Cascade will help celebrate this year’s National School Choice Week (January 24th - 30th) with its first Policy Picnic of the year on Thursday, January 28th from noon to 1:30pm in its offices. Steve Buckstein will discuss the latest School Choice news and what’s happening in Oregon. Seating is limited so please RSVP soon at cascadepolicy.org.

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Part of Steve’s Policy Picnic presentation will be about public interest lawyer Clint Bolick’s visit to Portland in 1990 in support of that year’s school choice Measure 11 which Steve helped place on the ballot prior to founding Cascade in 1991. Clint came here to defend the measure’s constitutionality all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court if necessary.

On the morning of this month’s Executive Club meeting (Jan. 6th), Clint Bolick was appointed to the Arizona Supreme Court and people are already speculating that he could be on the short list to fill a U.S. Supreme Court vacancy under the right future President.

Clint Bolick co-founded the libertarian public interest law firm Institute for Justice, and most recently was vice president for litigation at Arizona’s Goldwater Institute. Filing that position now will be the Executive Club’s September 2010 speaker, Tim Sandefur of Pacific Legal Foundation. All in all, 2016 is starting out as a good year for Liberty Litigators and all liberty-minded Americans.

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Details of all Cascade events and publications are available at http://cascadepolicy.org/ and you can sign up for Cascade's free weekly Courier email list here.

The simple answer is 'no' - I would not have voted for the final version of the 2016 Omnibus bill as the Senate did on December 16, 2015. Like Dan Sullivan (R - AK) who voted 'nay', I refuse to believe that a bill of roughly $1.7 trillion (including the $600 billion of tax extenders added to the appropriations) and 2200 pages crafted by senior leadership behind closed doors, then presented to the Members only days before the vote, is the right way to do business in Congress. To add insult to injury--the injury being another $500 billion of federal deficits for FY2016 -- conservative principles were left to flutter in the wind. There were no riders to defund Planned Parenthood, sanctuary cities, the president's illegal immigration policies, and the bill quadrupled the H-2-B visa program with nary a debate. Not everything in the bill was bad, such as the lifting of the export ban for oil, additional funds for the Forest Service to fight fires, and the bill continues the prohibition on providing tax dollars for the so-called "risk corridors" in Obamacare. But to what end did we elect majorities in both Houses of Congress if this is how business is going to be conducted?

There are occasions where one has to "hold his nose" and vote for something that isn't perfect, but combining 12 appropriations bills together for an up-or-down vote that does nothing to lower deficits is simply untenable. Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., said on the Senate floor, "There is a reason that GOP voters are in open rebellion. They have come to believe that their party’s elites are not only uninterested in defending their interests but...openly hostile to them." Dan Laschober, www.Laschober2016.com, is the only candidate of any political stripe in this race with the credentials, experience and backbone to reject the "business as usual" crowd.

Dan will be on hand prior to the Lane County Central Committee meeting in Springfield on January 14; and will be one of the participating candidates in the Benton County Taco Social on January 21st, held the 3rd Thursday of each month in Corvallis, from 7-9pm -- more at my Event Calendar. Also, don't forget, the first candidate debate is coming January 30th, sponsored by the Western Liberty Network.

Please visit www.Laschober2016.com to learn more.

January 4th Mike Nearman Petitioner, through Attorney James Buchal sued Ellen Rosenblum, in her capacity as Attorney General for reasons listed below relating to the AG certified ballot title for Initiative Petition #51. Initiative Petition #51 as originally filled, would require voters to prove citizenship to register to vote.

1. The AG asserts that it is illegal to ask anyone to prove citizenship to register to vote on a federal voter registration application.
2. The AG asserts that the Department of Motor Vehicle will decide whom are citizens for purposes of registering to vote.
3. The AG is argumentative and misleading about the expiration of voter registrations.

We are now waiting to hear back from the Supreme Court.

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Oregonians for Fair Elections is still collecting signatures for our initial signature submission! If you are having an event that we could attend and gather signatures in the next couple of weeks, please let us know. Also, Please like our Facebook page, Oregonians for Fair Elections. You will find it informative. If you have a story to tell you can post it there. Please share our articles with your sphere of influence. Every like, click and share helps others learn about the issues.

We will be needing signature gathers to circulate petitions. If you would help with a few signatures we would be very appreciative. Another great way to help is to send out the single-signer page to your network. Let me know how you would like to participate. Please send your contact information to me so that when we do get to start circulating in earnest we will be ready. It probably won't be until after the new year. Call Janice at 503-757-0670 with questions.

Thanks so much for all your help. At least 70% of Americans agree with voter ID, in some areas it goes up to 87%. We seldom agree on anything that much!