Election Day Roundup

A Broward County, FL election official scrutinizes a ballot from the 2000 election. Legal challenges and a recount made the outcome of the presidential election unclear for weeks. The Constitution survived. (Robert King/Getty Images)

Happy Election Day!

Some rapid fire thoughts on the Superbowl Sunday of democracy:

No matter what, it will be okay.

I understand caring deeply about politics. Our state and our country will be affected, to some degree, by the outcome of every contest on the ballot. The policies that result from the choices we make in today’s election will change people’s lives. That’s a big deal.

Oregonians understand this more than most; the last four years and longer we’ve been the subjects of an extraordinarily broad-based and persistent policy experiment, implemented by the people we elected and the ballot measures we’ve approved. The evidence seems to me pretty clear that Oregon’s experiment in remaking the sliver of humanity under its jurisdiction into something it is not has failed, as all such experiments have failed. I hope most voters agree with me, but that would be a departure from the recent norm.

The crucial thing about America, as it relates to elections, is our constitutional system. It’s not perfect, but it’s by far the best that anyone has ever come up with, as evidenced by the freedoms it has guaranteed for so many for so long. It has endured invasion and occupation of the nation’s capital, civil war born of its internal contradictions, Wilsonian progressivism that sought to deliberately dismantle it, world wars, presidential assassinations, really close elections, challenged election results and all manner of other crises. It will survive 2024, too.

The Constitution has paid its dues. It provides the pathway, the only pathway, through our disagreements including whatever turmoil arises from today’s election. Violence and property damage weaken the constitutional order because they suggest it is inadequate to the task.

That is an ahistorical and hubristic suggestion. Political violence and property damage in America are illegal, self-indulgent acts of the ignorant. We should expect, and demand, that all levels of government put them down.

Measure 110 and the election

Speaking of policy experiments gone wrong, Measure 110 haunts this election like the Ghost of Dimness Past. The biggest leadership failure in that whole mess was the legislature failing to repeal or pause decriminalization during its 2023 session, instead waiting until 2024 to do it. Many of the people who made that deadly decision are running for re-election or for higher office.

The Democratic Party’s nominees for Oregon Attorney General, 5th Congressional District and a bunch of legislative races helped give Measure 110 an extra year of life, and Oregonians an extra year of extra death. That should matter. We’ll see if it does.

I recorded this short (like 90 second) video for KOIN on the subject. It ran this past Sunday.

This is what I look like when I’m talking.

I’ll be live in studio for KOIN’s election night coverage

Unless KOIN comes to its senses first, I’ll be in studio for the Portland CBS affiliate’s live election night coverage. I’ll be the on the panel whenever they are doing local stuff instead of national CBS stuff. I don’t know when that will happen, exactly, but it will be intermittently throughout the evening. I’m showing up at the studio at 3 pm and I’ll be there until, I don’t know, really late.

So, if you get KOIN, check it out. You can also follow me on Twitter/X where I’ll post updates throughout the night as I have time.

This is our day! Enjoy it.

Jeff