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Friday, January 11, 2008

Election 2008 What Do You Want to Know?

Posted by Amy J. Ruiz on Fri, Jan 11 at 1:01 PM

This Sunday, we’re co-sponsoring two debates with the Bus Project, at the Rebooting Democracy conference. First, we’ll dig into the state Attorney General race. Then we’ll be grilling the four people running for Secretary of State—with State Senator Ben Westlund moderating.

The Bus Project’s Alex Aronson explains:

Of course, since this is the Bus Project, you know that these are not your father’s debates! To keep the candidates on their toes, each candidate is going to get chances to increase their own time, to decrease their opponents’ time, and to “call bull” on their opponents. With the usual question and answer session, a “lightning round” of policy stances, and even a short Oregon-centric quiz, it’s guaranteed to be unpredictable and enlightening.

First, at 11:20 on Sunday, John Kroger and Greg Macpherson will square off for the Attorney General debate, moderated by John Frohnmayer.

Then, at 12:45, the stage will be swamped with one-sixth of the Oregon State Senate: Brad Avakian, Kate Brown, Rick Metsger, and Vicki Walker will debate the finer points of the Secretary of State’s Office while Senator Ben Westlund moderates the discussion.

We’ve got a good start on questions to ask these folks—thanks to readers at BlueOregon.com—but we want to hear what Blogtown readers would like to know. Remember: The Secretary of State oversees things like elections, initiatives, corporations, campaign finance, and the archives (ooo, that’s the best part). Meanwhile, the state attorney general is Oregon’s lawyer, oversees the Oregon Department of Justice, and does things like defend state elections officials against suits brought by anti-gay activists who really, really want to overturn domestic partnerships.

So what would you ask them?

Comments

How 'bout:

Do you believe elections for Secretary of State should continue to be a partisan competition? Please explain.

OR

Do you believe that the state would benefit by requiring future Secretaries of State to be a CPA or CFA as is the case with most elected municipal auditors?

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