Oregon Supreme Court again points out that the Attorney General performed poorly crafting a ballot title. Chung v. Rosenblum, docket 5070965, involves a review of the Attorney General’s certified ballot title for Initiative Petition 54 (2024) (IP 54), which was challenged by the petitioners, Sandy Chung and Yvonne Garcia.

IP 54, also known as the "Oregon Crimefighting Act," proposes significant changes to the pretrial release system for individuals charged with felonies and Class A misdemeanors in Oregon. The Act also empowers local governments to pass ordinances to fight local crime and requires the state to pay for jail space for those charged with felonies and Class A misdemeanors who need to be held until trial.

The Attorney General prepared a draft ballot title for IP 54 and, after considering public comments, modified the draft and certified the final ballot title. The petitioners, who had submitted comments on the draft, challenged the certified ballot title, arguing that the summary did not comply with the requirements set out in ORS 250.035(2)(d).

A D V E R T I S E M E N T

A D V E R T I S E M E N T

The Oregon Supreme Court reviewed the ballot title to determine whether it substantially complied with the requirements. The court agreed with the petitioners that the summary was deficient. The court wrote:

Petitioners contend that the summary in the certified ballot title for IP 54 does not comply with that standard because it neither sufficiently nor accurately describes the proposed measure’s impacts, which, they contend, “will result in a total revamp of exist-ing law and practice in several significant areas,” most notably, the law governing pretrial release and bail. They relatedly identify specific aspects of both current law and IP 54 that the summary either omits or—they contend—inaccurately describes. The Attorney General responds that the summary substantially complies with ORS 250.035(2)(d) because it uses the available limited words to both tell the voters about current law pertaining to pretrial release and then describe the substantive changes that IP 54 would make.

The court found that the summary did not adequately convey the breadth of the changes that IP 54 would effectuate, particularly in relation to pretrial release decisions at arraignment. The court concluded that the summary must be modified to clarify that IP 54 would override existing law and to provide a more accurate description of the changes that IP 54 would make to the current law governing pretrial release at arraignment. The court referred the ballot title back to the Attorney General for modification.

This measure just became more crucial since the Ninth Circuit Court just told Oregon to provide a public defender within seven days or release them. It was acknowledged by the dissenting Judge Patrick Bumatay that these are hardened criminals, "they are accused of rape, kidnap, strangulation (and) assaulting (cops).” The shortage of defense attorneys is a result of Democrat's changing the law that required an attorney to take impoverished cases.


--Donna Bleiler

Post Date: 2024-06-09 11:32:20

Last Update: 2024-06-09 00:57:12