Article IV, Section 10 thru 11 of the Oregon State Constitution

In this post, we will look at Article IV, section 10 of the Oregon State Constitution.


Section 10 defines when the house and senate will sit.  For odd numbered years, it will sit for less than 160 days.  For election years, it will sit for less than 30 days.  It is possible to convene the legislature for emergency work as defined in Section 10a.  However, I am rather astounded that the sessions of the legislature are so short.  There truly is not a lot that can be achieved in 30 days of session.


Subsection (2) defines an "organizational" session, in which the legislature can do everything except overturn gubernatorial vetoes and pass new legislation to be sent to the governor's desk.


Subsection (3) defines that the limits in (1) above can be extended through voting to do so in both the House and Senate, but it needs renewed every 5 days.


Section 10a defines a process to have the legislature sit in an emergency session if so deemed necessary by half the members.  While it makes it read better to have inserted a section 10a, it might have been possible to simply add this as subsection (4) to section 10.


Section 11 states that the legislature has to make up all the rules by which it runs.  Here is a link to Robert's Rules of Order which is a common set of rules of parliamentary procedure.
Note that the rules enacted by each house may be different from the other.

Article IV, Section 7 thru 9 of the Oregon State Constitution

Article IV, Section 7 of the Oregon State Constitution discusses the relationship between county lines and senatorial districts.  By and large, in the original districts were essentially entire or half counties.  However, with the growth in population and having the maximum allowed legislatures, the districts are just small areas, especially in the high density parts of the Willamette Valley.  Nonetheless, each district has to be within a county.  Since the number of legislators is max'd out, the reality is that the borders may shift from time to time as urban sprawl spreads and there is an influx of rural folk into the cities, but these will not be huge changes to the congressional district.  Again, here is the map of the congressional districts.

Article IV, Section 8 provides qualification requirements for Senators and Representatives.  Summarizing these, the person has to be a US citizen, a resident of the district they will represent, be at least 21 years old, and not have been convicted of a felony. There are some details as to exactly how the age thing works, and also residence in light of possible re-apportionment as described in section 6 of Article IV.

Article IV, Section 9 gives legislators immunity from some prosecution.  This is intended such that someone cannot bring nuisance cases against legislators.  Further, anything stated during the legislative session cannot be brought before any other court.  This is a necessary thing to allow all and any relevant issues to be allowed to be discussed in the legislature.  Although the legislators are expected to stick to the truth, the reality is that in some cases, they will not have correct information and they should not be sued for untruths stated in the legislative assembly lest this inhibit decisions and actions that would make the government ineffective.

Article IV, sections 5 & 6 of the Oregon State Constitution

We continue to look at Article IV of the Oregon State Constitution.

Section 5 had a requirement for a census.  This was to be able to determine the right number of representatives and senators as well as to support any redistricting required.  Since this in many ways duplicated the efforts of the federal census, the section was repealed in 1972.  Here's a link to information about the census records.

While re-apportionment or redistricting was mentioned in previous sections of this Article, section 6 really provides the details on how re-apportionment of districts is to be done.  This is a lengthy section consisting of 6 subsections.  The first subsection explained that reapportionment is done after each census.  Subsection (2) gives some details on the ability to have a reapportionment reviewed by the judicial branch.  This ensures that any hijinks that the legislature might try to pull regarding reapportionment can get corrected through some mechanism.  If the legislature fails to act, then subsection (3) comes into play to demand that the executive branch starts the process for reapportionment.  Subsection (4) states that when there is a reapportionment that happens, this is treated as a law for consideration in the legal system with the exception that it cannot be the subject of an initiative or referendum which is clearly necessary.  Subsection (5) discusses that when the boundaries of a jurisdiction shift, for the purposes of recall, the petitioners for the recall have to be from the new jurisdiction after it comes into force per the timing stated in subsection (6).

Finally, in subsection (6), it states that all this becomes effective in January of the first odd numbered year after the census is performed.  It is further enacted through Oregon Revised Statutes 188.

Article IV, Section 12 thru 14 of the Oregon State Constitution

In this post, we will look at Sections 12 through 14 of the Oregon State Constitution.
Section 12 deals with quorum and the effects of not being able to achieve quorum.  For those who don't know, quorum defines how many members of the committee need to be present to be able to conduct business of the committee such as pass laws.  For the House and Senate, it is two thirds of the members.  This is actually quite high.  I once lived in a place where the HOA had a rule such that one tenth of the home owners present constituted quorum for the annual general meeting and that if quorum wasn't achieved within an hour, the group assembled could proceed regardless.
Interestingly, if quorum is not achieved within 5 days of the house or senate being called to sit, then, the compensation of the representatives or senators who don't show up can be docked.
Section 13 defines that a journal for each branch of the legislature has to be kept.  The house and senate each keep separate journals.  I went to look for the records on the legislature's website, and could not find them.  However, here is a link to an old scanned book version of the Oregon Senate Journal.  The Secretary of State website does have minutes of meetings of the legislature's subcommittees, and I finally did find the house and senate records here.
Something that I find really forward thinking on the part of the legislature is that they provide an API to be able to query the State's databases over the internet.  This is something I would like to explore, but going to have to leave it for a year or else this project will never get finished.
In section 13, it requires that to adjourn the session, one tenth of members have to so move in order for there to be a vote to adjourn.
Section 14 provides that all deliberations are to be open, whether these be the house, the senate, joint sessions, or committees.  As such, unlike with federal "national security" closed sessions, the is no meeting behind closed doors.  This is a good thing and I can't think of anything that the legislature would need to deal with that was so sensitive that it would require in camera sessions.  It should be noted that in an older version of the State Constitution, it was allowed to meet in secrecy if so deemed required.  See page 114 of this book.

Article IV, Sections 1 and 1b of the Oregon State Constitution

Article IV of the Oregon State Constitution deals with the legislative branch of the state government.

Section 1 has a number of subsections.  (1) defines that only the legislature, or the people through ballot initiatives, may make laws.  (2) gives some specifics with regards to the process for ballot initiatives.  It should be noted that the difference between proposing a law through an initiative vs. proposing a constitutional amendment is just an additional 2% more signatures.  As such if you have a good organization for collecting signatures, then it would make sense to always go for the constitutional amendment.  (3) defines that the people can overrule an act of the legislative assembly through petitioning for a referendum.  The number of signatures for a referendum is less that that for proposing a new law.  Also the legislature can call for a referendum on a law.  If a referendum upholds a law, the governor cannot veto it.  (4) provides some procedural detail on what the timings of the initiatives are.  (5) extends this to municipalities and allows municipalities to change some of the requirements as they wish.

This is written in the spirit of direct action by the people to govern themselves.  It is a good idea, but there can be a lot of political mischief wrecked with these provisions, if one were to so choose.  In an ideal world, representatives would never be unresponsive.  But this mechanism, though imperfect, does allow the people to exercise direct action on the law.

Here is some information about Oregon initiatives.

Section 1b (note yet another document control issue here), provides a rule, something which belongs in either a statute or a regulation, not the constitution, that prohibits someone for paying people by the signature for collecting signatures for these kinds of initiatives discussed in section 1 above.  I agree as there is a really high level of temptation to forgery when payment is per signature.

Article III of the Oregon State Constitution.

Article III of the Oregon State Constitution defines the separation of powers.  This is well illustrated in an organizational chart.

The three branches are the Legislative, Executive and Judicial, the same as the federal government.  Section 1 lays out the fundamental principle where a person is, unless specifically mentioned in the constitution, a member of only one of the branches.

Section 2 allows the Legislative branch to establish an agency to control the budgets which the legislature approves.  This agency is Legislative Fiscal Office.

Section 3 establishes a committee that can modify/reallocate budgets (but not initiate new taxes) during the time that the legislature is not in session.  This is important since, as we shall see in Article IV, the legislature is mandated to sit for only 30 days in odd numbered year.  Strangely, you can remain on this committee even if you don't succeed in running for office in the next even numbered year.  A lot of the items mention that an emergency must exist.

Section 4 allows the legislature to require confirmation of appointments made by the Governor.  I think that this section is too broadly written and potentially abusive of the Executive branch.  There may be good reasons to require certain appointments, but as written, this could be extended to large numbers of positions.  Compared to the US constitution, which specifies which positions require confirmation, this probably gives the legislative branch too much capability to interfere with effective administration of the government.

The constitution now goes into the details authorities and responsibilities of the different branches of government, up first in Article IV is the legislative branch.

Article IV, Section 2 thru 4 of the Oregon State Constitution

We take a look, in this post, at Article IV of the Oregon State Constitution.

Section 2 defines that there should be about 2 state representatives for each state senator.  Currently, in the state legislature, there are 30 senators and 60 representatives which are the maximum allowed by law.  This map lets you figure out who represents you.

Section 3 first indicates that representatives and senators are elected by the electors residing in the area that they represent.  Originally, it had been thought to make representation boundaries run along county lines.  I think that to the extent possible, this is still done.  However, this is not always possible.  There is a mechanism to fill seats that become vacant.  Section (2)(b) and (2)(c) talk about residency requirements.  (b) specifies one year.  (c) notes that if redistricting happens, then (b) is modified for appointments.

Section 4 defines the length of the terms.  Here one good thing is that senators are split into two groups and these two groups are alternately up for election.  Senators are elected for 4 years and representatives for 2.  Oregon only holds state-wide elections every 2 years, unless there is a need for some special election as determined by the legislature.

Article II, Section 22 through 24 of the Oregon State Constitution.

In this post, we will look at Article II, Sections 22 through 24 of the Oregon State Constitution.

In section 22, this limits political campaign contributions.  So the argument here is that in order to sway voters to vote for someone or something, you need to get a message out to the audience in a way that engages them and motivates them to vote.  This is in many ways much the same purpose as consumer product advertising, where the goal is to motivate people to go to a store and purchase a specific product.  Sadly human beings are quite gullible creatures.  Often it is not too much work implant an idea into people's heads.  The large consumer goods manufacturers like Proctor and Gamble are famous for creating "brands".  Nowadays, the crafting of the message takes a lot of skill and money.  All else being equal, the side with the most money will win because they can campaign (or "advertise") better and louder.  Here is an interesting case study from the 2010 election cycle.

So what is it limited to?  The section states that campaign money spent in a jurisdiction has to originate in that jurisdiction with an extra 10% allowed to come from outside the jurisdiction.  It would not be too difficult to circumvent this law in some manner that is very difficult to trace or prove.  Nonetheless, I suppose it does somewhat limit the direct influence of anyone who would want to play kingmaker in politics.

In section 23, this prevents someone from writing an amendment to the constitution that says it takes a three fourths majority to repeal or amend it, then pass it with just a majority.  This seems like it is common sense, but I guess without a rule against it, someone probably tried to do so.

In section 24, it gives some guidance as to what to do when a candidate who is successfully nominated and on the ballot happens to pass away during the course of the election campaign.  The Legislative Assembly (more likely a operative committee of some sort) can do postpone the election, leave the position open, or continue with the election and disregard the votes for the candidate.  The statute for certain offices is here which specifies that if the death occurs after the 47th day prior to the general election, the election is delayed and replaced with a special election.  A scan of search results could not find any specific cases where this has happened.

Article II, Sections 15-18

This post looks at Article II, Sections 15 through 18 of the Oregon Constitution.

Section 15 discusses the method of voting in the legislature.  It states that it needs to be viva voce .  The intent here is there is accountability required for legislators.  If there was some ballot, especially a secret ballot, it does not allow for the electors to know what a legislator voted and accountability of the legislators to the elected is a key concept in representative democracies.  The legislature has prescribed the method of voting in the statutes.

Section 16 discusses how you win elections.  What is interesting is that this section provides for proportional representation.  However, there is clearly a preference away from proportional representation and I would think that the two main political parties clearly prefer it that way.  Nonetheless, for any specific elected position, the legislature has the option to define the requirements.  If there are no requirements defined, then a plurality of the votes is sufficient to win the election.

Section 17, given the mail-in voting in Oregon, is moot.  It would clearly have had relevance in the past.

Section 18 provides a right to recall.  This requires a petition of 15% of the number of voters in the jurisdiction able to vote for an official to be presented.  Here is some info from Oregon recalls.  Wikipedia mentions a couple of successful and unsuccessful recalls in Oregon.  This site has some good information on recalls as well.  I am of the opinion that while there is danger that special interests will use a recall as a tool to apply pressure on elected officials, if the officials are incompetent or unresponsive, the electors do not have any leverage to really effect change.  Four years are a long time to wait to be able to vote out someone who is not doing a good job.

Hello World

Hello World, the usual first program that you write when you start learning a computer language, seems an apropos reference since this is my first blog post.  I am not sure what I am going to do with this blog, but having found that there is an issue with the Google Plus posts where you cannot create hyperlinks off the words.  Having consulted help, and found that it is not possible, now I would like to move all of the old posts into this web log or maybe leave that alone and then use this for further posts, but link them on my G+ page or ... or ...  There are just so many possibilities because of technology.


I realize this is rather a bit of a stub, but one has to start somewhere and explore what's around.