Archive for the 'Secretary Brown' Category

Secretary of State Kate Brown Joins Census Team in Salem

Published on February 22, 2010 in Census and Secretary Brown. 0 Comments Tags: .

Courtesy of Statesman Journal

The Statesman Journal has done a write up on Secretary of State Kate Brown’s participation in a recent Census event on the steps of the Capitol. The Secretary spoke about the importance of a complete count for the State of Oregon, both in terms of federal dollars and the possibility of adding an all-important sixth congressional district.

From the article:

Secretary of State Kate Brown urged residents to participate at Wednesday’s event on the steps of the state Capitol.

“It means money for Oregon,” Brown said. “We want to make sure we get our fair share. … Our state government and our local governments need every dollar.”

Brown spoke with a group of Canby High School students who visited the Capitol and sat in on the Legislative session as part of their Future Business Leaders of America group.

So why exactly is a complete and accurate Census count so important to the state of Oregon?

To put the count’s impact in real terms, there will be close to $400 billion dollars in federal funding to be distributed over the next few years. The results of the 2010 Census count will be major factor in helping decision makers in Washington, D.C. decide where those funds will go. In these tough economic times for the state, this is a big deal. As Michael Burns, the deputy regional director of the U.S. Census Bureau mentions in the article, each person counted means roughly $1,400 for state and local governments.

To give you an idea of where this money can be used, here are just a few examples of where federal money was allocated in 2007:

  • Food stamps – $30.4 billion
  • Section 8 Housing Choice Vouchers – $16.1 billion
  • National School Lunch Program – $8.6 billion
  • Head Start – $6.2 billion
  • State Children’s Insurance Program – $5.5 billion
  • Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) program – $5.3 billion
  • Foster care (Title IVE) – $4.5 billion
  • Child Care Mandatory & Matching Funds – $2.9 billion
  • School Breakfast Program – $2.1 billion

These are programs that have a massive impact on people’s lives.

The Census count will also determine whether or not Oregon’s population has grown so much since the last count that we require a sixth congressional district. This would mean that Oregon would have another Representative to join our already stellar representation in the US Congress. Greater representation in Washington means a louder voice for Oregonians; and this is a good thing.

Census forms will arrive by mid-March of this year. We are hoping to make 2010 the most complete count in Oregon’s history. It’s in our hands!

Secretary of State Brown at the Pacific Coast Collaborative conference

Published on February 17, 2010 in Road Trips and Secretary Brown. 0 Comments

Vancouver, British Columbia is the home of a little event called the 2010 Olympics. On the 12th of February, Vancouver also hosted the latest convening of the Pacific Coast Collaborative conference. The conference featured Govs. Schwarzenegger or California and Gregoire of Washington, Premier of British Columbia Gordon Campbell and filling in for Governor Kulongoski, our very own Secretary of State Kate Brown!

Below is a video of the press conference, which followed the discussions. For Secretary of State Brown’s statements, you’ll have to fast forward to the 6:24 mark.

Here are links to parts: 1, 2 and 4 as well.

The Secretary was honored to be able to come together with the Pacific Coast’s most prominent leaders to discuss the how the entire Pacific Coast can come together to solve the most pressing environmental issues of the future.

Election Day – Special Election Edition

Published on January 26, 2010 in Elections and Secretary Brown. 0 Comments Tags: , .

Today, January 26th, is the final day to turn in your ballot for the Special Election! Your ballot must be received by 8pm to be counted. To find a ballot drop off site, please take a look at our Ballot Drop Box Locator.

The election is in full swing on the final day for Oregonians to turn in ballots. For a look at daily returns, you can check out our elections handy (but unofficial) ballot returns table. Multnomah, Clackamas, Lane, Marion, Coos, and Benton Counties are also keeping more detailed and in some cases up-to-date tallies as they become available.

For her part, Secretary of State Kate Brown is taking the day to observe the democratic process with Multnomah County Elections officials as they pickup, drop off, process, and tally ballots.

Secretary of State Kate Brown, Emcee.

Published on January 21, 2010 in Secretary Brown. 0 Comments

On Wednesday night, Secretary of State Kate Brown served as emcee for a special screening of the new film Extraordinary Measures, which stars Harrison Ford and Brendan Fraser. The film is also ‘extraordinary’ in that major parts of it were filmed in the State of Oregon as part of a deal that involved Nike, OHSU, CBS Films, and Oregon Film, whose mission it is to promote the development of the film, video, and multimedia industry in Oregon and to enhance the industry’s revenues, profile, and reputation within Oregon and among the industry internationally.

The film follows a mother and father as they do whatever it takes to find a researcher who might have a cure for their two children’s rare genetic disorder. The disorder is called Pompe Disease, which is caused by mutations in a gene that makes an enzyme called alpha-glucosidase (GAA).  Normally, the body uses GAA to break down glycogen, a stored form of sugar used for energy.  But in Pompe disease, mutations in the GAA gene reduce or completely eliminate this essential enzyme.  Excessive amounts of glycogen accumulate everywhere in the body, but the cells of the heart and skeletal muscles are the most seriously affected1. What makes this project’s connection to OHSU Doernbecher Children’s Hospital so incredible, is that it just so happens that OHSU Doernbecher is the largest Pompe disease research and treatment center on the West Coast.

During the event, which was held on Nike’s headquarters, Secretary of State Brown also announced that Nike was donating it’s $60,000 location fee from the filming of the movie to the OHSU Doernbecher Children’s Hospital.  This money promises to go a long way towards serving the Hospital’s mission to improve the health of children in our region by providing quality and compassionate, family-centered care to every child, every day. It could also be key in helping researchers find the cure to rare diseases like Pompe disease.

Oregon Student Association Registration Tours

Published on January 6, 2010 in Elections, Road Trips and Secretary Brown. 0 Comments

This is a guest entry from Oregon Secretary of State Kate Brown

Today I was lucky enough to be invited by the Oregon Student Association to their press conference in which they announced that they had registered a whopping 14,272 students to vote in just 3 months!

With this incredible accomplishment in mind, I want to share a little bit of what I experience on Monday and Tuesday during this tour of seven of Oregon’s university campuses: PCC Sylvania, PCC Casdcade, Mt. Hood Community College, Portland State University, University of Oregon, Oregon State  and Lane Community College.

The first thing I learned is that the students in this state are not sitting idly by while decisions are made in Salem. These students are showing us what civic engagement is all about.

And you should have seen them! Despite the cold and rainy weather, students were out on the streets of Eugene, Corvallis and Portland, fearlessly engaging their peers. Sometimes even after they had said no, or had walked right past without saying a thing.

They understand that sometimes voter registration comes one person at a time, but that each person they register could be the deciding vote. As someone who won her first race by 7 votes, I let them know just how important each and every voter they registered is, and I have to admit, I got caught up in their enthusiasm.

I was originally asked by the Student Association to talk about the role of students in the voting process during a set of ‘class raps’. We had so much fun with our scheduled raps, which sometimes had as many as 500 students in attendance, that we started up a series of ‘Guerilla Raps’, which were class raps in classrooms where we weren’t scheduled to speak. OSA approached professors and asked for permission and we launched right in. It was a great way to reach out to even more students before the registration deadline.

I also got an opportunity to help the students by hitting the streets and registering voters. We came across all kinds of students from all kinds of backgrounds including a couple of 17 year-olds taking advantage of a recent development in Oregon’s voting law, which allows 17 year-old Oregonians to register to vote in the election following their 18th birthday.

I walked away from the two day tour with a tremendous respect for the students in our great state. I saw an amazing level of dedication from those who took their time out of their busy schedules to volunteer. These volunteers are a credit to our state and will insure that the health of our democracy remains strong for another generation. I also came away with a sense that young people are paying attention to the world around them and that sometimes all it takes is their peers giving them information and they will respond.

I want to thank the Oregon Student Association for this opportunity and congratulate them on a tremendous job well done!

Kate Brown is the Oregon Secretary of State

Oregon Secretary of State Brown Discusses Her First Year

Published on December 21, 2009 in Secretary Brown. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

Courtesy of The Statesman Journal:

Oregon Secretary of State Brown

Secretary of State Kate Brown said she took steps during her first year in office toward better policing of paid signature-gatherers and promoting alternatives for registration and voting.

Brown likened her 2008 campaign promises to an exercise she attended at the Council of State Governments-West, which she led while still a Democratic state senator. She did the 20 push-ups requested at a session on building credibility, but her counterpart from New Mexico failed.

“The message was clear,” she said at a Marion County DemoForum luncheon. “When you make commitments on the campaign trail, make sure you can deliver on them.”

House Bill 2005, which lawmakers passed during the 2009 session, builds on legislation that Brown shepherded as Senate Rules Committee chairwoman in 2007.

Among other things, the 2009 law holds chief petitioners accountable for the conduct of paid signature-gatherers, and allows the secretary of state or the attorney general to levy maximum civil penalties of $10,000 for legal violations in signature-gathering for ballot-initiative petitions. Civil penalties, which had been $250, can be imposed without the legal burden of proof required in criminal cases.

Also, instead of a single submittal by July in even-numbered years, the law requires paid signature-gathering campaigns to submit signatures monthly.

Brown said the more frequent filings, which apply only to petition campaigns using paid signature-gatherers, will allow more time for state elections officials to verify signatures before the legal deadline. The Oregon Constitution requires verification of petition signatures within 30 days after the filing deadline.

“It is my belief that when we fully implement House Bill 2005, along with the reforms we passed in 2007, Oregonians will have greater confidence that when they vote on initiatives, the initiatives will have gotten on the ballot through legitimate means,” Brown said.

Not part of the new law, but granted by lawmakers, was money in the state budget enabling state elections officials to verify randomly chosen signatures — instead of farming out that task to the 36 counties — and to hire two investigators.

Brown said a statewide voter registration database, required of all states under a 2002 federal law, allows her office to take over verification of signatures for statewide petitions.

Other bills will put Oregon among the handful of states with online voter registration and fax voting — although the latter is restricted to Oregonians on active military duty.

The online system is scheduled to start March 1. It will require eligible voters 18 and older by election day, U.S. citizens and Oregon residents to hold a valid Oregon driver’s license, permit or identification card. A digital copy of the signature on file with the Oregon Department of Transportation will be used to verify a voter’s signature on the back of a ballot envelope.

As is the case with regular registration, voters must affirm they are U.S. citizens. The maximum penalties for violations are five years in prison and a fine of $125,000.

Brown said online registration will allow voters to update their addresses and other changes — and help young people who spend a lot of time online.

“But this is not online voting,” she said. “We are not there yet. As someone who won her first race by seven votes, I want to make sure there is a paper trail that we can do a recount on.”

Brown said the two measures are just small steps toward her larger goal of broadening civic engagement.

Given a September public-opinion survey in which 40 percent of participants said they did not know Oregon has two U.S. senators, Brown said, “we really have our work cut out for us.”

pwong@StatesmanJournal.com or (503) 399-6745

Table Rocks Preserve

Published on December 9, 2009 in Oregon Land Board and Secretary Brown. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

Source: Oregonlive.com

Yesterday, the Oregon State Land Board approved adding the Table Rocks Preserve, also known as the Wood/Beech Tract to the Oregon Register of Natural Heritage Resources Register. The 1,714.75-acre preserve is located in Jackson County approximately 10 miles north of Medford and is home to a number of listed species and rare habitats.

In putting the Wood/Beech tract of the upper Table Rocks Preserve on the register, The Oregon State Land Board has now designated 100 such properties throughout the state, which stand as  examples of Oregon’s Natural Heritage.

Source: Vernalpool.org

Vernal Pool Fairy Shrimp - Source: Vernalpool.org

This acquisition also completes the protection of the vernal pool habitat on the summits of both the Upper and Lower Table Rock in addition to the majority of the remaining habitat on the flanks of the two Rocks. This area is home to both the vernal pool fairy shrimp, which the US Fish and Wildlife Service lists as a threatened species, and the dwarf wooly meadow-foam, a species of concern in the area protected by the project.

Secretary of State Brown is one of three State elected officers who serve on the Oregon State Land Board, along with Governor Kulongoski and Treasurer Westlund.  The State Land Board was established under the Oregon Constitution to manage  lands, which were awarded to States by the U.S. Congress in 1802, and serves as trustee of the Common School Fund.

Oregon’s Constitution, Article VIII, Section 5(2), specifies that the Board

…shall manage lands under its jurisdiction with the object of obtaining the greatest benefit for the people of this state, consistent with the conservation of this resource under sound techniques of land management.

Over the years, many of the original school land sections were sold or traded to private individuals and other agencies. Today, the Board́s land base includes nearly 1.6 million acres of state land and resource assets, including agricultural and range land in eastern Oregon, forest land in western Oregon, numerous small tracts, and the submerged and submersible lands beneath the statés tidally-influenced and navigable waterways. The Board also holds title to mineral rights on all these lands and manages the mineral rights on other state agency lands (about 2 million acres total).

The Board leases state lands and other resources to public and private interests for a variety of business activities. Rangeland is leased to ranchers for grazing, timber is sold, and waterway areas are leased for uses such as sand and gravel removal, houseboat moorages, marinas and log storage.

The funds from these leases and sales go towards funding the Common School fund and are a key source of revenue for Oregon’s schools.

The Oregon Sustainability Board

Published on December 4, 2009 in Secretary Brown and Sustainability Board. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

Source: Bohemian Nights

Here in Oregon we are proud of our State’s reputation for being a leader, in both thought and action, in the green and sustainable business practices arena. As part of The State of Oregon’s commitment to greater sustainability, the Oregon Sustainability Board was created in 2001, charged with:

Employ[ing] the knowledge, expertise and creativity of Oregons citizens, build[ing] upon existing private and public efforts throughout the state to ensure efficient and complementary results, develop[ing] voluntary, incentive-based and performance oriented systems to supplement traditional regulatory approaches, [using] good science to measure resource use, environ-mental health and costs to determine progress in achieving desired outcomes, and establish[ing] clear measurable goals and targets to guide state efforts toward sustainability

Since being appointed in January of 2009, Secretary of State Brown has chaired the Sustainability Board. In addition to facilitating the meetings, she also sets the strategic direction for the Board, including how the Board’s activities and projects can build on the focus.

On November 20th the Sustainability Board met once again to discuss the progress of ongoing projects and to further develop a strategic vision for the future. During this meeting, the Board determined a major focus will be spotlighting how sustainability can heal the urban/rural divide. Over the next biennium, the Board plans to complete new projects and looks forward to a robust and innovative future.

In addition, the Board will continue to champion its role as facilitator of work on sustainability-related issues within state government and in the broader Oregon community. It will continue to serve as the primary bridge for innovation, environmental stewardship and social equity.

We will continue to post Sustainability Board news and information about upcoming projects on this blog, but until then, to learn more about the Sustainability Board and State Government efforts to promote sustainability in the State of Oregon, check out:

http://www.sustainableoregon.net/oregon/

Secretary of State Brown at KOBI in Medford

Published on November 20, 2009 in Secretary Brown. 0 Comments Tags: , .

Yesterday, Secretary of State Brown stopped by the KOBI studios in Medford for an interview. Thanks to KOBI, we are able to stream that interview here on our blog!

Oregon Secretary of State Brown – 20 Push-ups

Published on November 4, 2009 in Audits, Ballot Initiatives, HAVA and Secretary Brown. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

Source: a href=A few years back, when I was still a State Senator, I attended a workshop, which was put on by the Council of State Governments regional arm, CSG-West, an organization I also chaired for a year.

This particular workshop was focused on how legislators can build  credibility –through improved accountability– with their constituents. At the outset of the workshop, the keynote speaker asked who in this room of legislators could do 20 push-ups. Thinking nothing of it and being the eager beaver that I am, I quickly raised my hand as did a few others.

The speaker then spent the next 15 minutes talking about some key functions of building and maintaining accountability with constituents,  delivering on campaign promises and engaging groups back inside the district.

With that lesson delivered, the speaker conducted a little real-world experiment, recalling the claim I and a few others had made regarding these 20 push-ups. She invited me and one other legislator, a gentleman from New Mexico, up to do the 20 push-ups we had promised her we could do. This was a moment of truth.

The good news for Oregon; I did them pretty easily. The bad news for New Mexico; their legislator couldn’t do his.

This drove the message home for me: If you’re going to commit to something during the campaign, you need to make absolutely sure that you can deliver on them once you’ve been elected.

When I was running for this office, I made three major promises to the voters of this state:

  1. That I was going to restore integrity to the initiative process
  2. That I was going to undertake a comprehensive civic engagement program
  3. That I was going to focus our work in the Audits division on performance auditing

When I took office, I remembered that day when I was called up to do 20 push-ups. Taking a high profile position in State government, I knew that I was going to be held to my word on the campaign trail, so I started right in, working on fulfilling those promises.

Continue reading ‘Oregon Secretary of State Brown – 20 Push-ups’