Measures 57 & 61 Revisited

Article by David Rogers

Most of you will remember how tricky 2008’s ballot measures were. Kevin Mannix was ready to pass another incredibly destructive mandatory minimum initiative: Measure 61. If Measure 61 passed, it would have driven the largest prison build-up in Oregon’s history by incarcerating thousands of mostly addiction-driven offenders in just the first three years of implementation. Not only was Measure 61 thoughtless public safety policy, it would have destroyed the state budget even if Oregon wasn’t mired in a serious economic recession, which we are now.

Defeating Measure 61 was no small feat; 61 would have taken a wrecking ball to the state’s budget and social safety net.

Although PSJ celebrated the defeat of Measure 61, the victory felt bittersweet. Unfortunately, the path to 61’s downfall was the passage of a compromise: Measure 57.

Measure 57 also tried to pass itself off as a tough on crime measure, although 57 was much less destructive than Mannix’s madness. PSJ was always transparent that we were supporting Measure 57 as the only viable way to defeat Measure 61. We were engaged in several rounds of public opinion polling on the two measures from the fall of 2007 through the fall of 2008. What we learned was that Mannix was effective in peddling the problem of property crime, even though he had no real solutions. In other words, the public was feeling like something should be done to better combat property crime.

In this climate, the polling suggested that Measure 61 would be very difficult to defeat with a straight “No” campaign unless we had several million dollars. It was that research that drove the legislature to give voters a choice. Unfortunately, we still had a lot of work to do because legislators continued to believe they needed to look tough where public safety policy was concerned. In that atmosphere, Measure 57 was created with a mix of good policy and problematic sentencing enhancements.

Measure 57 ended up winning with about 61% of the vote, while Measure 61 received only about 49% support. If Measure 61 had snuck over 50% support, the election results would have likely been tied up in court while Mannix challenged the clause in Measure 57 that created a trumping mechanism – meaning that if both measures gained more than 50% of the vote, the measure with the most votes would go into effect. Despite a close election, Measure 57 prevailed and a majority of Oregon voters said “No” to Mannix’s Measure 61.

Some people believe that because Measure 61 received only about 49% of the vote, it could have been defeated without the difficult compromise of Measure 57. We think the numbers tell a different story. A year’s worth of polling showed that there were tens of thousands of voters who would have supported Measure 61 without an alternative. Because Measure 61 just barely got less than 50% support, we see that as confirmation that Measure 57 was needed to defeat 61.

We had to try to make the best of a difficult situation. Although we acknowledged the bittersweet nature of 57’s victory, we also wanted to gather as much positive momentum as possible from it. To a great extent, we have been successful in framing the success of Measure 57 as useful for our long-term goals. The following was taken from our press release on the election results:

Measure 57’s success is an indication that Oregonians may be concerned about crime, but they want a smarter and different approach than the status quo,” says Rogers. “The public recognizes that a primary focus on prison building and incarceration is costly and ineffective, while investing in treatment and other prevention-focused programs reduces future crime and saves tax dollars in the process.”

Okay, so that was then; this is now. At the time of writing this article, the Oregon legislature is still in session and the budget picture is ugly. The Department of Human Services is about to receive severe cuts; at no other time during the past fifteen years does the cost of prison spending seem more worth examining than now. 

We did what we had to do in 2008 and campaigned for Measure 57, but now we are leading the efforts in convincing the legislature to stop Measure 57. We have been part of building a broad-based coalition that ironically is named the Promise of Measure 57 Coalition. The basic message of the Coalition is that 57 passed because Oregonians want to see a stronger investment in addiction treatment and programs that address the root causes of property crime. With the legislature debating the possibility of making $100 million of cuts to community-based addiction treatment and mental health services, we are saying loudly that those cuts run directly against what Oregonians want – and voted for. We are making the case that good public safety policy would support safe and sensible sentencing reform as a way to generate savings and protect treatment dollars. And yes, delaying the implementation of Measure 57 is one of the options we are highlighting as viable.

One of PSJ’s contributions to the effort has been working with an Oregon-based pollster to demonstrate the public’s support for delaying or modifying Measure 57. As you can see, the results have been positive and the pressure on the legislature is mounting as legislators grapple with Measure 57.

Of course, we can use all the help we can get. We are encouraging registered voters to communicate with their legislators. Let your legislators know that we can’t throw away our public safety dollars, especially in this economic climate. Protecting community-based addiction treatment would be a more cost effective approach to reducing crime than implementing Measure 57. 

David Rogers is Executive Director for Partnership for Safety and Justice

This article originally appeared in the Spring 2009 issue of Justice Matters.