Natural Resource News,
Called one of Oregon’s biggest environmental ballot measures in history, supporters of the Water, Parks, and Wildlife measure have almost doubled the amount of signatures needed to place it on November’s ballot.
On Friday, almost 200,000 signatures (approx. 10% of Oregon’s registered voters) were submitted to the Secretary of State’s office. They only needed 110,000.
The measure is a proposed constitutional amendment to lock in 15% of lottery funds for water, state parks and wildlife programs in Oregon. Nearly half of the money is intended toward wildlife, streams and salmon programs. It is also used to save parks from closing and open new ones as was done with prior funding from a ballot measure that expires in 2014. This new measure would make the funding permanent.
The only opposition so far has been from the unions and educators.
They’re also accessing the lottery funds and see this measure as an obstacle. These two key Democratic interest groups, environmentalists and labor met for a third time on June 17 hoping to settle this turf battle that threatens the coalition they have used to gain large legislative majorities. Apparently unable to come to an agreement to table the measure, Oregonians for Water, Parks, and Wildlife turned in the signatures on July 2.
For a full review of this turf battle click here
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