Current News

Portland's Elections Office is investigating potential campaign finance violations by City Commissioner Rene Gonzalez. The Auditor’s Office, which houses the Elections Office, confirmed the investigation to the Mercury Friday, after receiving three complaints about the commissioner’s expenditure of $6,400 in city funds to edit his Wikipedia page. Gonzalez, who was elected to Portland City Council in 2022, is currently running for mayor. The use of taxpayer funds to enhance Gonzalez’s Wikipedia page was first reported...

Democratic leaders in the Oregon House and Senate have come out against a November ballot measure that would hike taxes on corporations.

Gonzalez’s office at City Hall hired a New York-based company in March to develop a handful of requested edits, records obtained by The Oregonian/OregonLive show.

Utah’s Supreme Court has ruled in favor of opponents of redistricting that carved up Democratic-leaning Salt Lake County among four congressional districts that have since elected Republicans by wide margins.

Utah Supreme Court Reinstates Challenge to Repeal of Anti-Gerrymandering Initiative

The move adds Portland to a small but growing list of U.S. cities, states and other jurisdictions that have adopted a widely used form of single-winner ranked-choice voting.

Alaska’s new electoral system — with open primaries and ranked-choice voting — has been a model for voters in other states who are frustrated by political polarization and a sense that voters lack real choice at the ballot box.

The move brings the Northern Virginia suburb’s experiment with the increasingly popular voting system to a halt for now.

In November 2024, voters will decide whether to use ranked choice voting in races after January 1, 2028 for president, seats in Congress, governor, Oregon secretary of state and some others.

Today on TAP: Not if the state’s progressives and Democrats hope to be winning elections

A bill asking voters to approve the system is among those stalled by a Republican walkout in the Senate.

BOISE, Idaho — Idaho voters could soon decide whether to have open primary elections and whether to choose candidates in order of preference, through a burgeoning method called ranked choice

With three serious gubernatorial candidates on the ballot in November and the theoretical possibility of a new governor elected with 34% of the vote, Oregon might consider an election tool that recently got a lot of attention in Alaska and seems ripe for consideration here: ranked choice voting.  The probability – at least, if polling […]

Ranked-choice voting brings numerous benefits and one downside: It requires voters to spend more time with the ballot. Vote by mail gives them that time.

RCV is on the ballot in a record 10 locations; and being used for elections in 12 other locations

"I will keep my mouth shut for sure." - DPO staffer who knew DPO misreported source of its biggest contribution ever

Montana's Supreme Court is allowing the signatures of inactive voters to count on petitions seeking to qualify constitutional initiatives for the November ballot, including one to protect abortion rights.

By Taxpayers Association of Oregon OregonWatchdog.com Willamette Week is reporting that Oregon Governor Tina Kotek is opposing Initiative Petition #17 which is a measure heading to the November ballot that taxes large businesses 3% as a way to bring in a haul of tax cash and then dole it out to

strongIP 17 already has opponents including business groups and Gov. Kotek./strong

FirstEnergy was the company behind the largest political bailout and bribery scandal in Ohio history. This week, Sludge reported that Trump’s top campaign money bundler advised FirstEnergy on its contributions to a dark money group that pleaded guilty to racketeering charges in that scandal.

After a tsunami of campaign spending on the 2022 governor’s race in Oregon – a record-breaking $70 million – a broad coalition and lawmakers worked together ...

Democracy reform legislation must address the role of money in politics.

The Oregon Department of Justice will not seek criminal charges into a $500,000 political contribution made to the Democratic Party of Oregon.

Sworn declarations of Aaron Mitchell and Rosa Cazares say the cannabis couple communicated with Hoyle's office about federal agency filings as recently as September 2023

Nishad Singh pleaded guilty to federal charges of campaign finance fraud; Oregon today declined to prosecute under state law

The Oregon Department of Justice announced Wednesday that did not find enough evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that former FTX executive Nishad Singh and state Democratic Party leaders knowingly misreported the source of the crypto trading company's 2022 donation.