As Oregon prepares to make a fateful decision on how it funds health care for low-income citizens, plenty of voters will rely on the state’s official voters’ pamphlet.
The Oregon Secretary of State’s office recently sent out the influential 48-page document to every household in the state. It lays out Measure 101—the lone item up for consideration in the January 23 special election—and a host of arguments for and against it. But the pamphlet also contains some cynical trickery that Secretary of State Dennis Richardson’s office says it’s powerless to stop.
Two major Republican backers of the effort to kill Measure 101—which would uphold a new tax and assessment on certain parts of the health care system to help keep Medicaid afloat—intentionally slipped in screeds against the measure in the section of the voters’ pamphlet dedicated to supportive arguments.
State Rep. Julie Parrish (R-Tualatin/West Linn) and conservative political operative Lindsay Berschauer both snuck arguments against Measure 101 into the “Argument in Favor” section, instead of the separate “Argument in Opposition” section. Their sarcastic statements panning the measure sit among blurbs of genuine support submitted by Central City Concern, the Oregon Nurses Association, the League of Women Voters, Basic Rights Oregon, and other groups worried about the status of Medicaid funding now that the federal government is footing less of the bill.