How many symptoms of a broken state do we need to see?
I mean, before we stop ignoring them?
Government managed, and money spent, by public unions.
PERS failures adjudicated by judges... on PERS!
Federal stranglehold on the forest industry.
Billions in upside-down expenditures.
The looming 7 billion dollar taxageddon.

In other words, the price we pay for a liberal Democrat at the helm
for almost 30 years.

Do people even remember a more sensible, self-reliant age?

Don't we deserve a better future than the last decades provided?

How about a better choice -- a Republican, conservative choice -- at the helm?

Meet our February speaker, Dr. Bud Pierce,
candidate for Governor of Oregon

A California transplant... too bad for California.
'Cause Bud's bio reads like an ad for commitment
to God, Family, Country, and a career of service.

Valedictorian in High School,
Phi Beta Kappa in College
Alpha Omega Alpha in Med School...
while courting his bride...
and being a Marine.

Then, in 1994, Oregon pulled him north.

Board certified in Internal Medicine, Oncology, and Hematology,
Dr. Pierce practices in Salem, and teaches at OHSU in Portland
and Western University of Health Sciences in Lebanon.
And serves on boards at his church, as well.

Too many awards to list, including, for 2014,
Oregon Medical Association Doctor Citizen of the Year

Battling disease should prepare a person for battling other
destructive adversaries, like excess government, bureaucratic bloat,
regulatory sprawl, and out-of-control public payrolls.

But the LAST doctor we had at the helm wouldn't know a free market from a
freemason, not to mention having just a few ethical lapses.

So let's hear a conservative doctor's prescription for restoring Oregon's health.

Seriously, Oregon needs fixing; on that we all agree.
Let's have a chat with a candidate who can do that.

Wednesday night, February 3rd.

Executive Club passes on meeting followup information as a courtesy to our speakers and members. Any member or speaker may submit, by email, a simple update text presentation to be sent to the club mailing list, to give the membership to have more details, or just a recap of your platform presentation. To be considered for publication, please be sure to submit your update within 24 hours of the close of the meeting. Please don't include any pictures in your text, but links to web pages, or links to things stored elsewhere on the web -- .pdf files, Word documents, or even pictures -- are OK now. Formatting and inserted pictures will not be copied, just the text content, so please don't use 4 fonts and 6 colors to convey your thoughts: you will be disappointed. Look at a previous followup email, or the bottom of most of the invitation emails, to see how they are presented. The simpler and cleaner your text, the more likely it will appear exactly the same in the email we send out. Each update must also indicate the author's name and contact information -- either a phone number, email address, or website with contact information. We reserve the right to edit for brevity, or reject, any submission.

2016 Legislative Begins Monday February 1, 2016

The "short" session of the legislature begins this coming Monday February 1st, 2016, and we will be in session for 30 days. The constitutional amendment passed by the people intended for this session to take up necessary budget emergencies, rebalance spending and to make needed technical fixes to bills passed in the last legislative session.

Your communication to me will be very time sensitive as bills need to have had a hearing scheduled in their 1st committee by February 11th. The next deadline is to have the bill scheduled in the second house a week later on the 18th. The third deadline is for the bill to have a work session scheduled in the second house by February 23. The session will end on March 6th.

If you see a bill you want to comment upon or to convey your position, please email me. I would urge you to follow the bills through the state legislative information system (OLIS).

I will be serving on the Rules committee, Revenue and Finance Committee, chairing the Veterans Affairs and Emergency preparedness as well as 6 other special sub committees and task forces.

While attending to the state budget is the highest priority, there will be undoubtedly many other issues brought forward that should be carried over to the 2017 session.

I look forward to serving you.

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 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, 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!

PROTEST MARKING THE ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY OF EX-GOV KITZHABER'S RESIGNATION

Friday, February 12th, 2pm to 4pm, on the State Capitol Steps in Salem

One Year Anniversary Commemorating the dethroning the Fallen King of Corruption - Disgraced Ex-Gov Kitzhaber. We will be protesting to draw attention to the unaddressed "Crisis of Corruption" in Salem that we've witnessed under his successor Gov. Kate Brown and her legislative leadership accomplices in the Senate and House. We’ll be sounding the call for Oregon's leaders to bring to an end their gross negligence in reforming Oregon's corrupt, dishonest, unaccountable, and unrepentant state government. Come Ready to demonstrate and send a loud message that DIRTY GOV'T IN SALEM MUST END.

Go here to let us know you’re interested in attending and participating

You can also sign up here