Oregon Secretary of State Brown – 20 Push-ups
From Oregon Secretary of State Kate Brown
A few years back, when I was still a State Senator, I attended a workshop, which was put on by the Council of State Governments (http://www.csg.org/) regional arm, CSG-West (http://www.csgwest.org/), an organization I also chaired for a year.
This particular workshop was focused on how legislators can build credibility –through improved accountability– with their constituents. At the outset of the workshop, the keynote speaker asked who in this room of legislators could do 20 push-ups. Thinking nothing of it and being the eager beaver that I am, I quickly raised my hand as did a few others.
The speaker then spent the next 15 minutes talking about some key functions of building and maintaining accountability with constituents, delivering on campaign promises and engaging groups back inside the district.
With that lesson delivered, the speaker conducted a little real-world experiment, recalling the claim I and a few others had made regarding these 20 push-ups. She invited me and one other legislator, a gentleman from New Mexico, up to do the 20 push-ups we had promised her we could do. This was a moment of truth.
The good news for Oregon; I did them pretty easily. The bad news for New Mexico; their legislator couldn’t do his.
This drove the message home for me: If you’re going to commit to something during the campaign, you need to make absolutely sure that you can deliver on them once you’ve been elected.
When I was running for this office, I made three major promises to the voters of this state:
1.That I was going to restore integrity to the initiative process
2.That I was going to undertake a comprehensive civic engagement program
3.That I was going to focus our work in the Audits division on performance auditing
When I took office, I remembered that day when I was called up to do 20 push-ups. Taking a high profile position in State government, I knew that I was going to be held to my word on the campaign trail, so I started right in, working on fulfilling those promises.
Ballot Initiative Reform
Nothing was more important to me coming into 2009 than restoring integrity to the initiative system.
The initiative system and the ability to make laws without the Legislature is a part of our political DNA as Oregonians. However, people all over the state have told me of their concerns about the reliability of the system.
The Legislature stepped up and approved HB 2005, my package of reforms that won wide support from Republicans and Democrats alike. The legislation builds on advances made in 2007 and takes many steps to help restore public confidence in the process.
The bill:
•Allows the Secretary of State to conduct comprehensive background checks into the criminal history of prospective signature gatherers, and gives the Secretary of State the tools to prohibit someone from registering as a paid signature gatherer if convicted of fraud, forgery or identity theft.
•Prohibits the counting of signatures collected by a circulator who has violated the law or has been found liable for certain civil or criminal election offenses.
•Prevents chief petitioners from turning a blind eye when their employees are knowingly breaking the law.
•Allows the Secretary of State to impose a civil penalty while a criminal investigation is under way.
I think all Oregonians will be pleased with these improvements and we’ll see a better system in the 2010 election year. We’ve tightened the law, closed loopholes and provided tough but fair enforcement tools. These new regulations preserve the right of Oregonians to petition their government and increase public confidence that the initiatives that reach the ballot got there legally and legitimately.
Civic Engagement
It’s critical we get young voters engaged in government and I’m doing everything I can to make sure they register, make sure they vote and make sure they keep voting through their lives.
My new CIVIC engagement director, Aimee Wilson, has been working with me on several projects in this area. We’ve been around the state doing mock elections for students groups, Including Boys State, college groups and high school groups. These exercises get young people talking about issues that affect their lives. We’re also putting together a tool kit that will provide teachers with the material they need to engage students in government.
We’re lucky to have the support of the Legislature In this mission. Two bills approved in the 2009 session mark a great first step toward engaging younger voters.
First, we’ll be putting in place online voter registration. It’s not online voting. That technology is still way off. But by next yea r, eligible voters with a valid Oregon Driver’s License, driver’s permit or ID card may register and update their address online. A digital copy of the signature filed with the Oregon Department of Transportation would then be used to validate their ballots at election time.
Arizona and Washington have similar systems and report high satisfaction and no instances of fraud. Utah initiated a similar program earlier this year.
The other allows for fax voting. This will make voting much easier for our thousands of Oregon National Guard members serving overseas to participate more easily in the democratic process. Nineteen other states have successfully implemented fax voting.
I want Oregon to continue to do everything possible to help these Oregonians vote.
Performance Audits
Oregon does a great job with our fiscal audits, or what I call ” follow the money” audits. Where we are falling behind is in our performance auditing, which determines whether a given agency is delivering its services with the highest level of efficiency. If the agency is found to have problems in this regard, our job is to offer them concrete recommendations on how to do it better.
During my campaign for this office, I talked a great deal about the importance of performance auditing because it’s critical in tough economic times that we use every tool available to determine how to deliver services most effectively. Put another way, we must get the biggest bang for our taxpayer dollars.
To begin this process, I brought on new leadership in the form of Gary Blackmer, to head our Audits division. Gary, who comes to us from the city of Portland, is a nationally renowned performance auditor and a tremendous addition to our staff. He started on June 1 on a mission to start the drumbeat for accountability in State Government and he has already produced audits on foster care, cell phone use by state employees and the Oregon Health Licensing Agency.
At this moment, I am extremely excited about the work we’ve done and the progress we’ve made in under one year in office. That being said, I still feel like there is a lot of room for further improvement on the key areas of my office that I ran on. I’m not complaining though, after all, I raised my hand when Oregonians asked me if I could do this job, and now that I’m on stage, in front of everyone. I’m ready to get down and do some push-ups.
This entry comes from Oregon Secretary of State Kate Brown
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