Measure 49 lawsuit arguments demolished by Oregon AG

Whew! I feel a lot better now about the chance of the Oregonians in Action lawsuit against Measure 49 being rejected by federal Judge Hogan.

I just did a quick read-through of the Oregon Attorney General's response to the lawsuit (thanks to Peter Bray of Land Use Watch, who made it available on his blog).

You can read the 31 PDF'd pages yourself. Download oia_lawsuit_response.pdf

Some points that leapt out at me:

--(page 5) Yes, it would cause voter confusion if Measure 49, which fixes many of the flaws in Measure 37, were to go on the ballot without a title or description. But that's what Oregonians in Action wants. Confusion.

--(pages 9-10) The Oregon legislature routinely writes the descriptive language for measures it refers to voters. Nothing different is going on here, contrary to claims made in the OIA lawsuit.

--(page 12) The Attorney General never said that the ballot language for Measure 49 was an "advocacy piece." Rather, the AG was commenting generally that such language shouldn't advocate for a "yes" or "no" vote. Here again, OIA twisted the facts.

Prediction: Judge Hogan will rule against OIA, decisively. The final lines of the AG's argument will come true.

The present motion for preliminary injunction lacks merit. It is late without explanation, it presents no colorable claim on the alleged constitutional violations, and it threatens to cause far greater harm than it could ever forestall. The motion should be denied.

Comments

[RinoWatch]

Hines,

What the hell did you think "Hardly" would say?

The legislature was wrong and over the top with their ballot title and I think it should be changed.

While you may be right about Hogan, your reasoning, using "Matters" as your barometer has made me laugh right outta my chair