back, all you who voted against Measure 50. Not only do you not care about children, but you don't even care about your pocketbook.

Kari -

I called the counties you are missing for the BM49 results (I should have asked for 50 as well but I'm not thinking too clearly this morning.) Here they are - I'll let you do the math:

(county, Yes, No) Gilliam 427 to 356 Grant 966 to 1714 Harney 898 to 1700 Sherman 297 to 429 Lake 779 to 1722 Morrow 1269 to 1353 Wallowa 1537 to 1596 Wasco 4181 to 3626 Wheeler 344 to 281

Note that M49 passed in Gilliam, Wasco and Wheeler counties as well as the 18 other counties we knew about last night for a total of 21 out of 36 counties. This alone should debunk the completely erroneous assertion from all the media I've seen that this vote was along urban/rural lines (or party lines for that matter.)

Correction: Wallowa 1573 to 1596

James X:

Behavior modification is a very common goal of taxation

Bob T:

But it shouldn't be becuase it encourages busy-bodies to decide which behaviors are vulnerable to being dumped on by "democracy".

James X:

Externalities like the cost to society of health care are not included, which is a market failure.

Bob T:

Well, only if you don't understand its meaning. It's actually a failure of collectivism because when individuals are not held accountable for the consequences of their actions, all bets are off. When a biker, for example, crashes and has serious head injuries due to not wearing a helmet, there is no obligation by everyone else to pay his bills. If you demand that they do, then you are no longer talking about "the market", but policy.

Bob Tiernan

I agree that our constitution is a sacred document meant only to be amended to give lottery funds to parks (1998 M66), general obligation bonds to seismic rehabilitation (2002 M15) and tax breaks on mobile homes (2004 M32). Not for taxes on specific products, which is unprecedented. Other than with the lottery thing.

If you reduce it to pure economics--ignoring the human suffering for a moment--does tobacco really cost that much more money after you figure in the lower social security payments resulting from all those premature deaths? Really--has anyone done that cost analysis?

The analysis is complex, but it has been attempted. My understanding is that when looking at GOVERNMENT programs only, smoking probably saves money. It's not just Social Security savings, but also Medicare since many smokers never even make it to 65. Those that do often die horrific, expensive deaths, but so do most old people given modern medicine. The non-smoker who dies from some other malady at 85 usually costs Medicare less since the non-smoker consumed lots of health care between 70 and 85 and still usually has high end-of-life expenses.

However, when looking at ALL social costs of smoking (government costs and private costs), smoking is a net drain since everyone pays higher premiums because of smokers, health care inflation is higher, time off caring for them, etc. But as I said, the analysis is so complex it's hard to really nail everything down for sure. What we do know is that less smoking makes everyone healthier, so in my opinion the state should raise the tobacco tax during next year's interim session and make smoking cessation programs avaialable to every person who wants to quit.

RE: Measure 50 You will find Symathy in the Dictionary between SH*t and syphilis just below scrotum. Any bunch of clowns that have the nerve to cry over that measure deserve what they get. I would have voted for it except that Constitution clause Sucked and I Don't give my freedom away.

Are there breakdowns by precent or that show how rural voters voted?

Red: I assume that will be in the State's official election posting on I believe Dec 6...

So let me see if I understand.... Voters smart for seeing through money spent by evil developers on 49, but voters dumb for being duped by evil tobacco on 50. Half of voters smart, other half dumb. That sounds about right.

Thanks to Steve Bucknum for so ably representing rural thinking on the ballot measures. Many rural voters opposed M49 because it was just a housekeeping measure that did almost nothing to resolve the underlying problems of either M37 or the body of Oregon land use regulations.

M37 just created a privileged class of a few old geezers and several huge corporations. Real estate agents may have been drooling over the possibilities, but it did nothing for any individual under about 60 years of age. M49 put a leash on the corporations, but still does nothing for the average citizen.

There are vast areas of the state that have less population today than they had 100 years ago, but the land use regulations (as opposed to laws) generally prohibit development of any kind. This has left rural areas in a situation where urban voters have decided to limit resource utilization like logging and mining, touting the value of the lands for recreation. The catch-22 is that it is not legal to develop facilities to attract and accommodate the hypothetical horde of tourists.

The state needs to establish rural enterprise zones to allow controlled development outside of an urban growth boundary. After a few decades, the more successful enterprise zones could incorporate as new towns, but that needs to be planned from the very beginning. Rural people may not favor Simpson Lumber turning the Coast Range into condos, but that does not mean we are opposed to rural development.

Jeff Alworth responded to a comment of mine:

Steve: There is nothing therefore particularly progressive or conservative in this measure.

Jeff responds: I strongly disagree, Steve. Oregon has the most progressive land-use planning in the country, designed particularly to prevent sprawl into rural lands. M37 undid that, so passing M49 was a recognition that we had scrapped everything about land-use planning that was worthwhile. It restored some measure of progressivity back into land usage.

And I respond to that:

Jeff, Senate Bill 100 and the land use planning system that has evolved may be perceived as progressive from the exterior, but the evolution of the land use system was nothing but conservative, and by that I mean conservative in the sense of conservation. Way before we had an environmental movement, we had a conservation movement. Farmers, hunters, and rural folks worked to conserve what we had. The land use laws that preserved farm lands were a natural extension of the older conservation movement.

Laying claim to the work of the late 1970's by calling it progressive is okay on one level I suppose, but I find that unnecessarily polarizing. All of Oregon worked County by County to make land use planning work, and I would be hard pressed to call all of those thousand of people who on the ground around the State made the system work out "progressives". Some were as far right as you can go.

I think it is far more important if we share a vision or a direction regarding the future (and I assume we are probably in 90% agreement regarding land use issues), that we use language and invoke history that is inclusive. All sorts of people stand shoulder to shoulder regarding our Oregon and its lands who disagree about everything else. Our land use laws have not been truly overruled over the decades in spite of many attempts. In fact, printed right in Measure 37 it said that it was NOT a substitute for land use decisions. What Measure 37 was about was a perception of fairness. What Measure 49 was/is about is a perception of abuse that undermines the prior concept of fairness. These words, "fairness", "abuse", etc. are neither progressive or conservative. They are part of the common tongue, part of the shared existance we have. It is beyond bi-partisan.

So Jeff, I disagree to my core. Measure 49 has nothing to do with a progressive agenda in the minds of the vast majority of voters. Measure 49 has everything to do with a core identity - being an Oregonian.

Larry Caldwell writes,

"Thanks to Steve Bucknum for so ably representing rural thinking on the ballot measures."

I'm always a little nervous when someone appears to agree with me, and then in the next sentence goes the other way:

"Many rural voters opposed M49 because it was just a housekeeping measure that did almost nothing to resolve the underlying problems of either M37 or the body of Oregon land use regulations."

Sorry Larry, you left me there. Most of us think that Measure 49 goes a long ways towards fixing many problems from Measure 37.

Larry, you then go on with some truly uninformed generalities:

"There are vast areas of the state that have less population today than they had 100 years ago, but the land use regulations (as opposed to laws) generally prohibit development of any kind. This has left rural areas in a situation where urban voters have decided to limit resource utilization like logging and mining, touting the value of the lands for recreation. The catch-22 is that it is not legal to develop facilities to attract and accommodate the hypothetical horde of tourists."

True, parts of Oregon such as the Coast Range, Wheeler County and other east side ranching areas, etc. have less population. But, pointing at urban voters for limitations in extractive business isn't exactly accurate. There are more limitations to be sure, but most of that came out of Washington DC. Most of the limitations are reasonable, and set standards to conserve and preserve our lands. Mining, logging, ranching, and farming are still happening. During my brief time on the Crook Co. planning Commission, I voted approval for four different mining operations.

But where you really leave the page entitled "reality" was your comment about tourist facilities being illegal. Ever hear of a destination resort? Here in Central Oregon we are being overrun by these tourist sites. Lets see how my memory goes: Sunriver, Eagle Crest, Crooked River Ranch, Ochoco West, Three Rivers, Pronghorn, Dry Creek Air Park, Brasada Ranch, Remington Ranch, and there are a couple of others under development whose names I don't recall at this time - all within a 75 minute drive of my house. And other tourist facilities: Mt. Bachelor, The Inn at the Seventh Mt., Hoodoo, Lake Billy Chinook resort, most of Bend, the Deschutes and Ochoco National Forests including many/many camping sites, and so on. And as for that all American invention, the motel - well we've got a couple of those too. Yikes!

Yes, recreation is an important part of our economy. And you can bet we are making money on it.

Larry I appreciate your good will, but I wish you'd become a little better informed. Broad sweeping comments that just happen to be wrong don't support your position (or mine) very well.

I haven't read all the comments, but I happened upon this post after I had already done my geographic analysis of the M49 vote (ArcGIS is a wondrous thing).

I mapped the county-level data from BO.com's M49 thread, then analyzed the stats by subregion. Here's what I found:

Willamette Valley (Lane, Linn, Benton, Polk, Marion, Yamhill, Clackamas, Washington, Multnomah, Columbia) 407,194 Pro (68.3%) 188,813 Con

Coast (Clatsop, Tillamook, Lincoln, Coos, Curry) 34,735 Pro (63.4%) 20,085 Con

Eastern Oregon as a whole (inc. Hood River) 64,656 Pro (49.9%) 64,924 Con

Central Oregon (Wasco, Jefferson, Deschutes, Crook, Wheeler) 32,398 Pro (54.7%) 26,811 Con

Southern (Josephine, Jackson, Douglas) 43,311 Pro (39.7%) 65,872 Con

BOTTOM LINE: The Willamette Valley carried M49, but the Coast and Central Oregon also came out in favor of the measure. Eastern Oregon as a whole was split almost down the middle, but Southern Oregon was staunchly opposed. Guess they're hoping to sell out to the Californicators so they can then bitch about how Californians have ruined the Umpqua and Rogue valleys.....

Whoops, forgot to link to my map. It's here.

http://img248.imageshack.us/img248/7863/mym49maprx2.jpg

To respond to Steve Bucknum about tourist sites, I'm not familiar with all of them, but Sun River and the Crooked River Ranch predate any land use laws in Oregon. I remember during the summer of 1969, I was contacted by a telephone solicitor trying to sell me lots at the Crooked River Ranch - $500 for an acre of land, $50 down, and they would carry the paper. Of course, I laughed at him. At the time you could buy an acre of fertile farm land in the Willamette Valley for $350, and view property in the Eola Hills for $50 an acre.

I suspect all the other resort sites were platted long before SB 100. Oregon land use laws were written to confine urban sprawl, and are total nonsense where there is no urban area in the area. For instance, there are no destination tourist facilities anywhere near Oregon's Hells Canyon National Recreation Area. The nearest destination lodge is at Asotin, Washington. That is thanks to land use regulations written to keep Portland from sprawling onto fertile farmland.

Oregon's land use laws are unnecessarily punitive toward rural economies. They need serious revision. Besides rural enterprise zones, it should be possible to get a building permit on any legal lot of record. In my neighborhood, if you have less than 160 acres, you don't get a building permit. There are half a dozen 40 acre parcels within 5 miles of my house that have no residence, because it is not legal to build on them. That is total nonsense.

unenlivening cheepily theca coadministration fibrocarcinoma mantis vasocorona purdah Or Emet: Valencia, California http://www.ueapme.com/

<hr/>